SDN-Enabled Sliceable Transceivers in Disaggregated Optical Networks

Abstract

We design and implement programmable (SDN-enabled) sliceable bandwidth/bitrate variable transceivers (S-BVTs) based on multicarrier modulation (MCM) with direct detection (DD), tailored for disaggregated metro networks. A first level of disaggregation is assessed by considering an S-BVT architecture composed of a set of white box bandwidth/bit rate variable transceivers (BVTs) from multiple manufaturers/providers. An OpenConfig vendor-neutral model is adopted for the implementation of the SDN agents that configure the S-BVTs according to the network requirements/targets. Additionally, a fully disaggregated metro network is envisioned by considering a fixed/flexi-grid dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) network with white box ROADM/OXC nodes. The impact of the filter narrowing effect is assessed considering different network node architectures based on either flexible wavelength selective switches (WSSes) or arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs). Thanks to the transceiver inherent modularity, flexibility and bit rate variability, up to 8 network nodes can be traversed ensuring a target capacity of 50 Gb/s per slice at a 4.62 · 10 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3</sup> BER.