Software Defined Networking for next generation converged metro-access networks

While the concept of Software Defined Networking (SDN) has seen a rapid deployment within the data centre community, its adoption in telecommunications network has progressed slowly, although the concept has been swiftly adopted by all major telecoms vendors. This paper presents a control plane architecture for SDN-driven converged Metro-Access networks, developed through the DISCUS European FP7 project. The SDN-based controller architecture was developed in a testbed implementation targeting two main scenarios: fast feeder fibre protection over dual-homed Passive Optical Networks (PONs) and dynamic service provisioning over a multi-wavelength PON. Implementation details and results of the experiment carried out over the second scenario are reported in the paper, showing the potential of SDN in providing assured on-demand services to end-users.