Open Eye MSA gets webscale attention
Monday, September 7, 2020 at 7:41PM Microsoft has trialled optical modules that use signalling technology developed by the Open Eye Consortium.
The webscale player says optical modules using the Open Eye’s analogue 4-level pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM-4) technology consume less power than modules with a PAM-4 digital signal processor (DSP).
“Open Eye has shown us at least an ability that we can do better on power,” says Brad Booth, director, next cloud system architecture, Azure hardware systems and infrastructure at Microsoft, during an Open Eye webinar.
Brad BoothOptical module power consumption is a key element of the total power budget of data centres that can have as many as 100,000 servers and 50,000 switches.
“You want to avoid running past your limit because then you have to build another data centre,” says Booth.
But challenges remain before Open Eye becomes a mainstream technology, says Dale Murray, principal analyst at market research firm, LightCounting.
