FREMONT, Calif. -- The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) have joined forces to tackle Transport Software Defined Networking (Transport SDN). The two groups are collaborating throughout 2014 on a global Transport SDN demonstration in several carrier-hosted labs.

“We expect SDN, in tandem with Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), to shape the future of telecommunications networks,” said Vishnu Shukla, of Verizon and OIF president. “It is exciting to have these two prominent groups combining resources, innovative thinking and industry support to put together a very relevant and important demo.”

The testing, which will begin in late August in a number of global carrier labs, will leverage the OIF ‘s carrier representation, knowledge of transport networks, and worldwide interoperability testing experience for optical equipment, with ONF’s leadership role for the OpenFlow™ protocol and SDN architecture. OpenFlow extensions for optical transport developed in the ONF Optical Transport Working Group will be prototyped in the demo.

“We are pleased to join forces with the OIF, who have been contributing to our efforts to extend OpenFlow to support optical transport networks,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. “The OIF/ONF Transport SDN demonstration will showcase how transport networks will benefit from SDN and NFV.”

The two groups seek to make the network more programmable to enable a new era of dynamic services. One such application is bandwidth-on-demand services that effectively address inter-enterprise bandwidth peaks such as data transfer between data centers, while optimizing precious network resources. Additional goals are to increase network efficiency and agility, decrease OpEx, maximize revenue generation, and improve ROI.

Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF)

Open Networking Foundation