OFC 2018 attracts 15,500 attendees

The Optical Fiber Conference and Exposition (OFC 2018), which was held this week in San Diego, attracted more than 15,500 attendees, 700+ exhibitors from 65 countries, and over 850 peer-reviewed technical sessions. Last year, OFC 2017 recorded 14,500 attendees and 663 exhibitors in Los Angeles.

The organizers said  OFC has been on a steep growth trajectory over the last three years, increasing in overall square footage by 44% and experiencing a 21% growth in exhibitors and attendees.

“Optical advancements in 5G, next-gen optical transport, multi-layer optical internetworking, open transport hardware/software and disaggregation led many discussions this week during OFC–in ground-breaking research presented, technical workshops, product launches and in the plenary addresses from industry visionaries,” said Martin Birk, Lead Member of Technical Staff, AT&T Labs, USA, and a General Chair of OFC 2018. “OFC is the industry’s stage to present, debate, launch and demonstrate the innovations driving applications including AI and connected vehicles that are on the cusp of changing the world in which we live.”

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Fujitsu unveils T500 and T600 optical transport platforms

Fujitsu introduced its new 1FINITY T500 and T600 series optical transport platform for network service providers and data center operators.

The platforms are powered by the latest 16nm CMOS fin-FET digital signal processor (DSP) developed by NTT Electronics (NEL) in partnership with Fujitsu.

The 1FINITY T500 and T600 enable up to 2.4 Tbps of service transport in a fully compliant, pluggable 1RU design. The products offer available bandwidth-variable transport rates from 200G to 600G, support both C-band and L-band transmission, and full fiber capacity utilization up to 76.8 Tbps per fiber pair.

The advanced DSP enables dozens of operation modes, including leading 64 GBaud, 64QAM transmission for 600Gbps wavelengths; ensuring the 1FINITY platform is able to provide the best transmission performance across a wide range of applications, including data center interconnect (DCI), metro, long-haul and subsea transport.

Fujitsu said its new 1FINITY blades provide network operators with flexible modes of operation, including variability in service and network data rates, baud rates, modulation rates, channel width and forward error correction (FEC).

“1FINITY T500 and T600 blades are designed to deliver the bandwidth capacity, flexibility, programmability and power efficiency that network service providers and data center operators require as they build tomorrow’s self-aware networks, today,” said Christine Podraza, head of the optical business unit at Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc. “This new family of 1FINITY transponders from Fujitsu ushers in next-generation variable optical transport that paves the way for 5G and conscious networking in a more agile, open and fully automated environment.”

NTT Electronics announces 64GBaud coherent DSP

Thursday, March 08, 2018  #OFC2018, 400G, NEL, NTT Electronics  No Comments

NTT Electronics (NEL) has begun sampling a 64GBaud high-performance coherent DSP for DWDM optical transport systems. The DSP core leverages Broadcom’s 16nm CMOS fin-FET high-speed mixed-signal technologies which enhances per-lambda capacity by two-to-three times up to 600Gbps/λ.

NEL's new DSP supports flexible line capacities by combining multiple Baud-rates and modulation-formats, from 100Gbps/λ by 32GBaud QPSK to industry-first 600Gbps/λ by 64GBaud 64QAM.

The company says it is able to achieve a range of per-fiber DWDM capacity, from 5Tbps for tens of thousands of kilometers Ultra Long Haul (ULH) to over 30Tbps for 120km ZR transmission reaches, and further doubling the capacity by using both C-band and L-band. Real-time coherent processing at 64GBaud enables thousands-of-kilometers LH transport at 200Gbps/λ by Dual-Polarization (DP) QPSK, hundreds-of-kilometers Metro transport at 400Gbps/λ by DP 16QAM, or 120km ZR transport at 600Gbps/λ by DP 64QAM.

“Every Service Provider needs to maximize fiber capacity to meet increasing bandwidth demand,” said Haruhiko Ichino, NEL Executive Vice President and General Manager of Broadband System & Device Business Group. “We are strongly committed to be a pioneer in the coherent DSP innovation and to provide merchant-silicon solutions for cost-effective upgrades in LH, Metro, and shorter-reach data-center-interconnect (DCI) applications.”

