Alibaba Cloud's Paper on Open and Disaggregated Optical Transport Networks Recognized as Spotlight on Optics

On June 1, 2020, Alibaba Cloud's invited paper "Open and disaggregated optical transport networks for data center interconnects" was selected as a "Spotlight on Optics" paper in the OSA/IEEE Journal of Optical Communications & Networking, marking international recognition of its work on open DCI optical transport.

While many information‑networking fields have embraced open source, optical networks have remained closed; Alibaba Cloud began researching open optical networks in 2016 and achieved large‑scale deployment in metro data‑center interconnects by 2018, overcoming technical immaturity and a lack of precedents.

The paper shares the team's experience, explaining why the OpenConfig data model and a modular approach were chosen, outlining the model's shortcomings, internal efforts to extend it, and a detailed YANG model for a reconfigurable optical add‑drop multiplexer (ROADM) that includes wavelength‑selective switches, network state, benefits of open DCI, and future directions.

In recent years, Alibaba Cloud’s optical network research has produced multiple papers at top international conferences and journals, and the team plans to continue delivering dual‑track engineering and academic projects that contribute mature innovative technologies to the industry.