The Sixth-Generation (6G) networks are expected to support a multitude of vertical services, each with distinct intent requirements. Managing such diverse demands requires intelligent automation and dynamic resource allocation that aligns service objectives with limited network resources. This paper presents an Intent-Based Network (IBN) optimization framework to automate resource management and resolve conflicting service objectives. The Multi-Objective IBN Slicing (M2O-IBNS) system translates high-level service intents into concrete network configuration targets and jointly maximizes network throughput while minimizing both Energy Consumption (EC) and the costs associated with Slice Creation (SC). It proactively detects and resolves conflicts among slices by dynamically adjusting their Service Level Agreement (SLA) thresholds based on predefined priorities. Our numerical results demonstrate the efficacy of M2O-IBNS by consistently achieving solutions within a tight 1% optimality gap from the theoretical upper bound, and significantly outperforming State-of-the-Art (SoA) approaches by increasing throughput by up to 24.8%. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a critical trade-off: prioritizing the SLA of a single high-priority slice can secure its performance objectives, but at the cost of a significant reduction in overall network performance. For instance, imposing a strict SLA for one slice led to a 65% decrease in the cumulative throughput of all other slices, although it also reduced EC by 30% and SC costs by 77%. These findings demonstrate that our intent-driven optimization provides a powerful mechanism for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to strategically manage network resources, prioritize critical services, and quantitatively balance performance trade-offs across the entire network.

The Sixth-Generation (6G) mobile networks aim to automate network resource allocation and support both new and existing vertical services, each with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) intent requirements. Digital Service Providers (DSPs) must consider specific intent expectations, and targets set by different services, and re-configure and prioritize the most critical intents when resources are insufficient. This paper presents an optimization model for a flexible network paradigm using an Intent-Based Network Slicing (IBNS) framework that can manage the complexity of QoS intents and identify slice intent conflicts through closed-loop evaluation and monitoring. It dynamically adjusts the slice configurations to handle and mitigate detected conflicts by executing the agreed-upon Service Level Agreement (SLA) objectives (%) for higher-priority slices to ensure that critical intents are addressed. According to the results, this approach successfully meets the SLA target we set for slice but it negatively impacts the performance of other slices and degrades their slice capacity.

The advent of Sixth-Generation (6G) mobile networks is expected to facilitate new services, each with diverse Quality of Service (QoS) intent requirements. Digital Service Providers (DSPs) must align with these requirements by prioritizing critical intents and reconfiguring resources when necessary. Network Slicing (NS) and Intent-Based Network (IBN) management have become essential tools for addressing the intent expectations of both current and future 6G services. This paper presents a robust optimization framework aimed at maximizing throughput while minimizing Energy Consumption (EC). The framework creates isolated network slices tailored to specific QoS intents, ensuring compliance with the performance metrics defined in Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Our findings indicate that, while this approach effectively meets SLA targets for specific slices, it conflicts with intent expectation of other slices and can compromise their performance, leading to significant degradation in throughput and EC costs. For instance, enforcing SLA objective for one specific slice means improving slice capacity while it has a huge decrease in the average throughput up to 65% and a decreased EC cost up to 81%.

This paper explores the role of data spaces in enabling secure, interoperable data exchange between Network Digital Twins and SDN Controllers. This approach emphasizes data space connectors for faster, scalable, and flexible integration of multiple components across digital ecosystems to work in unison. The proposed approach is to use a common trusted platform (in this paper, the platform used is TRUE Connector) which is responsible for secure information exchange between components(e.g: SDN Controller, Network Digital Twins, Software applications, etc.) in a digital ecosystem, thus encouraging collaboration between multiple technology vendors to provide more efficient network services and encourage interoperability.

