Carrier-grade Network Management Extensions to the SDN Framework

The concept of software-defined networking (SDN) recently gained huge momentum in the industry, driven mainly by IT companies interested in datacenter applications. In this paper, however, we consider SDN applied in the carrier domain, which poses additional requirements on the network architecture, including network management functions. We derive concrete requirements for the use-case of a virtualized multi-provider access/aggregation network based on carrier-grade SDN. We then provide initial architectural considerations for integration of network management extensions to the SDN framework as defined by the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). Architectural considerations include definition of the required entities and their interactions. Finally, we apply the proposed architecture on the access/aggregation network use-case, outlining procedures of how the network management extensions can enable network wide and node specific management & configuration.