Why Tellabs Optical LAN is the first best choice for SDN

▪ More flexible, resilient and scalablecompared to traditional LAN architecture

▪ Unified management, streamlined servicedelivery, automated provisioning,troubleshooting and monitoring

▪ Minimizes malicious and negligent humanerrors directly improving LAN operationalefficiency, reliability and security

▪ Simple un-managed ONTs are best suitedfor SDN rather than complex full-functioning traditional switches

▪ Allows graceful migration with G-PON,XGS-PON, (10G) and NG-PON2 (40G)technology choices

▪ Integrates wireless and wired networkmanagement easily through higher levelnetwork management

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Passive Optical LAN offers the best architecture for Software Defined LANs

Today, Tellabs Optical LAN allows network

resources to be defined in software and

dynamically allocated based on real-time

needs – in the future, open-source

standards-based SDN will be supported.

The Federal Government continues to deploy traditional copper-based active Ethernet Local Area Networks (LAN) while evaluating the merits of inserting Software Defined Networking (SDN) functionality inside buildings and across campus. They are doing this under the assumption that SDN fixes traditional LAN operational efficiencies, security and reliability short comings. However, what they don’t know is that by bolting-on SDN as an overlay to a legacy LAN design, they leave the inherent weakness of traditional LAN’s lack of operational efficiencies, security and reliability in-place. Adding additional complexity with SDN can marginally improve LAN operational efficiencies, security and reliability, but by introducing more sophistication, the fixes can negatively contribute to the same attributes they were intended to repair. Furthermore, there are alternative means of addressing the underlying fundament faults relative to traditional LAN operational efficiencies, security reliability that specifically fix root problems.

Unfortunately, this weak traditional LAN architecture and all its inherent LAN root problems is still prevalent within the Federal Government's building and campus networks, and the traditional LAN equipment manufacturers continue to make money selling either rip-and-replace fixes or incremental bolt-on fixes. It is under these conditions that Software Defined Networking (SDN) enters the enterprise LAN fray and promises to once again improve historical short-comings.

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The purpose of this overview is to showcase the merits of Passive Optical LAN, relative to the Federal Government strategic goals of adopting SDN for LAN applications, by discussing:

▪ Traditional Federal Government Network’sLAN Root Problems

▪ Critical Issues of Software Defined Networkingas an Overlay in an Enterprise Network

▪ Best Path Forward with True Enterprise OpticalLAN – Network Agility at its Best!

Traditional Federal Government Network’s LAN Root Problems

We know that today 90% of enterprise local area network (LAN) traffic flows directly to the wide area network [Figure 1]. Why? It does so because of internet, hosted/managed services, cloud, data center, Internet of Things (IoT) and wireless modern traffic patterns. Traditional enterprise LANs were designed to accommodate peer-to-peer local traffic; therefore they had distributed full-functioning intelligence, racks and stacks of switches filling telecommunications closets every 300 feet and were locally managed by the heavy touch of skilled IT pros.

Figure 1: Traditional Federal Government LAN architecture

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Today Tellabs Optical LAN has SDN like functions

▪ Centralizes intelligence and management ofthe LAN architecture and equipment

▪ OLAN ONTs are thin client, no localmanagement, stores no network info nor userinfo, matching SDN “white-box” type device

▪ Simple and automated operations with policy-based templates and profiles that dynamicallycontrol global traffic management parameters

▪ Scalability with LAN agility through softwarebased actions, M2M automation and plug-and-play of sub-tended devices

▪ Security improved with fewer points ofvulnerability (fewer devices and fewer full-functioning port access) and less human touch

▪ Stability with high network availability withfewer moving parts at lower costs

▪ Savings gained with lower operational costsand capital costs

Historically, enterprise LAN architectures were designed to accommodate low bandwidth, non-real time, non-critical services and best effort connectivity. That is not the case anymore, since a modern enterprise network connects real-time voice, video, security, safety and building automation services critical to daily operations. These applications demand strict security and high reliability. To adopt a traditional Federal Government LAN design to modern times meant adding more equipment, cabling, complexity and costs to the LAN. However, the net result was that these incremental fixes ignored the LAN root problems and effectively multiplied points of vulnerability for operational efficiencies, security and reliability. Furthermore, those highly skilled IT pros tasked with managing the LAN, often contributed security and reliability issues whether their actions were malicious or just negligent. Meanwhile, those same IT pros struggled to implement consistent security and reliability policies and procedures which also had a negative impact and dragged down operational efficiencies.

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With access switches stuffed in congested telecommunication rooms spread across buildings and campus, connected to aggregation, distribution and core switches; with the IT pros managing this LAN by running around logging into each switch to manually type commands that handle daily moves-adds-changes-monitoring-troubleshooting - all this can be improved with SDN network optimization. With the onslaught of IoT, and the exponential growth of networked devices expected to hit the enterprise LAN, services agility with machine-to-machine and plug-and-play abilities is a must have. And, with all this network hardware and software spread across a building and campus, open-source standards-based interoperability is welcomed.

