Optical transport networks are evolving rapidly to support 5G, cloud services, and ever-increasing traffic demands. As these networks grow in size and complexity, traditional manual configuration methods struggle to keep up. Network operators are left managing hundreds of devices using CLI or GUI-based workflows that are slow, error-prone, and difficult to scale.

To address these challenges, NetDevOps – the application of DevOps principles to networking – offers a compelling alternative. By bringing automation, version control, and continuous integration into network operations, NetDevOps enables optical networks to become more agile, reliable and scalable. This work forms part of the SEASON project, a Horizon Europe SNS initiative (G.A. 101096120) supporting research into next-generation optical network automation. As part of SEASON, Adtran contributes to research activities across both the data plane and control plane of advanced optical networks, and the NetDevOps work described here reflects one element of that broader contribution.

Why NetDevOps matters for optical networks

Unlike software systems, optical networks consist of diverse physical devices such as ROADMs, amplifiers and transponders, each with unique configuration requirements. Managing these elements manually often leads to inconsistencies, policy violations and operational overhead.

A NetDevOps approach shifts network management from manual, device-by-device operations to software-driven workflows that deliver:

• Automated and repeatable configuration changes
• Faster service provisioning and updates
• Consistent network state management through version control
• Reduced dependency on human intervention

While DevOps practices are well established in software development, their adoption in optical networks has been limited. Our work focuses on extending NetDevOps concepts into the optical domain in a practical and standards-compliant way.

An automated NetDevOps pipeline delivers faster, safer and more scalable optical operations.

An automated NetDevOps pipeline for optical networks

Our state-of-the-art solution introduces an automated NetDevOps pipeline that manages both device configurations and end-to-end optical services. The pipeline integrates commonly used tools and open standards, including:

• Git for version control and configuration tracking
• Ansible for automated, scalable deployment
• NETCONF and RESTCONF for programmatic device and service configuration
• ONF-TAPI for standardized northbound service interfaces

Each network device maintains its own configuration file in a Git repository, allowing fine-grained, per-device customization while preserving a complete change history. Service provisioning is handled through structured service definitions, enabling automated creation, deletion and modification of optical services.

CI/CD workflow and operational safety

Once changes are committed to the repository, a CI/CD pipeline automatically executes a structured workflow. This includes detecting affected devices, validating connectivity, deploying configurations and provisioning services. Security is addressed through encrypted communication and secure credential handling.

Importantly, the pipeline includes automated rollback, allowing the network to quickly return to a previously stable configuration. This limits the impact of faulty changes and accelerates recovery, even though the root cause still requires further diagnosis.

Practical benefits and applications

This NetDevOps-driven approach is particularly valuable for:

• Large-scale optical networks with frequent configuration changes
• Environments requiring rapid service provisioning and reconfiguration
• Multi-vendor or partially disaggregated optical architectures
• Operational teams aiming to reduce manual effort and errors

By automating routine tasks and enforcing consistent workflows, network operators can focus more on optimization and innovation rather than repetitive configuration work.

Takeaway

Applying NetDevOps principles to optical networks enables a fundamental shift in how these networks are managed. By combining automation, version control and standards-based interfaces, the proposed pipeline delivers a scalable and reliable framework for modern optical network operations.

As optical networks continue to grow in complexity, NetDevOps provides a practical path toward more agile, resilient and efficient network management – bringing software-driven automation to the operational challenges optical networks increasingly face.