China Unicom Builds a SDON Commercial Trial in Sanya

With the development of digital information technology, the M-ICT era has come, which is featured by IoT, anytime and anywhere access, integration of virtuality and reality, ubiquitous services, and universal security. In this era, information creates values.
As the basis of telecommunication network, bearer network is required to adapt to the industry trend, such as IoT, big video, 5G and AR/VR, and act as a basic network that is DC-centered and cloud-oriented. According to its development strategy of "restructuring the next-generation network with SDN/NFV technologies", ZTE has proposed an innovative elastic solution, which integrates cloud and management, with the aim to build an elastic, open and cloud-based network. As an important part of the elastic solution, ZTE's WDM/OTN optical transmission products have been put into SDN/NFV research and practice to build open, elastic, efficient, intelligent and application-oriented optical networks. 
On December 25, 2015, Network Technology Research Institute of China Unicom, in cooperation with Hainan Branch of China Unicom and ZTE, initiated a SDON commercial trial in Sanya, which expedites the practice process of SDON.
Sanya is a well-known topical costal city in China, and it received 14,957,300 visitors in 2015. Massive tourists, who are from different regions, have a huge demand for telecommunication services at different time. To meet burst requirements of visitors in real time, China Unicom deployed ZTE's ZENIC SDON to activate services at optical networks rapidly, provide bandwidths for customers as required, and create low-delay user experience.
In 2015, Network Technology Research Institute of China Unicom formally started the research on the evolution from transmission network to SDN. The evolution enables operators to use open northbound interfaces to flexibly manage networks and services. To push the process forward, China Unicom selected ZTE to deploy SDON in the existing network, upgrade the 100G equipment in the metro network, and run a SDON commercial trial in Sanya. With ZTE's efforts, China Unicom adjusts SDON dedicated line bandwidth dynamically, configures end-to-end service in real time, and achieves network slicing and isolation for virtual tenants. In addition, the open northbound interfaces provide operator-level and user-level application permissions. On the trial site in Sanya, ZTE's 100G OTN equipment in the existing network can be smoothly upgraded to implement intelligent control of SDN, which plays a significant role for deploying SDON.

BoD: Rapid Provisioning of Dedicated Line Services and Efficient Utilization of Network Resource

Bandwidth on demand (BoD) helps China Unicom achieve rapid and convenient provisioning of dedicated line services in a complicated network environment. With BoD, the service type, bandwidth, service time, SLA, service performance and connection route can be configured and adjusted as required.
During Hainan International Tourism Trade Expo 2016, Sanya received a total of 150,000 visitors from all over the world. The explosion of visitors brought huge challenges to VIP customers in terms of network and telecommunications services in many scenarios, such as scenic spots, conference venues and hotels. Therefore, Hainan Branch of China Unicom uses BoD to provide services rapidly and adjust bandwidths according to customer requirement. It also uses BoD to adjust bandwidths periodically according to the usage time of different customers and services, so as to make full use of idle resource and improve bandwidth utilization. 

 
OVPN+: Achieve User Self-Service

Optical virtual private network (OVPN) achieves user self-service by providing virtual subnet control right to the tenants after virtualizing network resources with ZENIC SDON controller. With OVPN, Hainan Branch of China Unicom provides better telecommunication services for dedicated line customers in various industries such as tourism, finance and information in Sanya, and boosts the international tourism island construction in Hainan.
Based on OVPN, ZTE has proposed a distinctive innovation solution "OVPN+", which provides a higher level of security guarantee for customers. Even when the leased network completely fails, "OVPN+" can still ensure normal telecommunication services for dedicated line customers by allocating extra network resource in real time.
In 2016, China Unicom and ZTE started deep research and joint innovation in SDN-based multi-layer synergy, southbound and northbound interfaces of controllers, and application development, to further expand their cooperation and promote the evolution of SDN-based transmission network and even SDN-based bearer network. Adhering to the spirit of "serving with dedication and being committed to our customers", ZTE will continue its SDN/NFV research and practice to help China Unicom create more value, achieve win-win results, and move together towards the M-ICT era.