So, is it smart to bolt on SDN functionality as an overlay? Let’s look at some of the critical issues:

▪ The underpinning of traditional LAN has 99.9% network up-time, that’s confirmed 8-hours annual downtime

▪ Access, aggregation, distribution and work group switchesare complex full-functioning devices – thus securityweakness

▪ Complex full-functioning switches spread across buildingsand campus network means distributed intelligence andmanagement at every port – requiring local provisioning,trouble shooting and management of complicated higherlevel IP and Layer-3 functions at every port

▪ Sustainability, security, reliability and operational efficienciescan be improved by reducing numbers of switches

▪ Adding SDN protocols to existing full-functioning switchesinserts security, operation and reliability complexities

▪ Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) and UnifiedCapabilities Requirements (UCR) does not cover SDN

Taking those critical issues into consideration, let’s now look at an alternative fiber-based solution for enterprise LAN’s that is not burdened with these existing flaws.

Unfortunately, this weak traditional LAN architecture and all its inherent LAN root problems is still prevalent within the Federal Government's building and campus networks, and the traditional LAN equipment manufacturers continue to make money selling either rip-and-replace fixes or incremental bolt-on fixes. It is under these conditions that Software Defined Networking (SDN) enters the enterprise LAN fray and promises to once again improve historical short-comings.

And what does Software Defined Networking promise for the modern LAN?

▪ Centralized intelligence and management for global policies creating operational efficiencies to aid those overworked IT pros

▪ Centralized intelligence and management helps security and reliability with consistent policies and procedures

▪ Services agility so all those IoT devices and corporate resources can be installed with plug-and-play speed

▪ End-to-end network and traffic optimization for best path, quality of service, bandwidth, routing and reliability

▪ The ability to take advantage of on-demand, scheduled and dynamic LAN traffic flows at optimal times

▪ Open-source and standards-based that promotes vendor neutrality, interoperability and speedy implementation of new applications.

That all sounds good, but none of it addresses the fundamental flaws of the traditional Federal Government networks. Before we discuss a better fiber-based enterprise LAN architecture that today delivers what SDN promises for tomorrow, let’s discuss the issues of deploying SDN as an “overlay” to an existing traditional LAN within Federal Government building and campus networks.

Critical Issues of Software Defined Networking as an Overlay in an Enterprise Network

As you can see in the traditional Federal Government architecture picture [Figure 2], this network is in desperate need of the SDN proposed fixes. Its racks-and-stacks of full-functioning switches can benefit from centralized intelligence and management that will help those overworked IT pros.

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Software Defined Networking Glossary:

Software Defined Network (SDN) = The physical separation of the

network control plane from the forwarding plane, and where a control plane

controls several devices.

Software Defined Local Area Network (Software Defined LAN) = SDN

implemented for enterprise networking within buildings and across a

campus.

Open-source = Third party SDN applications and tool kits that are

developed for vendor neutral utilization.

Standards-based = Industry organizations that implements technical

standards. Broadband Forum (BBF) and Full-Service Access Networks

(FSAN) develop SDN standards for PON.

White-box = Vendor neutral hardware.

Tool-kits = Embedded at the level component level, these tools enable the

implementation of SDN functionality.

Applications = Third party software development for vendor neutral SDN

implementation. For example, third party software development for

virtualized OLTs or virtualized ONTs.

Application and Management Plane = This is where the open-source

applications, management plug-ins, topology views, QoS monitoring and

PM reporting resides.

Control Plane = SDN controller functions. Builds and stores forwarding

decision information relative to available network resources

Data Plane = Sends and receives data. The data plane configuration via

NETCONF and forwarding via OpenFlow.

Network Orchestration = Process of satisfy SDN service demands from

all resources according to an optimization policy across all nodes. It is

centrally located and runs on virtualized server.

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) = Process of abstracting,

partitioning and aggregating underlying resources into virtual resources and

centrally locating and running on virtualized server.

OpenFlow = SDN open-source standards-based protocol that establishes

end to end Layer-2 flows, but does not configure the devices along the

path.

Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) = Is a network device

management protocol. NETCONF provides mechanisms to install,

manipulate, and delete the configuration of network devices.

YANG = Is a data modeling language for the NETCONF device

configuration management protocol.

Virtual Optical Line Terminator Hardware Abstraction (VOLTHA) = An example of open-sourced standards-based virtualized OLT application

AT&T has inspired to control white-box vendor neutral OLT hardware.

Best Path Forward with True Enterprise Optical LAN – Network Agility at its Best!

With modern enterprise LAN traffic flowing directly to the WAN, and with network simplicity, scalability, stability and security of the greatest importance, ideally the best enterprise LAN architecture is a Passive Optical LAN [Figure 2].

