Infinera unveils its next-gen packet-optical platforms
Source: Infinera
Infinera has unveiled its latest metro products that support up to 200-gigabit wavelengths using CFP2-DCO pluggable modules.
The XTM II platform family is designed to support growing metro traffic, low-latency services and the trend to move sophisticated equipment towards the network edge. Placing computing, storage and even switching near the network edge contrasts with the classical approach of backhauling traffic, sometimes deep within the network.
“If you backhaul everything, you really do not know if it belongs in that part of the network,” says Geoff Bennett, director, solutions and technology at Infinera. Backhauling inherently magnifies traffic whereas operators want greater efficiencies in dealing with bandwidth growth, he says: “This is where the more cloud-like architectures towards the network edge come in.”
But locating equipment at the network edge means it must fit within existing premises or in installed prefabricated huts where space and the power supplied are constrained.
“If you are asking service providers to put more complex equipment there, then you need low power utilisation,” says Bennett. “This has been a key piece of feedback from customers we have been asking as to how they want our existing products to evolve in the metro-access.”
Having a distributed switch fabric is a long-term advantage for Infinera
Infinera says its latest XTM II products are eight times denser in terms of tranmission capacity while setting a new power-consumption low of 20W-27W per 100 gigabits depending on the operating temperature (25oC to 55oC). Infinera claims its nearest metro equipment competitor achieves 47W per 100 gigabits.
Sterling Perrin, principal analyst, optical networking and transport at Heavy Reading, says Infinera has achieved the power-efficient design by using a distributed switch architecture rather that a central switch fabric and adopting the CFP2-DCO pluggable module with its low-power coherent DSP.
“If you have a centralised fabric and you put it into an edge application then for some cases it will be a perfect fit but for many applications, it will be overkill in terms of capacity and hence power,” says Perrin. “Infinera is able to do it in a modular fashion in terms of just how much capacity and power is put in an application.”
Having a distributed switch fabric is a long-term advantage for Infinera for these applications, says Perrin, whereas competitor vendors will also benefit from the CFP2-DCO for their next designs.
And even if a competitor uses a distributed design, they will not leapfrog Infinera, says Perrin, although he expects competitors’ designs to come down considerably in power with the adoption of the CFP2-DCO.
Infinera has chosen not to use its photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology for its latest metro platform given the large installed base of XTM chassis that already use pluggable modules. “It would make sense that customers would give feedback that they want a product that has industry-leading performance but which is also backwards compatible,” says Bennett.
Infinera has said it will evaluate whether its PIC technology will be applied to each new generation of the product line. “So when you get to the XTM III they will have another round looking at it,” says Perrin. “If I were placing bets on the XTM III, I would say they are going to continue down this route [of using pluggables].”
Perrin expects line-side pluggable technology to continue to progress with companies such as Acacia Communications and the collaboration between Ciena with its WaveLogic DSP technology and several optical module makers.
“At what point is the PIC going to be better than what is available with the pluggables?” says Perrin. “For this application, I don’t see it.”
XTM II family
Infinera has already been shipping upgraded XTM chassis for the last 18 months in advance of the launch of its latest metro cards. The upgraded chassis - the one rack unit (1RU) TM-102/II, the 3RU TM-301/II and the 11RU TM-3000/II - all feature enhanced power management and cooling.
What Infinera is unveiling now are three cards that enhance the capacity and features of the enhanced chassis. The new cards will work with the older generation XTM chassis (without the ‘II’ suffix) as long as a vacant card slot is available and the chassis’ total power supply is not exceeded. This is important given over 30,000 XTM chassis have been deployed.
The Infinera cards announced are the 400-flexponder, a 200-gigabit muxponder, and the EMXP440 packet-optical transport switch. The distributed switch architecture is implemented using the EMXP440 card.
