The increasing complexity and stringent demands of modern communications require advanced automation since traditional methods cannot effectively address the dynamic nature of network operations. This demonstration showcases a Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) framework tailored for optical networks. It highlights the deployment and operation of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) models to tackle complex, dynamic challenges in optical networks by presenting practical use cases. Through an experimental setup, it illustrates the end-to-end lifecycle management of DRL agents integrated into an SDN control plane. The demonstration spans data collection, model training, deployment, and continuous monitoring, showcasing the unique benefits and challenges of intelligent optical network operations. The demonstration provides practical insights into deploying intelligent network functions and emphasizes the critical role of MLOps in achieving zero-touch management for future optical infrastructures.

Orchestration of computing and network resources across multiple technology layers is critical for the autonomous roll-out of network services that fulfill the heterogeneous requirements of vertical industries. Therefore, effectively mapping the requirements of verticals into underlying infrastructure management decisions is a challenging issue. In this paper, we evaluate the provisioning of vertical-driven network services, composed of a set of interconnected virtual network functions, on top of a distributed cloud infrastructure interconnected through an Elastic Optical Network (EON). To this end, we propose a solution exploiting the advantages of Deep Reinforcement Learning. This solution relies on two cooperating agents to execute an efficient selection of computing resources in the cloud infrastructure for the placement of virtualized network functions, as well as the routing and spectrum assignment in the EON. The performance of the proposed solution is evaluated in scenarios where arrival and departure of service requests are dynamic. Experimental results show the improved performance of the proposed solution with and without invalid action masking over a heuristic algorithm in terms of service blocking rate.

abstract-An autonomous optical network operates with little or no human involvement and has the capability to configure, oversee, and sustain itself without external intervention. This paper presents the latest advances of autonomous networking (AN) proposed in TM Forum for optical networks. Each step in the procedure for the operator’s daily work is mapped into the AN framework, with detailed features specified in each level. The solution is based on a standard architecture and data models specified in IETF, known as Abstraction and Control of Traffic Engineering Networks (ACTN). Use cases are presented and conducted. This paper presents the result in three typical use cases for optical network management and maintenances: optical service provisioning, healthy assurance, and intelligent alarm processing.

This demonstration will showcase the end-to-end orchestration of virtual network functions in the full-fledged ADRENALINE Testbed Cloud Platform expanding from the edge to the cloud. The Management and Orchestration (MANO) software ETSI OpenSource MANO (OSM) is used to deploy and handle a multi-site network service involving both edge and core Data Centers (DCs). Besides, the inter- and intra-DC connectivity is directly managed by a novel OSM WAN Infrastructure Manager (WIM) connector using the Transport API (TAPI) interface, thus completely abstracting the details of the underlying SDN controllers handling the programmability of the WAN network interconnecting the DCs.

This Special Issue contains a collection of outstanding papers covering several recent advances in optical networks for 5G communications and beyond. Papers are organized into four categories: network resource planning; optical access networks; optical fronthaul solutions; and autonomous and data-driven network management. In this introduction, a brief overview of the field is given, followed by a summary of the seventeen papers of this Special Issue, and a discussion of future directions in the field.

This paper presents the creation of Network Slices, which are composed of Network Services that are either composed of Cloud-native Network Functions or Virtual Network Functions. This is referred to as Hybrid Network Slice. In addition to describing this idea, this paper demonstrates the benefits of Hybrid Network Slices. This idea has been validated in an immersive-media pilot. An Hybrid Network Slice and a classical Network Slice deployments have been compared in order to validate the benefits from the hybrid case.

Current SDN controllers are monolithic applications that are run on dedicated servers and require specific protocols for synchronization among them. These SDN controllers do not provide the required flexibility to scale-out in case of a cloud-scale number of connectivity service requests. In this demonstration, We present the control of transport networks based on ONF Transport API using a cloud-native SDN controller based on micro-services. This demo provides insights on novel software implementations of transport network control technologies, such as container-based control architectures and standard interfaces. The proposed SDN controller components synchronize among them using gRPC protocol and a defined protocol buffer.

Future Internet of Things (IoT) will connect to the Internet billions of heterogeneous smart devices with the capacity of interacting with the environment. Therefore, the proposed solutions from an IoT networking perspective must take into account the scalability of IoT nodes as well as the operational cost of deploying the networking infrastructure. This will generate a huge volume of data, which poses a tremendous challenge both from the transport, and processing of information point of view. Moreover, security issues appear, due to the fact that untrusted IoT devices are interconnected towards the aggregation networks. In this paper, we propose the usage of a Software- Defined Networking (SDN) framework for introducing security in IoT gateways. An experimental validation of the framework is proposed, resulting in the enforcement of network security at the network edge.

This work extends NFV paradigm to transport networks, known as Transport NFV. This paper presents a detailed overview of the SDN/NFV services that are offered on top of the Cloud Computing platform and transport network of the ADRENALINE Testbed. On the one hand, we propose a generic architecture for SDN/NFV services deployed over multi-domain transport networks and distributed data centers. On the other hand, we present two use cases of possible NFV services: a virtual Path Computation Element (vPCE) and the deployment of virtual SDN controllers (vSDN) on top of virtualized transport networks.

A network hypervisor is demonstrated. The Virtual Network Controller dynamically deploys multi-tenant virtual networks on top of multi-technology transport networks. It provides an abstract view of each virtual network and enables its control through an independent SDN controller.

