Role of a Measurement Plane to Monitor and Manage QOS in Optical Access Networks

In this work, we propose a measurement plane for Software Defined Networking (SDN) architectures for monitoring the network performance and supporting the orchestrator in managing the optical link resources. Concerning the measurement plane, we consider two models that we adopted in other contests: Misurainternet and mPlane. However, due to better scalability, the tests reported in this paper refer to mPlane that has been used in a SDN environment based on Fiber to the X (FTTX) accesses, with procedures of the central unit (orchestrator) that automatically manages GbE links in a regional network. The choices of the orchestrator are based on information received by a reasoner that analyzes the network performance elaborating data detected by active and passive probes. The mPlane-SDN architecture is tested in field measurements concerning FTTX accesses and in Lab to verify the resource allocations in case of traffic congestion. Furthermore, we also show the potentiality of our architecture to evolve toward a distributed controller approach with important advantages for telecom operator strategies.