Operators will also be offered Infinera’s Instant Bandwidth feature as part of the XTM II whereby they can pay for the line side capacity they use: either 100-gigabit or 200-gigabit wavelengths using the CFP2-DCO. The Instant Bandwidth offered is not the superchannel format available for Infinera’s other platforms that use its PIC but it does offer operators the option of deploying a higher-speed wavelength when needed and paying later.
400G flexponder
The flexponder can operate as a transponder and as a muxponder. For a transponder, the client signal and line-side data rate operate at the same data rate. In contrast, a muxponder aggregates lower data-rate client signals for transport on a single wavelength.
Infinera’s 400-gigabit flexponder card uses four 100 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP28 client interfaces and two 200-gigabit CFP2-DCO pluggable line-side modules. Each CFP2-DCO can transport data at 100 gigabits using polarisation-multiplexing, quadrature phase-shift keying (PM-QPSK) modulation or at 200 gigabits using 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (PM-16QAM).
The 400-gigabit card can thus operate as a transponder when the CFP2-DCO transports at 100 gigabits and as a muxponder when it carries two 100-gigabit signals over a 200-gigabit lambda. Given the card has two CFP2 line-side modules, it can even operate as a transponder and muxponder simultaneously.
The flexponder card also supports OTN block encryption using the AES-256 symmetric key protocol.
The flexponder is an upgrade on Infinera’s existing 100-gigabit muxponder card. The eightfold increase in capacity is achieved by using two 200-gigabit ports instead of a single 100-gigabit module and halving the width of the line card.
Using the flexponder card, the TM-102/II chassis has a transport capacity of 400 gigabits, up to 1.6 terabits with the TM-301/II and a total of 4 terabits using the TM-3000/II platform.
We can dial back the FEC if you need low latency and don't need the reach
200G muxponder
The double-width 200G card includes all the electronics needed for multi-service multiplexing. The line-side optics is a single CFP2-DCO module whereas the client side can accommodate two QSFP28s and 12 SFP+ 10-gigabit modules. The card can multiplex a mix of services including 10GbE, 40GbE, and 100GbE; 8-, 16- and 32-gigabit Fibre Channel; OTN and legacy SONET/SDH traffic.
Other features include support for OTN block encryption using the AES-256 symmetric key protocol.
The card’s forward error correction performance can also be traded to reduce the traffic latency. “We can dial back the FEC if you need low latency and don't need the reach,” says Bennett.
OTN add-drop multiplexing can also be implemented by pairing two of the multiplexer cards.
EMXP440 switch and flexible open line system
The EMXP440 packet-optical transport switch card supports layer-two functionality such as Carrier Ethernet 2.0 and MPLS-TP. “Mobile backhaul and residential broadband, these are the cards the operators tend to use,” says Bennett.
The two-slot EMXP440 card has two CFP2-DCOs and 12 SFP+ client-side interfaces. The reason why the line side and client side interface capacity differ (400 gigabits versus 120 gigabits) is that the card can be used to build simple packet rings (see diagram, top).
The line-side interfaces can be used for ‘East’ and ‘West' traffic while the SFP+ modules can be used to add and drop signals. The EMXP440 card also has an MPO port such that up to 12 SFP+ further ports can be added using Infinera’s PTIO-10G card, part of its PT Fabric products.
A flexible grid open line system is also available for the XTM II. The XTM II’s 100-gigabit and 200-gigabit wavelengths fit within a 50GHz-wide fixed grid channel but Infinera is already anticipating future higher baud rates that will require channels wider than 50GHz. A flexible grid also improves the use of the fibre’s overall capacity. In turn, RAMAN amplification will also be needed to extend the reach using future higher order modulation schemes such as 32- and 64-QAM.
Infinera says the 400-gigabit flexponder card will be available in the next quarter while the 200-gigabit muxponder and the EMXP440 cards will ship in the final quarter of 2017.
P-OTS 2.0: 60s interview with Heavy Reading's Sterling Perrin
Q: Heavy Reading claims the metro packet optical transport system (P-OTS) market is entering a new phase. What are the characteristics of P-OTS 2.0 and what first-generation platform shortcomings does it address?