ITU-T Recommendation G.694.1 defines normative DWDM frequency grids, each being a reference set of values that correspond to allowed nominal central frequencies, obtained using a fixed channel spacing (e.g., 12.5 GHz, 25 GHz, 50 GHz or 100 GHz). This rigid, grid-based approach does not seem well adapted for data rates beyond 100 Gb/s, is particularly inefficient when a whole wavelength is assigned to a lower rate optical path, and is not flexible enough for multi-rate systems . Consequently, the next generation of optical networks will require a flexible, highly efficient and adaptive management of the optical spectrum, along with advanced optical modulation schemes that efficiently use allocated spectrum slots, and recent progress on optical network technology justifies research on both new optical transmission systems as well as the applicability of control and management frameworks to such networks. We design and deploy a GMPLS control plane for flexible optical networks with coherent optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (O-OFDM) transmission; we detail its functional architecture, which combines a centralized entity that performs path routing and modulation assignment, with a distributed spectrum allocation. The centralized entity (i.e., a path computation element) uses pre-configured static path characterizations, based on exhaustive OFDM transmission simulations, when performing dynamic path computation in line with GMPLS constrained shortest path mechanisms. The distributed spectrum allocation assigns frequency ranges (slots) to connection requests, by using dynamic signaling procedures and applying slot assignment policies. We summarize the control plane protocol extensions involved in the main functional aspects: routing and topology dissemination, path computation, signaling and resource reservation. We experimentally validate and evaluate the integrated centralized PCE and GMPLS control plane in a control plane testbed, obtaining key performance indicators such as path setup latency and blocking probability for different frequency slot assignment policies.

In this paper we propose a dynamic multi-layer path computation algorithm which favors the re-usage of FA LSPs (Forwarding Adjacency Label Switched Path) and virtual links over a new LSP establishment. To evaluate the algorithm, we explore several approaches for the dynamic configuration of the Virtual Network Topology (VNT) within a multi-layer network (Connection - Oriented Ethernet transport over a Wavelength Switched Optical Network) controlled by a unified GMPLS control plane. Specifically, three VNT approaches are compared: the virtual approach, where some lambda FA LSPs are pre-computed but not established (i.e., virtual TE links), the semi-dynamic approach, where a specific set of lambda FA LSPs is pre-established and advertised as Ethernet TE links (i.e., FA TE links) and the dynamic approach, where there are neither pre-established nor pre-computed lambda FA LSPs.

To achieve cost reductions, simplified operations and flexible scalability in optical transport networks, a challenging approach is to replace the TDM aggregation and transport infrastructure, based on legacy SONET/SDH technology, by a new dynamic network infrastructure that delivers the high-bandwidth transport and deterministic performance of the optical circuit technology (i.e., WSON) along with the efficient aggregation and statistical multiplexing of a packet transport technology (e.g., MPLS-TP) to support IP and Ethernet services. This paper presents the architectural design, implementation and the performance evaluation of the forwarding capabilities of a MPLS-TP/PWE3 node with integrated 10Gbps tunable DWDM transponders to extend the GMPLS-enabled WSON transport network of the ADRENALINE testbed. The node has been implemented using commercial off-the-shelf hardware and open source software. An evaluation of the node is provided by means of analyzing the obtained throughput and CPU usage in two different evaluation scenarios with different traffic grooming strategies.

In Wavelength Switched Optical Networks (WSONs), sharing of protection wavelengths is an attractive strategy to increase survivability against failures. However, to guarantee an acceptable quality of transmission (QoT), both working and protection paths may need to undergo optical-electrical-optical (OEO) regeneration. With this aim, the placement of a limited number of regenerators is a cost-effective solution to guarantee QoT. In this paper, the concept of sharing the protection resources is extended to regenerators. Moreover, shared regenerators can be exploited for ensuring QoT as well as for providing wavelength conversion. The main objective of this paper is the study of different strategies for the selection of regenerators and wavelengths in WSON with a GMPLS-based distributed control plane. Simulation results show a trade-off between the strategies achieving a high wavelength sharing and those achieving a high regenerator sharing.

Sharing of protection resources is a cost-effective solution to guarantee survivability against failures. In wavelength-switched optical networks (WSON), in addition to sharing the wavelengths resources, wavelength converters (WCs) can also be shared by different optical connections, or lightpaths. This paper considers the problem of ensuring 100% survivability against single-link failures in a GMPLS-enabled optical network. RSVP-TE signalling protocol extensions for wavelength sharing under Shared Path Protection have been recently proposed for networks with wavelength continuity constraint. In this work, the performance of the proposed extensions is evaluated in a network with limited wavelength conversion. Furthermore, new extensions are proposed for an efficient WC sharing and their impact on the resource sharing is evaluated by simulations. Results indicate a trade-off between providing high wavelength sharing (i.e., low wavelength overbuild) and good WC sharing.

In this paper we propose novel wavelength assignment algorithms along with the required extensions to the current GMPLS RSVP-TE Label Set to efficiently encompass the Wavelength Continuity Constraint (WCC) and the Backup Sharing in GMPLS-enabled Wavelength-Routed Networks (WRN) with Shared Path Protection (SPP) recovery schemes. The focus of this paper is to experimentally validate in ADRENALINE testbed the proposed signalling-based solution for WCC in SPP recovery when GMPLS OSPF-TE routing protocol disseminates only aggregated link information at bandwidth level based on two approaches: Unreserved Bandwidth (UBw), as proposed in standard GMPLS, and Shamble Bandwidth (SRBw) through an extended GMPLS OSPF-TE protocol proposed by the authors. Experimental performance evaluation shows that without using full routing information (i.e., per-wavelength channel dissemination), the Resource Overbuild can be reduced up to 25% and the Blocking Probability up to 35%. Moreover, in function of the required performance, it is preferable to enhance the signalling with sharing information before adding it into the routing.