Sunday, March 8, 2020

ONF’s Stratum Open Source Switch OS runs on TIP's Cassini

Stratum, the open-source switch operating system software developed by the ONF, is now available on Cassini packet optical transport hardware from TIP.

Cassini is a network switching platform with integrated optical transponders that is developed as a project by the Telecom Infra Project (TIP).

Stratum is a thin switch OS for data center white box switches supporting SDN interfaces, including P4, P4Runtime, gNMI and OpenConfig.



Stratum’s capabilities have now been extended to support configuration and management of optical parameters including wavelength, modulation and optical power. These new capabilities enable Stratum to be deployed on the white box Cassini platform. Stratum on Cassini now enables a completely open SDN-native solution for addressing Data Center Interconnect (DCI) use cases.

The ONF notes that its ODTN project has already demonstrated end-to-end orchestration of a network of Cassini-based systems in field trials. The demonstration leveraged the open source ONOS control plane from ONF and the open hardware from TIP; it also relied on proprietary embedded software running on the Cassini platform. It can serve both as a spine for “leaf-spine” type architectures within the datacenter, and as a packet optical transponder for the inter-datacenter connections. The four Cassini systems replace what would otherwise be 8 distinct devices: 4 spine switches and 4 packet optical transponder systems.  This converged design enables operators to deploy simpler solutions at a much lower cost, both in terms of Capex and Opex.




ONF's Stratum Project goes Open Source

The ONF's Stratum SDN project has been released as open source under the Apache 2.0 open source license.

Stratum is an open source, silicon-independent switch operating system for software-defined networks that runs on a variety of switching silicon and various whitebox switch platforms.

The ONF said the goal of Stratum is to avoid the vendor lock-in found with today’s data planes that feature proprietary silicon interfaces and closed software APIs that tend to lock operators into using a specific hardware technology. The strict contractual relationship of a P4-based interface between a Stratum switch and its controller ensure that the switch can be swapped with a spectrum of alternatives (even those with different switching silicon from a diversity of vendors) without need for controller modification or network retest and validation.  Never before has it been possible to grow and upgrade installations and adopt the latest advancements in switching silicon at the speed of cloud development.

Stratum also exposes a set of next-generation SDN interfaces including P4, P4Runtime, OpenConfig, gNMI and gNOI, enabling programmability of forwarding behaviors, zero-touch operations and full automated life-cycle management. This makes Stratum a key enabler for ONF’s next-generation SDN initiative.

“Bringing project Stratum to open source is an important milestone in furthering the ONF’s open networking movement,” said Guru Parulkar, Executive Director, ONF. “Stratum provides a consistent set of northbound Next-Gen SDN interfaces even as it runs on a wide selection of hardware platforms leveraging a variety of switching silicon. As such, Stratum is becoming the common substrate for ONF’s Next-Gen SDN stack, enabling rapid innovation, zero touch operations and a robust hardware ecosystem.”

https://www.opennetworking.org/stratum/

Google Cloud sharpens focus on telco opportunity

Google Cloud is refocusing its effort to become a strategic technology provider for telecom operators. Highlights of the announcement include:
  • Anthos for Telecom, a cloud application platform to the network edge that is based on Kubernetes.
  • a collaboration with AT&T to test 5G edge computing for retail, manufacturing, transportation, etc. 
  • a partnership with Amdocs to enable communications service providers to run Amdocs’ on Google Cloud, and to deliver new data analytics, site reliability engineering, and 5G edge solutions to enterprise customers
  • a new partnership with Netcracker to deploy its entire Digital BSS/OSS and Orchestration stack on Google Cloud.

In a blog post, Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud, writes: "We’re committed to partnering with the telecommunications industry, providing partners, solutions, and cloud and open source technologies to accelerate digital transformation.

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/google-cloud-unveils-strategy-telecommunications-industry

Google Cloud Platform expands to Delhi, Doha, Melbourne, and Toronto

Google Cloud Platform will open new regions in Delhi (India), Doha (Qatar), Melbourne (Australia) and Toronto (Canada). Each region will have three zones (data centers) to protect against service disruptions. Each will launch with a portfolio of key GCP products,. Delhi, Melbourne and Toronto are the second regions within those markets enabling in-country disaster recovery for mission-critical applications.