A: I would say four things characterise P-OTS 2.0 and separate 2.0 from the 1.0 implementations:
- The focus of packet-optical shifts from time-division multiplexing (TDM) functions to packet functions.
- Pure-packet implementations of P-OTS begin to ramp and, ultimately, dominate.
- Switched OTN (Optical Transport Network) enters the metro, removing the need for SONET/SDH fabrics in new elements.
- 100 Gigabit takes hold in the metro.
The last two points are new functions while the first two address shortcomings of the previous generation. P-OTS 1.0 suffered because its packet side was seen as sub-par relative to Ethernet "pure plays" and also because packet technology in general still had to mature and develop - such as standardising MPLS-TP (Multiprotocol Label Switching - Transport Profile).
Your survey's key findings: What struck Heavy Reading as noteworthy?
The biggest technology surprise was the tremendous interest in adding IP/MPLS functions to transport. There was a lot of debate about this 10 years ago. Then the industry settled on a de facto standard that transport includes layers 0-2 but no higher. Now, it appears that the transport definition must broaden to include up to layer 3.
A second key finding is how quickly SONET/SDH has gone out of favour. Going forward, it is all about packet innovation. We saw this shift in equipment revenues in 2012 as SONET/SDH spend globally dropped more than 20 percent. That is not a one-time hit - it's the new trend for SONET/SDH.
Heavy Reading argues that transport has broadened in terms of the networking embraced - from layers 0 (WDM) and 1 (SONET/SDH and OTN) to now include IP/MPLS. Is the industry converging on one approach for multi-layer transport optimisation? For example, IP over dense WDM? Or OTN, Carrier Ethernet 2.0 and MPLS-TP? Or something else?
We did not uncover a single winning architecture and it's most likely that operators will do different things. Some operators will like OTN and put it everywhere. Others will have nothing to do with OTN. Some will integrate optics on routers to save transponder capital expenditure, but others will keep hardware separate but tightly link IP and optical layers via the control plane. I think it will be very mixed.
You talk about a spike in 100 Gigabit metro starting in 2014. What is the cause? And is it all coherent or is a healthy share going to 100 Gigabit direct detection?
Interest in 100 Gigabit in the metro exceeds interest in OTN in the metro - which is different from the core, where those two technologies are more tightly linked.
Cloud and data centre interconnect are the biggest drivers for interest in metro 100 Gig but there are other uses as well. We did not ask about coherent versus direct in this survey, but based on general industry discussions, I'd say the momentum is clearly around coherent at this stage - even in the metro. It does not seem that direct detect 100 Gig has a strong enough cost proposition to justify a world with two very different flavours of 100 Gig.
What surprised you from the survey's findings?
It was really the interest-level in IP functionality on transport systems that was the most surprising find.
It opens up the packet-optical transport market to new players that are strongest on IP and also poses a threat to suppliers that were good at lower layers but have no IP expertise - they'll have to do something about that.
Heavy Reading surveyed 114 operators globally. All those surveyed were operators; no system vendors were included. The regional split was North America - 22 percent, Europe - 33 percent, Asia Pacific - 25 percent, and the rest of the world - Latin America mainly - 20 percent.
Transmode's evolving packet optical technology mix
- Transmode adds MPLS-TP, Carrier Ethernet 2.0 and OTN
- The three protocols make packet transport more mesh-like and service-aware
- The 'native' in Native Packet Optical 2.0 refers to native Ethernet
Transmode has enhanced its metro and regional network equipment to address the operators' need for more efficient and cost-effective packet transport.
“Native Packet Optical 2.0 extends what the infrastructure can do, with operators having the option to use MPLS-TP, Carrier Ethernet 2.0 and OTN, making the network much more service-aware”
Jon Baldry, Transmode
Three new technologies have been added to create what Transmode calls Native Packet Optical 2.0 (NPO2.0). Multiprotocol Label Switching - Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) was launched in June 2012 to which has now been added the Metro Ethernet Forum's (MEF) latest Carrier Ethernet 2.0 (CE2.0) standard. The company will also have line cards that support Optical Transport Network (OTN) functionality from April 2013.