In multi-domain Software Defined Networking (SDN) environments, inter-controller communication is essential for coordinated decision-making and consistent operation across administrative boundaries. These exchanges involve sensitive control-plane data requiring strong guarantees of authenticity and confidentiality. However, traditional cryptographic mechanisms such as RSA and ECC are increasingly vulnerable to quantum attacks, threatening the long-term security of SDN systems. Recent advances in Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) offer promising alternatives, with CRYSTALS-Dilithium and CRYSTALS-Kyber emerging as leading candidates for digital signatures and encryption, respectively. In parallel, permissioned blockchain technologies have gained traction as decentralized, tamper-proof ledgers for enforcing trust in SDN environments. Yet, the integration of PQC and blockchain for secure SDN communication remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, a novel system is proposed that combines PQC and blockchain to enable secure and verifiable communication between SDN controllers. Each controller uses a Dilithium-based signature keypair for authentication and a Kyber-based encryption keypair for confidentiality, with public keys stored on-chain to establish decentralized trust. SDN controller messages are encrypted using Kyber, signed with Dilithium, and recorded on the blockchain in an encrypted format. Key innovations of the design include the execution of Dilithium signature verification directly on-chain through smart contract logic, enabling decentralized and auditable validation, and a blockchain-based mechanism for securely distributing Kyber public keys, eliminating reliance on external key exchange infrastructure. The feasibility and performance of the proposed approach are evaluated, demonstrating its potential for implementation in SDN deployments facing quantum-era threats.

This paper presents a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) focused on intent-based service provisioning and closed-loop automation for collaborative robot (cobot) use case. The PoC demonstrates the integration of two key IBN enablers: the Intent-Based Network Intent Management Entity (IBN-IME) and CL Automation and Coordination, both aligned with 3GPP and ETSI Zero-Touch Service and Network Management (ZSM) standards. These enablers support the seamless interpretation of user intents, service deployment, and migration. The testbed, designed to emulate certain functionalities present in a 6G end-to-end system, highlights the potential for automation in future networks. The work addresses the need for an ecosystem that allows for the interaction of multiple stakeholders in a secure platform. The PoC presented can adapt to increasingly complex use cases, laying the groundwork for future improvements and broader deployments.

This paper presents a comprehensive Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform designed to enhance the deployment and management of all-optical access and transport networks. We demonstrate our platform with a use-case of cloud-based AR/VR gaming service that requires high bandwidth and ultra-low latency, through the slicing of Passive Optical Network (PON) and optical transport network. Building on our previous work that detailed the overall architecture of our solution and the fine-grain Optical Transport Network (fgOTN) technology, this paper introduces the novel aspect of automated PON slicing, achieving a fully end-to-end solution. Leveraging ETSI F5G and ETSI ZSM standards and integrating with ETSI TeraFlowSDN and ETSI Open-Source MANO (OSM) for orchestration and management, our platform offers a seamless and immersive experience for latency-sensitive applications.

A large language model (LLM) chatbot is integrated within TeraFlowSDN for intent manipulation. The resulting chatbot is capable of understanding the context and is able to carry out three actions: create, find, and explain intents using natural language while being flexible regarding the language used.

This paper presents a novel end-to-end quality-on-demand Optical Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform that introduces cutting-edge Fifth Generation Fixed Network Advanced (F5G-A) access and transport network capabilities to enterprises, users, and application developers. We demonstrate this platform through a real cloud-based virtual reality (VR) gaming service use-case. The platform is supported by a number of open-source projects (i.e., ETSI OpenSource MANO, ETSI TeraFlowSDN), and its implementation is standards-based (GSMA Open Gateway, Linux Foundation CAMARA, ETSI ISG ZSM and F5G). The platform’s architecture, and its implementation are discussed. The paper also demonstrates a real end-to-end connectivity service via a F5G-A network slice realized by an end-to-end, Layer 3 VPN (L3VPN) service in order to show and validate the proof-of-concept (PoC).

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.

We experimentally demonstrate a 5G digital fronthaul network that relies on multi-adaptive bandwidth/bitrate variable transceivers (BVTs) and an autonomic software-defined networking (SDN) control system for partially-disaggregated wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)/space division multiplexing (SDM). Transmission of 256-QAM 760.32 MHz orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) radio signal is performed, with a total radio transmission capacity of 5.667 Gb/s. Digitized signal samples are carried as a 22.25 Gb/s digitized radio-over-fiber (DRoF) data stream and transmitted over a WDM/SDM infrastructure including 40-wavelength 100-GHz arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) and 19-core fiber. The autonomic SDN controller deploys a control loop for the multi-adaptive OFDM-based BVTs that monitors the per-subcarrier signal to noise ratio (SNR) and assigns the optimal constellation based on the actual signal degradation. An error vector magnitude (EVM) below the targeted 2.1% is achieved while setting up connections in less than 5 s.

