COBO looks inside and beyond the data centre

The Consortium of On-Board Optics is working on 400 gigabit optics for the data centre and also for longer-distance links. COBO is a Microsoft-led initiative tasked with standardising a form factor for embedded optics.

Established in March 2015, the consortium already has over 50 members and expects to have early specifications next year and first hardware by late 2017.

Brad Booth

Brad Booth, the chair of COBO and principal architect for Microsoft’s Azure Global Networking Services, says Microsoft plans to deploy 100 gigabit in its data centres next year and that when the company started looking at 400 gigabit, it became concerned about the size of the proposed pluggable modules, and the interface speeds needed between the switch silicon and the pluggable module.

“What jumped out at us is that we might be running into an issue here,” says Booth.

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Calient uses its optical switch to boost data centre efficiency

For Calient Technologies, an approach by one of the world’s largest data centre operators changed the company’s direction.

The company had been selling its 320x320 non-blocking optical circuit switch (OCS) for applications such as submarine cable landing sites and for government intelligence. Then, five years ago, a large internet content provider contacted Calient, saying it had figured out exactly where Calient’s OCS could play a role in the data centre.

This solution could deliver a significant percentage-utilisation improvement

Daniel Tardent

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Alcatel-Lucent serves up x86-based IP edge routing

Alcatel-Lucent has re-architected its edge IP router functions - its service router operating system (SR OS) and applications - to run on Intel x86 instruction-set servers.

Shown is the VSR running on one server and distributed across several servers. Source: Alcatel-Lucent.

The company's Virtualized Service Router portfolio aims to reduce the time it takes operators to launch services and is the latest example of the industry trend of moving network functions from specialist equipment onto stackable servers, a development know as network function virtualisation (NFV).     

"It is taking IP routing and moving it into the cloud," says Manish Gulyani, vice president product marketing for Alcatel-Lucent's IP routing and transport business. 

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60-second interview with Michael Howard

Infonetics Research has interviewed global service providers regarding their plans for software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV). Gazettabyte asked Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst, carrier networks, about Infonetics' findings.

"Data centres are simple when compared to carrier networks"

Michael Howard, Infonetics Research

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NextIO simplifies top of rack switching with I/O virtualisation

NextIO has developed virtualised input/output (I/O) equipment that simplifies switch design in the data centre.

"Our box takes a single virtual NIC, virtualises that and shares that out with all the servers in a rack"

John Fruehe, NextIO 

The platform, known as vNET, replaces both Fibre Channel and Ethernet top-of-rack switches in the data centre and is suited for use with small one rack unit (1RU) servers. The platform uses PCI Express (PCIe) to implement I/O virtualisation.

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Telcos eye servers & software to meet networking needs

• The Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) initiative aims to use common servers for networking functions
• The initiative promises to be industry disruptive

"The sheer massive [server] volumes is generating an innovation dynamic that is far beyond what we would expect to see in networking"

Don Clarke, NFV

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