Until several years ago operators had distinct layer 2 and layer 1 networks. “The first stage of the evolution was to collapse those two layers together,” says Jon Baldry, technical marketing director at Transmode. “NPO2.0 extends what the infrastructure can do, with operators having the option to use MPLS-TP, CE2.0 and OTN, making the network much more service-aware.”
By adopting the enhanced capabilities of NPO2.0, operators can use the same network for multiple services. “A ROADM based optical layer with native packet optical at the wavelength layer,” says Baldry. “That could be a switched video distribution network or a mobile backhaul network; doing many different things but all based on the same stuff.”
Transmode uses native Ethernet in the metro and OTN for efficient traffic aggregation. “We are using native Ethernet frames as the payload in the metro,” says Baldry. “A 10 Gig LAN PHY frame that is moved from node to node, once it is aggregated from Gigabit Ethernet to 10 Gig Ethernet; we are not doing Ethernet over SONET/SDH or Ethernet over OTN.”
Shown are the options as to how layer 2 services can be transported and interfaced to multiple core networks. The Ethernet muxponder supports MPLS-TP, native Ethernet and the option for OTN, all over a ROADM-based optical layer. “It is not just a case of interfacing to three core network types, we can be aware of what is going on in these networks and switch traffic between types,” says Transmode's Jon Baldry. Note: EXMP is the Ethernet muxponder. Source: Transmode.
Once the operator no longer needs to touch the Ethernet traffic, it is then wrapped in an OTN frame for aggregation and transport. This, says Baldry, means that unnecessary wrapping and unwrapping of OTN frames is avoided, with OTN being used only where needed.
There are economical advantages in adopting NPO2.0 for an operator delivering layer 2 services. There are also considerable operational advantages in terms of the way the network can be run using MPLS-TP, the service types offered with CE2.0, and how the metro network interworks with the core network, says Baldry.
MPLS-TP and Carrier Ethernet 2.0
Introducing MPLS-TP and the latest CE2.0 standard benefits transport and services in several ways, says Baldry.
MPLS-TP provides better traffic engineering as well as working practices similar to SONET/SDH that operators are familiar with. “MPLS-TP creates a transport-like way of dealing with Ethernet which is good for operators having to move from a layer-1-only world to a packet world,” says Baldry. MPLS-TP is also claimed to have a lower total cost of ownership compared to IP/MPLS when used in the metro.
The protocol is also more suited to the underlying infrastructure. “Quite a lot of the networks we are deploying have MPLS-TP running on top of a ROADM network, which is naturally mesh-like,” says Baldry.
In contrast Ethernet provides mainly point-to-point and ring-based network protection mechanisms; there is no support for mesh-based restoration. This resiliency option is supported by MPLS-TP with its support of mesh-styled ‘tunnelling’. A MPLS-TP tunnel creates a service layer path over which traffic is sent.
“You can build tunnels and restoration paths through a network in a way that is more suited to the underlying [ROADM-based] infrastructure, thereby adding resiliency when a fibre cut occurs,” says Baldry.
MPLS-TP also benefits service scalability. It is much easier to create a tunnel and its protection scheme and define the services at the end points than to create many individual circuits across the network, each time defining the route and the protection scheme.
“Because MPLS-TP is software-based, we can mix and match MPLS-TP and Ethernet on any port,” says Baldry. “You can use MPLS-TP as much or as little as you like over particular parts of the network.”
The second new technology, the MEF’s Carrier Ethernet 2.0, benefits services. The MEF has extended the range of services available, from three to eight with CE2.0, while improving class-of-service handling and management features.
Transmode says its equipment is CE2.0 compliant and suggests its systems will become CE2.0-certified in the new year.
Hardware
The packet-optical products of Transmode comprise the TM-Series transport platforms and Ethernet demarcation units.
