Infinera : Is Your Optical Network Ready for Open and Disaggregated?

Infinera recentlycollaboratedwith Sterling Perrin,Principal Analyst - Optical Networking & Transport atHeavy Reading;the Telecom Infra Project (TIP);and two other vendors to support the development and execution of a joint primary research project in open and disaggregated packet and optical networks. While we collaborated on the development of the survey questions, Heavy Reading independently executed the research and synthesized the results. On January 26, 2021 we joined Sterling, Telefónica,MTNGroup(South Africa), and othersfor a 90-minute webinar, 'The Outlook for Open and Disaggregated Packet and Optical Networks,' to discuss the topic and some of the research findings. If you missed the webinar, you can watch the replay here.

The final research report is now availableand provides some very interesting reading. While I encourage you to read the report, if you are short on time or have ashort attention span like me, below are my top findings - particularly in the open optical networkingarea.

Unlock the Network, Go Faster

Understanding service provider motivations is really a way of stepping into the customer's shoes and walking with them on their journey. Given the lack of travel and dinner conversations for the past 12 months due to the pandemic,I am always looking for ways to gain additionalinsights into service provider perceptions and experiences. In the case of open optical networking, service providers want more vendor choice, lower costs,and fasteroptical engineinnovation cycles. I have heard similar comments anecdotally from service providers, but Sterling's research further confirms thatthese are the top three service provider motivationsfor open optical networking.

Figure 1: Benefits of multi-vendor open optical networking

Stop Holding Me Back!

So,if service providers are motivated, what isholding them back? The top barrier to open optical networking adoption is the operational complexity of dealing with multiple vendors. Right behind it is lack of standards andimmaturity of the standards that do exist. These results are key reasons why you see so much industry effort going into standardizingdata models, protocols,and application programming interfaces (APIs). Participation in organizations like OpenConfig, Open ROADM, and TIP is becoming increasingly common as a placefor vendorsand service providers to debate approaches and collaborateto overcome thesechallenges.

Figure 2: Barriers to multi-vendor open optical networking

More Software Automation Please

Anothercapability that may be holding service providers back is underinvestment insoftware automation and SDN controller deployments. In fact, SDN control and management was the fourth most cited barrier in Figure #2, but there is a significant difference if you break this down regionally. As reflected in Figure 3, fully 78% of North American respondentsindicate that they willhave SDN controllers deployed across their IP/Ethernet and optical networksby the end of 2021. However, looking outside of North America, only 44% of respondents will have deployed SDN controllersin the same timeframe. In fact, the peak deployment year is not 2021 but looks like 2022 for non-North Americannetworks - which translates into additional risk in terms of meeting this deployment timeline.

Figure 3: SDN controller deployment by NA and non-NA region

Rubber Meet the Road

So, where does the rubber meet the road as it relates toservice providerintentions to deploy open optical networks? It turns out that there is a vast difference between North Americanand non-North American attitudes. North American service providers are embracingopen optical networking at a significantly higher rate than their non-North American counterparts. At the end of 2021,the majority (54% from the report) of North American respondents anticipated deploying multi-vendor open optical networks,while only 30% of their non-North American counterparts agreed. This difference in attitudes continues throughout the scope of the research,with 78% of North Americanrespondentsanticipating deploying open optical solutions by the end of2022,while less than half of non-North American respondents anticipated such deployments. While additional study is required, itis quite possible that insufficient SDN controller and software automation investments are having an outsizedinfluence on non-North American attitudes about deploying open optical networking. Initiatives such asTIP-MUST (Mandatory Use Case Requirements for SDN for Transport), a sub-group recently created by leading operators in the Open Optical & Packet Transport (OOPT)group within the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), which aims to accelerate the adoption of transport SDNsolutions, may help unblock therequired automation investments. Without such network evolution, service providerswill fail to get beyond the #1 perceived barrier to deployment - which is operational complexity.

Figure 4: Deployment timeline for open optical networking

By not getting to anopen optical architecture, theseservice providers will not benefit fromreduced vendor lock-in, faster innovation cycles andmore choice. In short, they will either delay or miss the chance to insert next-generation optical engines into their networks. By not taking advantage of this opportunity, they will miss out on key benefits like improvedtransmission performance and enhanced network economicswith each successive cycle.The result will bereduced networking competitiveness.

If you would like to discussopen optical networking or other networking topics, please reach out to me at [e-mail]. I am happy to connect and discuss.

Stay safe everyone.