Plugtest event focused on SDN for mmWave transmission
ETSI recently held its first testing event focused on software-defined networking for millimeter wave transport, and the participating vendors were able to achieve 100% interoperability, according to the standards body — and it was completed in half the expected time.
ETSI said that the aim of the event was to test SDN offerings for microwave and millimeter wave transport applications and to demonstrate interoperability of a standard Northbound Interface of the SDN domain controllers, both at each company’s level and when they were all connected. ETSI noted that this was the first time that a test event “concentrated on the advantages of using a standard Northbound Interface (NBI) based on the IETF Restconf protocol and extensive YANG Data Models library, including both general network and service level models, and the recent Microwave Topology Model.” That NBI, the organization said, allows to rapid achievement of “complete interoperability, without need of extensive and extremely resource-intensive prior interoperability testing among any combination of Domain Controller implementations.
“This allows not only orders of magnitude cost savings, but also ensures extreme ease and speed of development and convergence,” ETSI said, adding that for this plugtest, “the actual time required to complete all the testing took less than half the time that was expected, based on other experiences.”
The test architecture design used an API testing and development environment, ETSI said, which it called a “key aspect” that allowed the identification of issues in standard interpretation or implementation “down to the finest detail.” ETSI’s Forge platform was also used to develop and debug the test programs ahead of the live event and contributed to the plugtest achieving 100% interoperability rapidly.
Four global operators observed the testing, and the participants included seven manufacturers that represent 90% of the global market, ETSI said.