The promise of disparate features envisioned by the 3GPP for 5G, such as offering enhanced Mobile Broadband connectivity while providing massive Machine Type Communications likely with very low data rates and maintaining Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications requirements, create a very challenging environment for protecting the 5G networks themselves and associated assets. To overcome such complexity, future 5G networks must employ a very high degree of network and service management automation, which is a security challenge by itself as well as an opportunity for smarter and more efficient security functions. In this paper, we present the smart, trustworthy and liable 5G security platform being designed and developed in the INSPIRE-5Gplus1 project. This platform takes advantage of new techniques such as Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT), network softwarization and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) for closed-loop and end-to-end security management following a zero-touch model in 5G and Beyond 5G networks. To this end, we specifically elaborate on two key aspects of our platform, namely security management with Security Service Level Agreements (SSLAs) and liability management, in addition to the description of the overall architecture.

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.

Testbeds are controlled experimentation platforms where solutions (software, architectures, etc.) can be developed, deployed and tested in an environment that resembles real utilization conditions. This paper describes a model-driven methodology for automatic testbed reconfiguration which solves the problems of manual interaction and inter-testbed scenario reutilization. It is based in a high-level testbed-independent model of the desired scenario (so it can be applied to any testbed in general) which is particularized to testbed-specific scenario models for automatic deployment and management by model-based tools. The paper also details our practical experiences applying the methodology to two quite different use cases: VNUML-based virtual testbeds and the GMPLS-enabled optical network of ADRENALINE testbed® (each one with its own model-based automatic deployment tools), thus assessing the feasibility and generality of the proposed approach.

This work focuses on the problem of dynamic provisioning of bidirectional connections in all-optical WDM networks. In absence of wavelength converters, each data path forming a bidirectional lightpath needs to use the same wavelength on every link of the entire route (i.e., wavelength continuity constraint). Though existing GMPLS framework faces up the bidirectional lightpath establishment, it fails with high probability under the WCC restriction. Therefore, a distributed and dynamic routing and wavelength assignment (DRWA) algorithm is proposed to perform bidirectional path computation taking into account global wavelength network utilization. By doing so, the algorithm is capable to meet efficiently with the WCC each particular connection request. The performance of the proposed algorithm is experimentally evaluated and compared in the ADRENALINE testbed using a traditional bandwidth-based algorithm as a benchmark. The results are expressed in terms of connection blocking and setup delay for different traffic loads.

Given the abundance and strategic importance of ring fiber-plants in metropolitan area networks, and the accelerating growth of Internet traffic, it is crucial to extend the existing IP-based GMPLS framework to provision dynamic WDM optical rings. Nevertheless the emerging GMPLS-based distributed lightpath establishment schemes for optical networks have been proposed and evaluated in mesh networks, but no one has been optimized for ring-based MAN. The objective of this paper is to propose a GMPLS-based signaling protocol for unidirectional rings which allows to have a global wavelength resource information without any routing protocol when provisioning bidirectional connections. Performance evaluation has been carried in ADRENALINE testbed, composed of Linux routers that emulate a GMPLS-based MAN.

Currently, GMPLS is being developed as a standard in order to introduce intelligence for next-generation ASON (automatically switched optical network) by means of a distributed optical control plane, allowing, among other functionalities, dynamic and real-time provisioning of high-bandwidth optical connections. The provisioning of bidirectional optical connections over unidirectional OADM (optical add drop multiplexer) rings using a distributed GMPLS-based control plane has not yet been considered in the existing literature. We present two enhancements to GMPLS signaling which allow a dynamically bidirectional lightpath setup to be requested over a unidirectional ring. These new distributed signaling schemes introduce a new concept of the label contention problem applied at wavelength sets. The paper presents and compares new strategies of label contention policies for wavelength sets, providing a significant improvement in performance evaluated in the GMPLS control plane of the EMPIRICO project testbed.