Zero touch provisioning compliant with authentications of IEEE PON packages A and B for SDN-enabled broadband access

Passive optical networks (PONs) are widely deployed worldwide as access networks, and various standards have been created to serve the demands of different markets. In recent years, software-defined-network-enabled broadband access (SEBA) has been studied for the realization of flexible and cost-effective PONs, while the zero touch provisioning (ZTP) function of optical line terminals (OLTs) and optical network units (ONUs) is being studied for automatic management. However, although ZTP for ITU-T standards has already been implemented, ZTP for IEEE standards has not been achieved, since the workflow is significantly different for each access standard due to differences in the authentication method. The subdivided package specifications and medium access control (MAC) dress authentication are barriers that hinder achieving ZTP for the IEEE standards. This paper proposes a workflow driver based on a model that implements authentication compliant with IEEE PON packages A and B according to events produced by SEBA components and specification information obtained from OLT profiles. The feature of our proposal is to fabricate an IEEE-compliant driver package that automatically switches the authentication method by acquiring the technology profile of the orchestrator, and as soon as IEEE802.1X authentication or MAC address authentication is completed, the subscriber setting is registered to the SDN controller in order to enable data plane service. We demonstrate the proposed workflow driver on a system consisting of SEBA-focused commercially available OLT/ONU hardware and open source software. The results show that the orchestrator can automatically provision ONUs and that managing various access devices on a common access platform is feasible.