IOWN Global Forum System and Technology Outlook Report
Open All-Photonic Network (APN) and Data-Centric Infrastructure (DCI) Work Items
The purpose of this report is to explain IOWN Global Forum’s full-stack engineering approach with a list of work items, which should close the technology gaps between the key requirements of the target use cases* and today‘s technologies.
* The target use cases are shown in the use case interim reports here.
Open All-Photonic Network Functional Architecture
The Open APN defines the architecture of network infrastructure that creates direct optical communication paths among communication endpoints and enables end-to-end communication with deterministic performance.
Data-Centric Infrastructure Functional Architecture
The DCI is designed to enable service providers with the tools needed to build and flexibly place data pipelines, including data processing and storage functions, while dynamically selecting data transfer and network protocols on a pipe-by-pipe basis.
Data Hub Functional Architecture
The architecture of high-speed distributed data management infrastructure that supports APIs that are functionally compatible with those of well-adopted services, such as Apache Kafka/Pulsar, AWS S3 and SQL.
Fiber Sensing for Open APN
The IOWN Global Forum Open APN Fiber Sensing Task Force (OAF) studies the system architectures and the use cases for applying the fiber sensing function to the IOWN Open APN. With the addition of the sensing function, the fiber optic network becomes more intelligent, with better operation efficiency and resiliency. The sensing function also brings new value streams to the network infrastructure.
Technical Outlook for Mobile Networks Using IOWN Technology
Emerging mobile technologies such as massive MIMO, dynamic spectrum sharing and mmWave wide spectrum deliver high data rates to enable video-centric, latency-sensitive applications such as remote surgery, AR/VR and industrial automation. To render these use cases possible, the reference document addresses new requirements and proposes solutions and evolution paths for the transport networks handling capacity, reliability and availability supporting next generation wireless networks utilizing the IOWN technologies.
Reference Implementation Model (RIM) for the Area Management Security Use Case
This document describes an IOWN Global Forum end-to-end system that will meet the requirements of a target use case. The reference design also aims to demonstrate many of the benefits of the IOWN Global Forum architecture and technology over today’s cloud-based implementations.
Data-centric-infrastructure-as-a-service PoC Reference
Data-centric-infrastructure-as-a-service is an open architecture that can provide a generic and heterogeneous computing and communication infrastructure.
RDMA over Open APN PoC Reference
The purpose of the PoC proposed in this document is to confirm and demonstrate that RDMA over Open APN indeed removes the obstacles of long-range communication for IOWN GF use-cases.
Mobile Fronthaul over APN PoC Reference
The intention of this Proof of Concept (PoC) Reference is to provide guidelines for conducting PoCs to demonstrate and illustrate to mobile network operators the benefits and viability of Open APN as a fronthaul solution/service.
PoC Reference: Reference Implementation Model for the Area Management Security Use Case
Based on the Area Management Security (AM-S) RIM document, this PoC Reference provides guidelines for conducting PoCs to validate the IOWN technologies as enablers of low-cost and low-power consumption of AM Security Use Cases.
Fiber Sensing Crosstalk Study for Open APN PoC Reference
As fiber sensing, in particular, distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS), has been proposed to be a new feature for IOWN Global Forum’s Open APN, there are new technical challenges to study and solve. As such, the objective of this PoC Reference is to understand the crosstalk between the fiber sensing signals and the optical communication signals to verify the feasibility of having both signals co-existing on the same optical network, especially over the new Open APN architecture, and to experimentally and quantitatively evaluate the effect of the crosstalk between the fiber sensing signals and the optical communication signals under different conditions.
IOWN Data Hub PoC Reference
The purpose of the IOWN Data Hub (IDH) PoC Reference is to build the foundation for realizing digital experience services by verifying the IDH function architecture, which was designed to meet such severe requirements based on a hierarchically distributed architecture as described in the IDH Functional Architecture document. By quantifying IDH capabilities and identifying areas for improvement, developers will be able to design the foundation for real-time and economically rational digital experience services.
Open APN Architecture PoC Reference
The IOWN Global Forum aims to establish an open architecture for photonic networking so that service providers can integrate photonic network functions into their entire computing and networking infrastructure with more granularity. The open architecture should also enable service providers to build an intelligent operations support system. In this PoC work, we plan to evaluate dynamic (automatic) optical path design methods, as well as its open interfaces, multi-environment support, and automatic provisioning functions.
