Automatically Switched Optical Network (ASON), also known as intelligent optical network. It is through the introduction of routing protocols and signaling mechanisms in synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH), and to promote the integration of optical switching and transport level, to provide users with a wavelength of wholesale bandwidth rental, OVPN, traffic accounting, SLA business services and so on.

ASON first time in an optical network to achieve the optical channel to establish the intelligence, by signaling to reduce the workload of manual configuration, reducing the operator's maintenance costs and difficulty. But also the flexibility to provide different levels of service, differentiated services to meet the need for rapid development. ASON is widely regarded as the next-generation optical networking mainstream.