proNX Optical Director Overview

The proNX Optical Director is a software controller and management system for open optical line systems (OLS), initially providing support for TCX1000 Series devices.

The proNX Optical Director provides the following functionality:

• Dynamic real-time control of optical links in OLS networks. This includes automatic span loss management, automatic nodal loss management, and automatic channel power control.

  In traditional optical networks, this control function resides on the ROADMs themselves where the ROADMs exchange proprietary control messages with each other on an optical supervisory channel (OSC). This makes interworking across vendor equipment difficult and often leads to the deployment of single-sourced networks. Moving this function to a centralized software controller makes heterogeneous networks with equipment from multiple vendors possible.

• Network management of OLS networks including network topology, network visualization, and network monitoring and troubleshooting.

  The proNX Optical Director displays the topology of the network and provides various visual indicators so that you can see the health of the network at a glance and deal with problem areas in a proactive manner.

• Device management of OLS elements including device configuration, device visualization, and device monitoring and troubleshooting.

  The proNX Optical Director discovers OLS elements and reads and displays their configuration. You can change the configuration, view the equipment inventory, pull up a visual representation of the device, or view performance monitoring counters and alarm details.

  Note TCX Series devices do not support a built-in user interface such as a command line interface. You must use the proNX Optical Director to manage TCX Series devices.

• Service management of optical services across an OLS network including service provisioning, service activation, and service monitoring and troubleshooting.

  The proNX Optical Director supports A-to-Z provisioning and activation of optical services. You select the two service endpoints and the proNX Optical Director provides you a list of paths that you can choose for that service. When you activate the service, the proNX Optical Director automatically configures the service across all the devices in the path.

• Endpoint management of supported transceivers on Juniper Networks equipment.

  The OLS network provides optical service connectivity between endpoint transponders (typically). These transponders can be standalone or integrated within routers and switches. Although these endpoints are not technically part of the OLS network, you can use the proNX Optical Director to configure these endpoints on Juniper Networks equipment that supports coherent DWDM interfaces.

• Support for IPv4 and IPv6 networks. The proNX Optical Director can control and manage IPv4 and IPv6 devices.

• Northbound RESTCONF interface for connecting to higher level management systems. See Northbound Interface.

• Web-based user interface. You can access the proNX Optical Director user interface from supported web browsers.

Figure 1 shows a high level view of a typical deployment where the proNX Optical Director cluster controls and manages a TCX1000 Series optical transport network.

The proNX Optical Director runs on a cluster of three Linux servers. Within the cluster, one server acts as the master node. The master node is a regular node that is additionally responsible for orchestration and scheduling functions.

The proNX Optical Director connects to managed devices over a management network. Users connect to the proNX Optical Director using supported web browsers on their own computers.

Figure 1: Typical proNX Optical Director Deployment

Having network-wide visibility allows the proNX Optical Director to use advanced control algorithms that optimize optical transmission not only on a link but along the whole optical service path. The TCX1000 Series devices constantly send streams of real-time optical link measurements to the proNX Optical Director, which then uses the data to build an always current view of the optical links in the network. This allows the proNX Optical Director to make real-time control decisions on all aspects of optical link management, including the following:

• channel power control and equalization

• span loss compensation

• gain ripple and tilt compensation

• graceful ramp up and ramp down of channel powers as optical services (wavelengths) are added and removed

These control decisions are translated into commands that are communicated to the managed devices for execution. This ongoing control loop allows the proNX Optical Director to deliver optimal optical transmission performance for the managed devices by dynamically and automatically controlling all aspects of optical link output.