Experimental validation of automatic lightpath establishment integrating OpenDayLight SDN controller and Active Stateful PCE within the ADRENALINE testbed

This work presents and experimentally validates a multilayer Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture based on OpenDaylight (ODL) controller. It integrates: an Active Stateful Path Computation Element (AS-PCE), which dynamically instantiates the provisioning of optical connections within GMPLS-controlled DWDM networks, and OpenFlow-enabled switches to provision Ethernet flows. The motivation behind this network architecture is to provide end-to-end connectivity provisioning in a multilayer transport network. Our implementation includes a new service inside ODL controller which implements the PCEP protocol with the extensions for the AS-PCE to provide the interface between the ODL controller and the AS-PCE. Furthermore, this work confirms the role of the PCE as a functional component in a broader SDN architecture.