SURF, the Dutch National Research and Education Network, is testing ECI's Apollo TM1200 1.2T dual channel, programmable blade.
The trial runs over a 1650km link connecting SURF’s main facility in Amsterdam with CERN’s communication center in Geneva.
ECI said the trial demonstrated Apollo’s ability to support live traffic of 300 Gbps per wavelength over predominantly old (G.655) fibers, traversing 22 intermediate nodes without any signal regeneration or RAMAN amplification. Link capacity was increased by roughly 150% by optimizing line-rate modulation.
SURF’s optical backbone, SURFnet 8, was upgraded a couple of years ago to address the astonishing rate of growth in the demand for bandwidth. The search for a new vendor encompassed nine candidates, from which ECI was selected. Based on the Apollo family, SURF continues rebuilding its optical backbone for the future, achieving super-high performance, economic scalability, ease of operations, and a seamless migration from the previous infrastructure. The latter exemplifies an Open Line System (OLS) by carrying both ECI and alien lambdas.
“The TM1200 adds yet another layer of flexibility and programmability to our optical capabilities. With the TM1200 we can now optimize modulation schemes in line with our requirements and the distances transmitted, ensuring optimal use of our fiber capacity,” said Rob Smets, Network Architect at SURF. “We were pleased to discover we could improve link capacity and efficiency by approximately 150% just by replacing the card, even on our ‘old’ (G.655) fibers. With ECI’s help and our continuously updated network capabilities, we will continue to provide our millions of users with the levels of performance and service to which they’ve become accustomed.”
“We understand that today’s operators are under pressure to squeeze the most out of their network infrastructures. Optical backbones will forever be required to support, and exceed, simple low cost per bit transport,” said Christian Erbe, VP Sales EMEA at ECI. “However, there are increasing requirements for openness, programmability and interworking with the packet layer. ECI has a very strong relationship with national research and education networks (NREN) worldwide, and we are proud of our long-lasting partnership with SURF.”
https://www.ecitele.com/productcat/apollo/.
http://www.surf.nl/en/surfnet
ECI intros 1.2T Dual Channel Blade for its Apollo DWDM transport
ECI said its new TM1200 blade delivers unmatched spectral efficiency and elasticity through software controllable continuous modulation. Whereas traditional line-side modulation was only programmable in large increments – such as 100G, 200G or 400G – often relying on different line cards, the new TM1200 delivers software-controlled continuous modulation in 50 Gbps increments up to 600 Gbps line rate, rather than supporting specific modulation schemes. This maximizes capacity in a granular manner to best match client needs and variable channel conditions.
Additional benefits:
- Optimal return on fiber investment: By operating at the edge of the Shannon limit, the TM1200 squeezes the maximum capacity from each channel on a fiber, delaying the need to add new fiber and optical networking infrastructure.
- Enables a highly adaptive and flexible optical layer: Working in conjunction with ECI's colorless, directionless, contentionless, flexible spectrum ROADMs, and client services aware SDN control, the TM1200 can continuously optimize client traffic to fiber capacity.
- Dynamic restoration: Excess capacity can be allocated dynamically to fully or partially restore client services that are disrupted by fiber or equipment failures elsewhere in the network.
- Power efficiency: At a 600 Gbps line rate, the ECI TM1200 has a 10-fold improvement in power efficiency compared to other solutions, consuming less than 0.18W per Gbps, fully populated.