Commercial production is expected in the second half of 2018.

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Verizon and Colt demo inter carrier SDN orchestration

Colt and Verizon have demonstrated two-way, inter-carrier Software Defined Network (SDN) network orchestration.

The demonstration, which was held at an event in London, enabled each of the companies to make near-real-time bandwidth changes in each other’s production networks.

The companies described the inter-carrier SDN orchestration as a world first and an important step in enabling real-time cross-carrier automation.

Both companies are working with MEF to advance the development of inter-carrier business and operational LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) APIs, which will accelerate the availability of this flexibility from many more partner networks.

Peter Konings, EMEA head of product development at Verizon, commented: “Enterprise networking is in the midst of a revolution. Organizations today want intelligent, dynamic networks that respond automatically to their changing business needs. Before today, no-one has been able to demonstrate elastic flexibility across carriers. Today’s demonstration is the first time anyone in the world has been able to flex network capacity in both directions across network boundaries. This will be a game changer for enterprise networking.”

Mirko Voltolini, Head of Network On Demand at Colt, said: “This showcase positively demonstrates the power of software-defined networking and how increased adoption is putting operators and customers in control of their networks and services. Previously, closed systems have made interoperability between service providers extremely difficult. Further, it validates Colt’s strategy of providing on-demand flexibility to truly enable customers’ digital transformation journeys. Through the use of SDN, providers are now able to better collaborate and innovate, ultimately benefitting customers.”

Daniel Bar-Lev, Director Office of the CTO, MEF, added:  “Proof of concept demonstrations and trials of inter-provider service orchestration are critical steps for making agile, assured and orchestrated connectivity services that span multiple operators a reality. We’re delighted to see today's demonstration moving the service provider industry towards this objective.”

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Crehan: Branded Data Center Ethernet Switches Surged in 2017

Customer deployments of branded data center Ethernet switch bandwidth increased by more than fifty percent in 2017, according to the latest report from Crehan Research Inc.

The cost of a gigabit of bandwidth also saw its steepest decline in six years during 2017, according to the report, resulting in a significant increase in the average bandwidth per data center switch port connection: almost 17 gigabits in 2017, versus 12 gigabits in 2016. The overall market-level average price per data center Ethernet switch port remained stable, as higher bandwidth per port offset lower bandwidth cost.

Other noteworthy results from Crehan’s data center switch report include:

• 25 gigabit Ethernet (GbE) combined with 100GbE yielded an increase of close to $2 billion in 2017, with 100GbE as the major contributor.
• Branded data center switch revenue increased ten percent in 2017, the strongest annual growth in four years.
• 40GbE shipments started to decline in 2017, however, this decline was very moderate with shipments only falling five percentage points for the year.
• 10GBASE-T saw robust annual growth of 34%, comprising almost 30% of all 10GbE shipments in 2017.
• Branded data center switch bandwidth deployments in the past two years exceeded deployments in the prior eight years combined.
• In 2017, 100GbE surpassed 10GbE to become the largest single contributor to overall data center Ethernet switch network bandwidth.

The rapid adoption of 100GbE – where port shipments went from an annual run-rate of less than a hundred thousand ports to over four million ports in only two years – bodes well for the upcoming introduction of 400GbE data center switches which offer the same compelling economics against the backdrop of strong cloud demand for higher network speeds.

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ECI brings 100G and 2x200G upgrades to Neptune and Apollo platforms

ECI introduced network interface upgrades for its Neptune packet/optical and Apollo optical transmission product lines.

ECI's Neptune (NPT) packet-optical product provided an end-to-end metro solution for high-performance Layer 1 to Layer 3 services through the convergence of IP, Elastic MPLS (IP, TP, and Segment Routing), Ethernet (MEF CE 2.0 certified) and other services.

