This article focuses on architecture and functional requirements for control planes of automatic switched optical networks. Specifically, four different approaches for triggering the setup of optical connections have been reported. Furthermore, the article describes the testbed of the IST Project LION: the testbed, aimed at demonstrating some ASON functionalities, is composed by optical network elements (OADM and OXC provided by Siemens, Tellium, and Telecom Italia Lab) and IP routers (provided by Cisco).