Blockchain for the digital twin-driven autonomous optical network

Abstract

In recent years, optical networks have become increasingly large-scale and complex, resulting in mounting pressures on operation and maintenance management. The techniques of the artificial intelligence (AI)-driven digital twin (DT) have been applied to optical networks to pave the way for creating the self-optimizing and self-controlling autonomous optical network (AON). However, the AON is confronted with many security and reliability issues: the centralized architecture is prone to data loss during system disconnection and active/standby switchover, and the massive data, DT models, and control instructions in the AON all face the risk of being tampered with, directly affecting the effectiveness of network regulation. In addition, the reliability of complex autonomous processes should be ensured. To address these challenges, in this paper, we applied blockchain to a DT-driven AON with the designed architecture and deployment scheme to realize data loss prevention, anti-tamper storage, secure autonomous operations, access control, and network element controller decisions. A blockchain-based solution was studied by considering the quality of transmission (QoT) estimation and link optimization as examples. Four chaincodes were designed and developed to perform the model storage, service definition, telemetry subscription, data collection, model implementation, and instruction delivery in the AON. Furthermore, the proposed solution was developed and deployed using Hyperledger Fabric. The Hyperledger Caliper was used to test the performance of the proposed blockchain system. The distributed environment is used for performance testing to simulate the real scenario. The test results are analyzed to indicate the future development direction.