ACTN Transport Multi-Vendor Interoperability Testing

We describe the results of the first multi-vendor interoperability testing following the IETF-defined ACTN framework and YANG model standards for transport SDN. ACTN is a scalable, hierarchical architecture enabling practical multi-domain, multi-layer, and multi-vendor transport network control integration through the use of standard YANG models defining controller northbound interfaces. A large variety of carrier use cases and required control functionality was shown to be enabled strictly through use of these standard models, as implemented independently by two participating vendors and operated in a Tier One carrier lab environment. The demonstrated use cases are discussed in detail, and other use cases, for which ACTN and the IETF YANG models are thought to be well-suited -- notably including IP + Optical control cases -- are discussed.