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The DARPA Core Optical Networks (CORONET) program envisions a highly dynamic network environment requiring fast provisioning and restoration for a wide variety of bandwidth-on-demand services in IP-over-optical networks. This paper builds on previously reported work on the development of fast provisioning and restoration protocols to meet CORONET requirements. Two separate CORONET testbed implementations are described: an emulation testbed and a cloud application testbed. The emulation testbed is a software implementation of a 100-node, global scale control plane network designed to investigate and validate the performance of CORONET provisioning and restoration protocols for the transport layer. The cloud application testbed is implemented on a four-node network in AT&T's Software Defined Network (SDN) Wide Area Network (SWAN) testbed and is designed to show the utility of CORONET fast provisioning for cloud computing applications. In particular, we demonstrate dynamic provisioning of inter-datacenter capacity for virtual machine load balancing under the control of an SDN orchestrator. "Lessons learned" and further challenges are summarized.

We describe bandwidth-on-demand in an evolved multilayer, software-defined networking (SDN) based cloud services model. We present motivation for using a multilayer architecture for the wide-area network (WAN). Our laboratory testbed is described, and both the hardware and management architecture are presented. We also show an initial proof-of-concept demonstration of this capability.

Feature Issue on ConvergenceWe provide a comprehensive description of the Packet-Aware Transport Network (PATN) architecture first introduced in [IEEE Commun. Mag. (3) 120 (2004)]. The PATN architecture provides a more efficient transport of data services such as Ethernet and IP than traditional time-division multiplexing- (TDM) centric access network architectures. The PATN architecture builds upon several emerging technologies and improvements in silicon processing to seamlessly converge multiple network functions onto a single platform, optimize network utilization, and reduce operating costs. The PATN architecture is also designed to support all existing TDM voice, private line, and data services. To validate this architecture we implemented a comprehensive test bed that provides a microcosm of local, metro, and long-distance transport networks. We describe this evaluation methodology and present experimental results of key aspects of the PATN.