Fully disaggregated device deployments in optical networks propose to drive down network upgrade costs. These devices are managed by open-source control plane solutions for multi-vendor interoperability, which need to be tested in a simulation environment. We demonstrate a cloud-based solution which deploys 69 OpenROADM-based containerized optical networking elements, thereby simulating a nation-wide fully disaggregated optical transport network. Further, the planning, orchestration, and restoration of optical services can be decoupled from the simulated network, by using Transport Layer Security (TLS) enabled North-Bound REST APIs exposed by OpenDayLight TransportPCE, which is an open-source optical domain controller.

We assess the performance of two distinct functional splits based on latency/latency variation and mapping efficiency, both individually and in unison. By considering hardware-offloading possibilities for a low-layer split (especially a pre-resource mapper split) using an option-6 software-based local thermal equilibrium split as an example, we show how data rate, Ethernet frame size and, in general, traffic generation characteristics will be very important aspects in the design of the future Ethernet mapping function. Then, an integrated Ethernet fronthaul with legacy and new/evolved split functionality operating at 100 Gb/s link rate is presented with the state-of-the art sub-100-ns latency variation for a timing-protocol flow. This is achieved through the application of a gap-filling aggregator, used for the first time in such a mobile fronthaul application.