IDEALIST control and service management solutions for dynamic and adaptive flexigrid DWDM networks

Wavelength switched optical networks were designed with the premise that all channels in a network have the same spectrum needs, based on the ITU-T DWDM grid. However, the rigid grid-based approach is not adapted to the spectrum requirements of the signals that are best candidates for long-reach transmission and high-speed data rates of 400Gbps and beyond. A disruptive approach is to replace the fixed DWDM grid by a flexible grid, in which the optical spectrum is partitioned into fixed-sized spectrum slices. The required amount of optical bandwidth/spectrum for an elastic optical connection can be dynamically and adaptively allocated by assigning the necessary number of slices of spectrum. The ICT IDEALIST project targets the architectural design, protocol specification, evaluation and standardization of a control plane and a network and service management system, in order to introduce dynamicity, elasticity and adaptation in flexigrid DWDM networks. This paper gives an overview of the objectives, framework, functional requirements and use cases of the elastic control plane and the adaptive network and service management system targeted in the ICT IDEALIST project.