Software defined networking for optical networks

Optical networks are evolving with the emerging advanced technologies. Their sizes and functionalities too grow with every passing year. All these complexities cannot be handled through the traditional framework for network control and management. Software defined networking (SDN) has been proposed for the control and management of networks. SDN provides several advantages for the control, operation and management of large networks. It provides flexibility and agility at every level of the network. In this paper, we present the utilities of SDN for optical networks. We also discuss the issues related to the implementation and benefits of SDN in optical networks.