Sedona Systems upgrades NetFusion for IP/optical layer convergence, discovery

Sedona Systems has upgraded its NetFusion IP/optical layer convergence and discovery platform with network analytics and reporting capabilities. The company says that Tier 1 service providers have deployed the NetFusion platform to identify congestion points, failure risks, and sub-optimal paths across their IP/optical networks.

The company originally developed NetFusion as an IP/optical layer convergence platform within the context of software-defined networking (SDN). However, as operators slowly move down the path toward bringing their networks under SDN control, they've discovered that NetFusion can be a useful tool to provide multi-domain, multilayer visibility to improve service optimization and network performance, according to Daniel Tardent, who recently joined the company from optical switch vendor CALIENT Technologies as vice president of marketing.

The NetFusion software platform communicates with network equipment and controllers from all major vendors to automatically discover multivendor network topologies, traffic, and services for at both the optical and IP/MPLS layers. It also tracks cross-layer connections. Use of NetFusion can support reliable inventory assurance, improved resiliency, accelerated provisioning, and more efficient maintenance and repairs, Sedona Systems asserts.

Sedona says it has demonstrated use of the product in such network automation applications as multilayer restoration, optimization, and bandwidth on demand. The NetFusion also served as a master controller in the OIF's recent SDN Transport API Interoperability demonstration, where it orchestrated services across multiple optical domains (see "OIF details release plans for SDN Transport API demo results").

Tardent said at OFC 2017 last week in Los Angeles that the company believes NetFusion's current use as a network visibility tool is a step towards a greater role in full carrier SDN ecosystems. Here, Netfusion would operate at the network controller level, where it would sit above domain and layer controllers and deliver abstractions of these domains and layers to service-level SDN systems. He added that the company hopes to be able to release the names of at least some of its current Tier 1 customers soon. Tardent cited a deployment in which NetFusion is active in a core network application involving thousands of network elements as an example of the platform's scale.

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