Agile uLtra Low EnerGy secuRe netwOrks

Project Information

ALLEGRO

Grant agreement ID: 101092766

DOI

10.3030/101092766

EC signature date 1 December 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 28 February 2027

Funded under

• Digital, Industry and Space

Total cost

€ 11 829 201,25

EU contribution

€ 11 829 201,25

Coordinated by

FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG EV
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ALLEGRO (Agile uLtra Low EnerGy secuRe netwOrks)

Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

ALLEGRO targets designing, prototyping, and demonstrating a novel end-to-end (E2E) solution for next-generation optical networks. ALLEGRO integrates packet-optical transport architecture satisfying four key pillars for next-generation telecommunication systems: (i) ultra-high-capacity from access to the core; (ii) considerable reduction of power consumption and cost; (iii) autonomous network control management exploiting artificial intelligence / machine learning (AI/ML) for ultra-high-capacity multi-domain optical systems; and (iv) secured and reliable optical transmission.
Ultra-high-capacity is achieved by deploying coherent transceivers from access to core segments and by prototyping and demonstrating a novel E2E integrated architecture based on multi-band optical transmission and smart transceivers. A holistic and pay-as-you-grow approach is proposed leveraging on innovative switches operating on commercially available bands (C+L+O) and integrating multifibre management. The power consumption and total cost of ownership (TCO) are minimized by considerably simplifying the network architecture thanks to smart coherent transceivers. This leads to a complete redesign of the E2E network architecture with no boundaries between domains and a drastic reduction of electronic intermediate terminations and optical-electric-optical (OEO) conversions also thanks to the introduction of point-to-multipoint (P2MP) transceivers to replace traditional point-to-point (P2P) ones. Autonomous network control management embedded within the cross-domain network architecture must support high-capacity demands resulting in an almost ‘domain-less’ network architecture. It will rely on physical layer abstraction, pervasive telemetry data collection thanks to the wide deployment of coherent pluggables in access/metro, and new impairment modelling to consider fibre transmission effects so far neglected but now essential in the ALLEGRO E2E solution. AI/ML algorithms are the paths to implement this zero-touch networking paradigm and exploit the significant amount of data gathered from physical and virtual elements. AI/ML and big-data availability enable the self-diagnosing, -provisioning and -healing of the network and minimization of its energy consumption.
As security concerns are growing in optical networks, ALLEGRO will moreover develop quantum-based cryptographic methods – together with traditional ones – based on digital replication and digital spectral masks for enabling reliable and secured optical communication systems. In this context a next generation secure data plane will be designed and developed including advanced QKD concepts, such as co-existence between quantum and classical channels in the same fiber, in synergy with Post Quantum Cryptography to provide a complete future proof security solution for the next generation optical networks. Moreover, advanced classical approaches such as Optical Physical Unclonable Functions (O-PUF) will be developed and adopted for authentication of network nodes, QKD terminals and trusted QKD classical repeaters. These solutions will be integrated with the targeted networking implementations to provide a complete low energy consumption, low cost and secure E2E approach.
The ALLEGRO proposal will impact society, showing the evolution towards a world with increased needs of connectivity and higher capacity in support of new services and new traffic patterns.
The consortium includes partners from 10 countries: three telecom operators, five vendors, three SMEs and ten research centres and academia, combining several years of experience and a successful track record in past European projects on related technologies.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

ALLEGRO generated a reference document, addresses technical requirements of next-generation optical networks, definition of use cases and detailed KPIs, an architecture definition and a preliminary demo execution plan. In the context of use cases, a range of general scenarios for next-generation services, along with specific cases to validate various technologies, were defined. KPIs and technical requirements were identified for these scenarios. The general use cases encompass services with significant requirements such as high bandwidth or strict constraints on latency, availability, or reliability. Specific use cases cover 6G Ready Optical Transport, Security Plane, SDN, and Sustainability scenarios. In line with the project objectives, relevant KPIs, use cases, and planned devices, initial hardware and network requirements have been outlined. This includes specifications for transceivers (with SOA amplifier), optical switches, and QKD technologies. Additionally, the document addresses network KPIs, mapping them from the original proposal objectives to network-level implications and open issues. The document also showed the reference topologies that will be used during the project and the methodology that will be used to generate the traffic matrices. Additional synthetic topologies can also be generated to provide additional insights for the techno-economic studies that will be carried out. The proposal incorporates an architecture that outlines both a short/mid-term (evolutionary) and a long-term (disruptive) ALLEGRO architecture. The description covers the data plane, the control plane, and the traversal security plane, presenting the enabling technologies and solutions for each of them. A table has been included to align the network-defined KPIs and objectives with the selected solutions in the proposed architecture. The document also includes an initial plan for the demonstrators, describing their locations and a preliminary list of participating partners.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

ALLEGRO will develop an autonomous and HW sliceable optical network that not only enables secure and energy-efficient services but it also adds new capabilities such as:
i) Ultra-low latency and low-energy switching solutions to support edge computing;
ii) Intensive virtualization and a high degree of softwarization to enable flexible and dynamic HW configuration;
iii) A monitoring, sensing and telemetry plane to alert at both the network infrastructure level (e.g. risk of a fibre cut, signal tapping, HW failure) and the geographical footprint level (e.g. earthquake detection, traffic monitoring);
iv) A convergence between metro and access domain to reduce cost and power consumption, also by removing unneeded elements in the networks, e.g. by employing P2MP pluggables;
v) A data plane for a security perspective based on AI/ML models and protocols for QKD; and
vi) A deterministic time synchronization mechanism layer for ultra-low latency applications implemented by a HW programmable physical layer.