and movies from Netflix, Amazon, and their competitors, and from applications such as online gaming. The newer, more efficient Gigabit Ethernet is able to carry many times more bits per second than SONET and MPLS. Gigabit Ethernet is available at data rates of 10, 40, 100, and 400 bits per second. While the amount of traffic generated using Gigabit Ethernet is increasing rapidly, there is still traffic in the SONET and MPLS www.TechnicalPDF.com format. However, the amount of traffic generated in particular by SONET gear is decreasing rapidly. At some point OTN use will not be needed as SONET and MPLS traffic drastically decreases. Optical Transport Networks and SDN and NFV Software Defined Networks and Network Function Virtualization traffic are carried over fiber equipped with OTN functionality. SDN and NFV are higher-layer protocols than OTN. SDN's control plane prioritizes and specifies routes on which traffic is to be carried. NFV, as stated above, virtualizes network hardware. SDN and NFV are functionally different than OTN, which manages how traffic is "packaged" or "wrapped" and carried on optical fiber. Examples of control plane technology functions are available above in the section on SDN. Mesh Configuration Backups Mesh backup technology is enabled by signals generated from Control Plane Technology equipment such as is in WA SDNs. The service utilizes a logical rather than a physical design. The physical topology is not designed as an actual mesh, wherein each point on a network is connected to every other node. Rather, as demonstrated in Figure 4-6 above, traffic is backed up in a logical manner with more than one choice of alternate routes. In this way, each carrier and each route do not require duplicated fiber, multiplexing gear, and transmission equipment. Vendor A Vendor B ATT OSS vendor proprietary software (EMS and planning tool www.TechnicalPDF.com Provisioning,Routing Restoration,Network topology/State, Monitoring,Alarms, City A City B Need for apen, standardized interfaces and much ess propr