The combination of Spatial Division Multiplexing (SDM) with flexi-grid WDM enables optical transceivers to provide super-channels exploiting both spectral and spatial dimensions. In this paper we extend the SDM-WDM transceivers to support sliceability for the first time, and make an effective use of spatial and spectral resources. The proposed architecture provides multiple independent spectral-spatial super-channels (i.e., slices) sharing the same transceiver and exploiting different spectrum/core/ mode resources. The proposed architecture also enables to monitor the BER of the provisioned slices in order to detect any signal quality degradation due to the provisioning of additional slices. On the other hand, there is a general trend towards the disaggregation of the optical networks. In this paper we also propose the first open API based on YANG data model and NETCONF protocol for SDN-enabled sliceable SDM-WDM transceivers. The proposed transceiver is experimentally validated in a joint testbed between CTTC and KDDI research.

Grant numbers : TEC2015-69256-R project. https://doi.org/10.1364/JOCN.11.00A123