Experimental evaluation of control and monitoring protocols for optical SDN networks and equipment [Invited Tutorial]

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of network protocols for control and management of optical networks and optical network equipment as seen in current trends. This paper presents the YANG data modeling language and its associated RESTCONF/NETCONF protocols. Later, it details multiple data models used in optical networks, such as IETF TEAS, ONF Transport API, OpenROADM, and OpenConfig. It also presents multiple protocols for telemetry (i.e., YANG PUSH, gRPC, and gNMI). Later, a zero-touch SDN controller architecture for multiple standard-defining organizations (SDOs) is presented, to support the usage of multiple protocols in a zero-touch optical network. Finally, the presented protocol implementations are experimentally evaluated and compared in terms of latency and overhead. The paper explores the use of these protocols (e.g., in research, demonstrations, and open-source optical networking projects) and provides results and recommendations for their integration in equipment and networks.