AT&T and Colt Technology Services announced successful trial of a standard application programming interface (API) infrastructure for software-defined networking (SDN). The test setup lets SDN architectures from different network service providers interoperate with each other.
The API trial integrates AT&T’s and Colt’s on-demand network capabilities. During the trial between the two networks in the U.S. and Europe, AT&T successfully provisioned network services between the east coast of the U.S. and various locations in Europe. This allowed SDN-to-SDN control using a programmatic API-to-API interface between the separate SDN architectures, proving that SDN-managed services can be set up and run across multiple networks in just minutes.
The proof of concept reveals that users could reserve ports, order a point-to-point Ethernet service, flex the bandwidth up and down and turn down the service in near-real time.
They also plan to share the network-to-network interface and open API code with standards bodies and industry forums.
The companies expect that these capabilities will drive further industry collaboration and standardization.
Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president, Offer Management and Service Integration, AT&T Business Solutions
Our work at AT&T Labs and AT&T Foundry, and our collaboration with Colt will help enable customers to have more cost-efficient, flexible and adaptable networks.
Rajiv Datta, chief technology officer, Colt
This proof of concept is a key building block giving enterprises the power to provision scalable, flexible network services on-demand. The API in our trial makes managing integrated SDNs accessible, agile, flexible, and easy to adopt. As use cases and APIs continue to evolve, we’ll be able to add attributes, services and enhancements that will drive further innovation.