Tellabs™ Optical LAN marries the best features of Passive Optical Networking (PON) with advanced Ethernet functionality. It does so within the framework that matches cloud, wireless, hosted/managed services, datacenter and SDN architecture – all of which have the common trait of having centralized intelligence and management. Tellabs™ Panorama PON Manager, unified with the Optical Line Terminal (OLT) positioned in a main data center, provide the one-screen minimal click network orchestration and control across a single domain that can stretch 12 miles with no power, thermal, security nor managed devices – that can serve 7,000 gigabit Ethernet end-points. The view from the Panorama PON Manager sees those 7,000 Ethernet end-points as one big switch – all connected end-points are represented as extended virtual ports of the OLT. Quite frankly, this virtual port extension is intuitively obvious because there is only a “passive” optical network between the OLT and the deep network devices called, Optical Network Terminals (ONT). The ONT is an un-managed and thin client type device. It serves as a simple, highly reliable and low cost optical-to-electrical termination. The ONT has no local user interface and they store no user information nor network information – all that intelligence sits back in the OLT securely located in the main data center.

Figure 2: Passive Optical LAN

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Now here is where things get really get persuasive - not only does Optical LAN support SDN like features today, since it can already define network resource in software and dynamically allocate them based on real-time demands, but it too can provide a path forward in support of open-source and standards-based SDN [Figure 3].

Passive Optical LAN is ideal for SDN implementation for Federal Government LANs because:

▪ Aligns with Federal Government and Department of Defense(DoD) strategic goals

▪ Provides a flexible, resilient and scalable fiber-based modernnetwork architecture

▪ Unified management and streamlined service delivery -automated provisioning, management, and monitoring

▪ Lower malicious and negligent human errors ultimately helpoperational efficiency, reliability and security

▪ Simple un-managed ONTs are better suited for SDN ratherthan complex full-functioning traditional switches

▪ OLAN will allow a mixture of G-PON, XGS-PON, (10G) andNG-PON2 (40G) technology choices simultaneously – andwithout the rip-and-replace of today’s fiber infrastructure

▪ Integrated wireless and wired network management throughNAC, Cisco ISE and ForeScout

▪ PON is already a part of the SDN evolution withNETCONF/YANG and OpenFlow models already underreview by standards bodies FSAN, ITU and BBF. The VirtualOptical Line Terminator Hardware Abstraction (VOLTHA)initiative is driving the SDN application for PON and manymajor players are contributing to this initiative today.

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Passive Optical LAN, or OLAN, is the ideal choice for modern Federal Government networks because:

▪ OLAN design matches modern traffic patterns whileminimizing equipment and optical-to-electricalconversions

▪ Minimized equipment, modules and ports translates tooptimized operational efficiencies, reliability and security

▪ An OLAN enjoys 99.999% network up-time (5 minutesannual downtime) and cost-effective 99.9999% option

▪ OLAN can provide a non-disruptive and cost-effective10G upgrade path with today’s OLT and fiber cabling

▪ The ONTs are un-managed devices that store no usernor network information – thus they are highly secure

▪ OLAN design minimized energy, equipment, cabling,materials and plastics that contribute to green initiatives

▪ PON Manager delivers service agility with globaltemplates/profiles that flow to sub-tended powereddevices

▪ PON Manager global templates/profiles provide serviceautomation by pre-established path, b/w, QoS, securityand powering criteria to connected users and devices –this assures consistent policies and procedures

▪ Fewer personnel needed to install, operate andmaintain OLAN thus strict network access control isachieved

▪ OLAN is covered by Joint Interoperability TestCommand (JITC) and Unified CapabilitiesRequirements (UCR).

Figure 3: SDN + PON with virtualized OLT

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About Tellabs Optical LAN for the Federal Government

Tellabs™ Optical LAN (OLAN) is a simple, scalable, stable and secure fiber-based enterprise network solution. It simplifies the design, build and operations of local area networks that continue to grow more complex. OLAN offers better scalability with greater connectivity density in smaller footprint and a graceful migration for future 10G/40G speeds. With fewer moving parts to break, less human touch and a heritage of carrier-class componentry it delivers superior stability. Most importantly, Tellabs Optical LAN delivers ultimate security in conjunction inherently more secure fiber cabling, centralized management that assures consistent policies and procedures and fewer points of network access vulnerability.

https://www.tellabs.com/optical-lan/government/

Tellabs Optical LAN delivers operational efficiencies, reliability and security - laying the foundation for SDN future

The Federal Government continues to deploy legacy copper-based active Ethernet LANs and investigate the feasibility of adding SDN as an overlay to remedy historic network operational efficiencies, security and reliability deficiencies. However, the premise of inserting the complexity of SDN to traditional LAN architecture full of inherent short-comings is not the best path forward since this fails to remedy underlying fundament faults relative to traditional LAN operational efficiencies, security and reliability. If the root problems stay in-place, it does not make good sense to spend precious budget money on an incremental fix rather than first addressing root problems.

PON is already an integral piece of the SDN evolution with NETCONF, YANG and OpenFlow protocols already under review by industry standards bodies FSAN, ITU and BBF. Furthermore, the Virtual Optical Line Terminator Hardware Abstraction (VOLTHA) initiative is driving the SDN application for PON and has many major players contributing to this initiative today. This includes the fact that AT&T is currently engaged in trials of symmetrical 10G/10G XGS-PON and SDN VOLTHA.

Tellabs Optical LAN always has been, and continues to be, the first best choice in support of the SDN evolution. By investing in Tellabs Optical LAN today, you are gaining the best LAN operational efficiencies, reliability and security; and you are laying the foundation for true software defined LANs in the future.

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