ASON\GMPLS based optical network technology has shown high reliability recently, but the issue of unified control of optical networks has become an urgent necessity to cover problems caused by separate control between different optical network layers
. The attempt to implement GMPLS-based standardized control of Internet Protocol / Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (IP/DWDM) networks has yielded satisfactory results but reflected significant complexity when operating in real time. On the other hand, the OpenFlow control level is offered as a promising solution to be a uniform control level for such networks, but it is not yet effective enough to control optical switch nodes. Therefore, as an intermediate step towards a unified UCP level entirely based on the OpenFlow protocol, the logical thinking for the time being is to introduce an OpenFlow/GMPLS interoperability control level that uses GMPLS to control the optical layer and the dynamic coordination between the IP layer and the optical layers. This research presents a practical application of interoperability solutions (parallel, overlapping, and integrated) for GMPLS and OpenFlow control levels applied to the ASON optical network installed in the southern region of Syria. The results have shown that the integrated solution for uniform control is superior to parallel and overlapping solutions in terms of the overall path provision latency (OPPL), at the expense of the high complexity of the design and processing of the load within the controller.
