Patent attributes
Systems and methods for coordinating an optical layer and a packet layer in a network, include a Software Defined Networking (SDN) Internet Protocol (IP) application configured to implement a closed loop for analytics, recommendations, provisioning, and monitoring, of a plurality of routers in the packet layer; and a variable capacity application configured to determine optical path viability, compute excess optical margin, and recommend and cause capacity upgrades and downgrades, by communicating with a plurality of network elements in the optical layer, wherein the SDN IP application and the variable capacity application coordinate activity therebetween based on conditions in the network. The activity is coordinated based on underlying capacity changes in the optical layer and workload changes in the packet layer.