As previously announced, GCP this year is expected to open regions in Jakarta, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Seoul, and Warsaw.

Currently, GCP operates 22 regions with 67 total data centers across 16 countries.

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/infrastructure/new-google-cloud-regions-for-2020

ADVA launches pluggable, self-tuning SFP+ for access networks

ADVA launched its G.metro solution featuring small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) DWDM transceivers, a complete suite of compact filters, and in-service fiber and wavelength monitoring. The turnkey offering is aimed at mobile and enterprise networks.

The solution offers automatic wavelength tuning and can seamlessly integrate with ADVA and third-party infrastructure. Like other ADVA equipment, G.metro plugs are remotely monitored over a transparent channel independent of host equipment.

“Our G.metro solution with pluggable 10Gbit/s transceivers makes it straightforward to affordably and securely address fierce growth in data demand for metro access applications. Now, it couldn’t be easier to increase capacity without significant changes to existing hardware equipment,” said Stephan Rettenberger, SVP, marketing and investor relations, ADVA. “Our new self-tuning SFP+ has been engineered to meet the exact needs of businesses and service providers. It’s the result of close collaboration with major customers as well as ITU-T standardization, to which our team has been a key contributor.

https://www.adva.com/

Ranovus launches Silicon Photonic Engine supporting 800G

Ranovus launched its "Odin" silicon photonics device scaling from 800Gbps to 3.2Tbps in a single chip and supporting both module and Co-Packaged Optics solutions.

Ranovus’ Odin platform incorporates the company’s multi-wavelength Quantum Dot Laser (QDL), 100Gbps silicon photonics-based Micro Ring Resonator modulators and photodetectors, 100Gbps Driver, 100Gbps TIA and control Integrated Circuits supported by a Tier 1 packaging ecosystem.


“ML/AI are the driving forces behind innovation in our society. They have created new compute, storage and networking paradigms inside and outside the data center. The massive growth in data traffic fueling the algorithms requires scalable and power efficient networking technologies. Odin™ platform delivers 50% power consumption/Gbps reduction and 75% cost/Gbps reduction over today’s solutions,” said Hamid Arabzadeh, Chairman and CEO at Ranovus. “Odin 8 marks the beginning of the road to multi-terabit Co-Packaged Optics for Compute, Storage and Networking solutions.”

Ranovus offered the following highlights:

  • Lowest power consumption/Gbps and cost/Gbps solution in the industry
  • Supports ML/AI applications with 0.4nsec low latency and protocol agnostic engine
  • Supports transmission distance of 10m to 2km in CWDM and DWDM applications
  • Offers 8 optical channels of 100Gbps/64Gbps/50Gbps PAM4 or 50Gbps/32Gbps/25Gbps NRZ
  • Supports DR & FR configurations
  • Supports QSFP-DD and OSFP module form factors
  • Supports 25.6Tbps and 51.2Tbps Ethernet Switch configurations

“Intra-Data-Center traffic is growing at a rate that outpaces anything seen outside of the data centers and is expected to triple in the next five years. This growth in traffic is driving global energy consumption, for power and cooling, that is simply not sustainable at the current trajectory. At Ranovus, we’re dedicated to developing energy and space efficient technologies to address this critically important challenge - starting with our Odin™ optical engine platform,” said John Martinho, SVP R&D at Ranovus. “We’re proud to have brought together a Tier 1 ecosystem of partners and industry veterans to make these innovations possible.”

David Goeckeler leaves Cisco to become CEO of WD

Western Digital appointed David Goeckeler as CEO, replacing Steve Milligan, who previously announced his intended retirement.

Goeckeler previously served as executive vice president and general manager of Cisco’s $34 billion Networking and Security Business.

“The industry is facing an exciting inflection point where customers of every size, vertical and geography are deploying business infrastructure that is software-driven, enabled by data and powered by the cloud. This megatrend has only just now reached an initial stage of adoption and will drive a massive wave of new opportunity,” said Mr. Goeckeler. “In this IT landscape, the explosive growth of connected devices will continue fueling an ever-increasing demand for access to data. With large-scale hard disk drive and semiconductor memory franchises, Western Digital is strongly positioned to capitalize on this emerging opportunity and push the boundaries of both software and physical hardware innovation within an extremely important layer of the technology stack.”