Tag Archives: Broadband

Ciena’s role in recent 400G industry-first milestones
Are you confused about the recent 400G milestones announced and how this is different than what has been discussed for a few years?
By Helen Xenos – In recent weeks, we have seen two 400G announcements come out, the first from AT&T followed by a second from Internet2, each speaking of achieving new milestones in the industry. To the casual observer, it may not be clear what is new about these announcements. Haven’t we been talking about 400G deployments for several years now? Well, yes and no.  To understand the importance of these announcements, you need to take a closer look. With Ciena innovations playing a key role in both cases, here are some insights.

The first point to understand is that in networking, 400G can mean different things. 400G is a term loosely used to describe a communications link that can carry 400 billion bits per second, or 400 Gigabits per second (400Gb/s). There are two types of 400G connections:

1) 400G wavelength: here, 400Gb/s are carried over a single carrier in a fiber optic cable that can transport a mix of different client traffic rates (ex. 10GbE, 100GbE or 400GbE) across long distances over an optical infrastructure. A coherent optical transponder is used to aggregate client traffic and transport them over a single 400G wavelength.

Apart from Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai, coherent optical solutions capable of 400G speeds are relatively new. WaveLogic Ai is the exception, with commercial, volume shipments beginning in the fall of 2017, and the foundation for the majority of 400G deployments in the industry to date.

The key value of WaveLogic Ai is that users can double traffic carrying capacity per wavelength versus 100G/200G solutions and reduce footprint, energy consumption and cost per bit. Network providers can select capacity rates from 100G to 400G and transport traffic at 400Gb/s for 300km distances, 200Gb/s for 3000km distances and 100G for ultra-long-haul links. more>

Related>

• Because you asked. Adaptive IP., Scott McFeely
• Uncovering the path to 5G connectivity, Dave Parsons
• Uncovering the path to 5G connectivity: part 2, Dave Parsons

Because you asked. Adaptive IP.
In light of the digital disruption being driven by 5G, IoT, AI, and edge cloud, many of our customers have asked us to help them reimagine their IP networks in a way that allows them to scale in a simpler and more cost-effective way. We listened and answered their call with Ciena’s Adaptive IPTM.
By Scott McFeely – IP, or more formally referred to as Internet Protocol, is the common language that enables billions of interconnected humans and machines to “talk” to each other on a daily basis for business and consumer applications and use cases. IP is the “language” and foundation of the largest human construction project ever created – the internet – and it works because it’s based on open industry standards.

The internet has evolved over time and will continue to do so well into the future, as more humans and machines come online with new and evolving applications and use cases, such as 5G, Fiber Deep’s Converged Interconnect Network (CIN) architecture, and IP Business Services. This means that the way IP networks are designed, deployed, and managed also needs to evolve to maintain pace.

Over the decades since its introduction in the 1970s, by the legendary Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, IP has continually evolved to maintain pace with ever-changing application and end-user demands. This evolution has also led to new RFCs and protocols being standardized, adopted, and deployed within routers (at last count there were over 8,000 RFCs and protocols). It has more importantly led to many of these protocols associated with IP no longer being required, updated, or maintained. This is analogous to human languages where words, phrases, and even whole languages, such as Latin, are no longer commonly used over time.

What do we do with these obsolete protocols? We can eliminate them from modern IP networks to reduce storage, compute, complexity, and operating costs. We call such IP networks “lean” and it allows operators to move away from traditional box-centric IP network designs running ever larger and more complex monolithic software stacks, as many traditional IP vendors have and continue to implement today.

Operators are asking for something different. They are asking for Adaptive IP^TM, a simpler way to deliver IP.

Last year, we introduced Ciena’s Adaptive IP solution, based on our Adaptive Network^TM vision, specifically to deliver IP differently. The foundation of the solution is lean IP-capable programmable infrastructure supported by multiple Ciena Packet Networking platforms, but we didn’t just stop there.

While 5G, IP business services, Fiber Deep, and other bandwidth hungry applications are driving the need for more IP at the network edge, the need for more capacity delivered with the lowest power and smallest footprint has also become key. This is particularly true for power/space-constrained DCI applications, as well as outside plant environments for cable access or 4G/5G applications. It is not surprising, then, that we are starting to see demand in the access network and for some applications in the metro for the integration of coherent optics within packet platforms. As part of our Adaptive IP solution, our packet networking platforms can leverage Ciena’s WaveLogic 5 Nano pluggables to deliver the industry’s leading coherent technology in a footprint and power-optimized form factor. more>

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• Chalk Talk: Adaptive IP [VIDEO]