Blockchain-Anchored Disaggregated Optical Networks

Optical network disaggregation is attracting significant consensus to avoid vendor lock-in solutions. However, the presence of network controllers, nodes, and hardware/software components potentially provided by different entities and manufacturers may lead to remarkable responsibility issues in case of service level degradation. We propose the use of the blockchain technology to provide reliable and trusted accountability of events and interactions among disaggregated network elements. Three levels of interactions are specifically considered: i) among SDN controllers, ii) between each SDN controller and the underlying network nodes, and iii) within disaggregated network nodes. The proposed solutions have been implemented and experimentally validated in a disaggregated network testbed. Results show the effectiveness of the method even in case of controversial service level degradation upon failure events. Results also show good scalability performance to retrieve/add/validate blocks recorded in the blockchain even in case of large optical network scenarios.