With this announcement, ECI is adding 100GE interfaces to its entire packet portfolio, which started with the high capacity NPT1800 aggregation platform and has now been expanded to the Neptune (NPT) 1200. Customers with ECI's best-selling Neptune system can upgrade their networks to provide a 100GE solution with a maximum capacity of 560G (versus the previous 320G). ECI will then roll out this 100GE capability to the smaller Neptune access systems in the next release later this year.

ECI's Apollo (OPT) product line offers a family of optical transport and switching platforms which interwork seamlessly to provide scalable, high-density and energy-efficient solutions from access to core with up to 400G transmission and 16T of OTN switching.

ECI is now introducing a new Apollo TR200-2 compact pluggable optical interface that provides two separate 200G transponder/muxponders in a single slot, instantly doubling the capacity of any Apollo 9600 shelf. Not only is the TR200-2 about half the size of other available solutions, it also provides best-in-class power consumption (less than 0.2W/GHz). Importantly, ECI's 200G solution can operate on the same 50GHz grid as 100G signals, allowing simple and cost-effective network bandwidth expansion.

Said Moshe Shimon, VP product management, global portfolio, "In preparation for ongoing – and increasingly rapid – market evolution, ECI enables customers large and small to upgrade their current Apollo and Neptune systems with more capacity and speed. We have traditionally built our solutions to enable pay as you grow flexibility, a much more beneficial and cost-effective option that also minimizes operational complexities. Apollo and Neptune are future ready, and have inherent evolution paths to 5G, SDN and NFV."

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Calient doubles capacity of its MEMS-base fiber-optic cross connect

CALIENT Technologies introduced its Edge|640 Optical Circuit Switch (OCS) with 640 fiber-optic cross connections – up to twice the capacity of its current S320 OCS product.

CALIENT uses 3D microelectrical machine (MEMS) optical mirror technology to create protocol agnostic optical connections between ports at speeds up to 400 Gbps. The all-optical nature of the switch results in very low latency connections. The switch features built-in optical signal power monitoring on each link and features low power consumption of 90 Watts typical.

CALIENT said its new Edge|640 is organized into two switching groups of 320 ports each. Devices connected to a switch port on one of the switch groups can be connected to a device on any of the ports in the other switch group. This connectivity is ideal for “wire-once” network applications or for testing applications where devices under test need access to a range of test systems.

“Network virtualization and software-defined networking (SDN) are driving demand for fully automated networks on a massive scale, and the Edge|640 supports this trend through its high port density and very low latency connectivity,” said David Altstaetter, CALIENT Vice President of Product Line Management. “Some of the largest networks in the world trust CALIENT Optical Circuit Switch technology. The proven nature of technology sets the stage for the Edge|640 to be used in very high-density mission-critical applications.”

CALIENT acquired by Suzhou Chunxing Precision Mechanical Co.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017  Calient, China, Merger & Acquisitions, Optical, SoCal  No Comments

Suzhou Chunxing Precision Mechanical Co., Ltd. has agreed to acquire a controlling stake in CALIENT Technologies, a supplier of optical switching solutions based on proprietary 3D microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. Financial terms were not disclosed. CALIENT is based in Goleta, California (near Santa Barbara).

CALIENT’s S-Series Optical Circuit Switches are used in data center, compute cluster and communication service provider applications.

In a joint statement, Carvin Chen, EVP of Chunxing and Atiq Raza, CEO of CALIENT, said: “Chunxing and CALIENT share very similar management philosophies, cultures and values. This lays a very profound and solid foundation for our two companies to join together at a perfect time and with a perfect match to cope with the demands and challenges of keeping pace with a fast-growing new generation of optical switching technology. With our most cutting-edge optical switching technology, products and systems, and by exploring and leveraging both companies’ strengths and synergies, our common vision is to create a great world-leading company to explore, develop and deliver the most innovative optical switching value propositions and solutions to our most valuable customers and the market.”

The company will continue to operate from its Goleta, CA, headquarters under the CALIENT brand.

http://www.calient.net

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Sedona introduces Hierarchical Network Controller

Sedona Systems, a start-up offering multi-layer IP/optical network automation and control solutions, introduced a Hierarchical Network Controller that automatically discovers, provisions and optimizes L0-L3 services across multilayer, multivendor, multidomain networks.

The company said the role of its Hierarchical Network Controller is to present a single interface and simplified view of the network to service orchestrators and OSS products, and then to provide end-end network control and policy management by interacting with domain controllers from multiple IP and transport vendors.

In initial implementations, service providers are using the new NetFusion product as a single “pane of glass” for provisioning L0-3 services, without having to configure every layer, domain and vendor separately, and allowing services to be provisioned in minutes. By contrast, manual multilayer provisioning processes that are used in current networks can take weeks to complete.

“Service-aware networks are becoming particularly important as new consumer and enterprise applications require transport networks to efficiently support a range of different service types with widely varying bandwidth, performance, and availability requirements. They will become even more valuable as 5G applications mature.” said Ori Gerstel, CTO at Sedona. “We developed the new NetFusion Hierarchical Network Controller specifically to enable the benefits of service-awareness and we’re very pleased with the performance we’ve seen in recent customer verification testing. ”

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Kaiam debuts 400G QSFP-DD

Kaiam unveiled an 8-lane, single-mode 400G transceiver in a QSFP-DD form factor at OFC 2018.

The new device, which is enabled by the company's LightScale2 architecture used in its XQX5000 series of 100GBASE-CWDM4 QSFP28 pluggables, is optimized for high-volume, low-cost manufacturing.

The company said its LightScale2 platform supports both 4-lane and 8-lane 200G and 400G transceiver variants, including 400G-LR8/FR8, 400G-FR4, 2x100G-LR4, 2x100G-CWDM4, 2x100G-4WDM-10, 200G-FR4, and 2x200G-FR4. These can be supported in either QSFP-DD or OSFP packages. The platform can further extend to future 800G solutions, and even beyond pluggables to Kaiam’s Co-Packaged Photonics Interconnect (CoPPhI).

“As capacity and density requirements increase in the data center, our MEMS-based PLC approach further outperforms traditional approaches,” commented Bardia Pezeshki, CEO. “At OFC 2018, we are demonstrating a transceiver that has 4x the bandwidth of the previous generation in roughly the same QSFP form factor, highlighting the bandwidth and density scalability of Kaiam’s technology.”

“We’re seeing market need for 400G QSFP-DD transceivers in 2019, but uncertainty and skepticism about whether transceiver vendors can deliver cost-effective solutions at scale with the high speeds needed per lane and the desired reach. Our ability to offer a simple 8-channel 400G solution in advance of the more complex 4-channel electronics, with the full 10km reach, gives the customers faster and easier access to 400G in the desired compact form factor,” commented Jeremy Dietz, VP of Global Sales & Marketing.

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Menara samples Coherent CFP2-DCO transceivers

Menara Networks has begun sampling its Coherent CFP2-DCO transceivers to select customers.

Menara’s Digital CFP2-DCO “system-in-a-module”, which is powered by a 16nm Coherent Processor, provides DWDM coherent transmission for 100G and 200G per wavelength in a CFP2 MSA small form factor. It performs all necessary adaptive PM-QPSK and PM-QAM 16 modulation, digital signal processing for linear and non-linear fiber impairments compensation, G.709 compliant OTN framing, and a multitude of hard and LDPC-based soft decision forward error correction encoders/decoders. Compatible with 100GE, CAUI, OTL4.10, and OTL 4.4 interfaces, Menara’s Coherent CFP2-DCO is full C-band tunable and supports ITU-T G.694.1 6.25 GHz Flexible Grid. With maximum versatility, it enables ZR, Data Center Interconnection, Metro and Long Haul applications.

“Building on a long track record of bringing high-performance optical modules with advanced functionalities to the market, Menara’s engineering team successfully integrated all necessary functions for digital coherent transmission in a CFP2 form factor,” said Salam ElAhmadi, Menara Networks CTO & VP of Engineering. “CFP2 smaller footprint not only doubles the faceplate density but also improves 200G coherent transmission economics.”

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