The company's single and double slot cards - Ethernet muxponders – fit into the TM-Series transport platforms. The single-slot Ethernet muxponder has ten, 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 2x10GbE interfaces while the double-slot card supports 22, 1GbE and 2x10GbE interfaces. Transmode also offers 10GbE only cards: the single slot is 4x10GbE and the double-slot has 8x10GbE interfaces. These cards are software upgradable to support MPLS-TP and the MEF’s CE2.0.
“In early 2013, we are introducing a couple of new cards – enhanced Ethernet muxponders – with more gutsy processors and optional hardware support for OTN on 10 Gigabit lines,” says Baldry.
The Ethernet demarcation unit, also known as a network interface device (NID), is a relatively small unit that resides for example at a cell site. The unit undertakes such tasks as defining an Ethernet service and performance monitoring. The box or rack mounted units have Gigabit Ethernet uplinks and interface to Transmode’s platforms.
Baldry cites the UK mobile operator, Virgin Media, which is using its platforms for mobile backhaul. Here, the Ethernet demarcation units reside at the cell sites, and at the first aggregation point the10- or 22-port GbE card is used. These Ethernet muxponder cards then feed 10GbE pipes to the 4- or 8-port 10GbE cards.
“For the first few thousand cell sites there are hundreds of these aggregation points,” says Baldry. “And those aggregation points go back to Virgin Media’s 50-odd main sites and it is at those points we put the 8x 10GbE cards.” Thus the traffic is backhauled from the edge of the network and aggregated before being handed over as a 10GbE circuit to Virgin Media’s various radio network controller (RNC) sites.
Transmode says that half of it customers use its existing native packet optical cards in their networks. Since MPLS-TP and CE2.0 are software options, these customers can embrace these features once they are required.
However, operators will only likely start deploying CE2.0-based services once Transmode’s offering becomes certified.
Further reading:
Detailed NPO2.0 application note, click here
ECI Telecom’s next-generation metro packet transport family
- The Native Packet Transport (NPT) family targets the cost-conscious metro network
- Supports Ethernet, MPLS-TP and TDM
- ECI claims a 65% lower total cost of ownership using MPLS-TP and native TDM
NPT's positioning as part of the overall network. Source: ECI Telecom
ECI Telecom has announced a product line for packet transport in the metro. The Native Packet Transport (NPT) family aims to reduce the cost of operating packet networks while supporting traditional time division multiplexing (TDM) traffic.
“Eventually, in terms of market segments, it [NPT] is going to replace the multi-service provisioning platform,” says Gil Epshtein, product market manager at ECI Telecom. “The metro is moving to packet and so it is moving to new equipment to support this shift.”
The NPT is ECI’s latest optimised multi-layer transport (OMLT) architecture, and is the feeder or aggregator platform to the optical backbone, addressed by the company's Apollo OMLT product family announced in 2011.
“The whole point of shifting to packet is to lower the [transport] cost-per-bit”
Gil Epshtein, ECI Telecom
Packet transport issues
“Building carrier-grade packet transport is proving more costly than anticipated,” says Epshtein. “Yet the whole point of shifting to packet is to lower the [transport] cost-per-bit.”
Several packet control plane schemes can be used for the metro, a network that can be divided further into the metro core and metro access/ aggregation. The two metro segments can use either IP/MPLS (Internet Protocol/ Multiprotocol Label Switching) or MPLS-TP (Multiprotocol Label Switching Transport Profile). Alternatively, the two metro segments can use different schemes: the metro core IP/MPLS and metro access MPLS-TP, or MPLS-TP for the core and Ethernet for metro access.
Based on total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis, ECI argues that the most cost-effective packet control plane scheme is MPLS-TP. “The NPT product line is based on MPLS-TP, designed to simplify and make MPLS affordable for transport networks,” says Epshtein.
Three issues contribute to the cost of building and operating packet-based transport. The first is capital expenditure (capex) – the cost of the equipment and what is needed to make the network carrier grade such as redundancy and availability.
The second is operational expenditure or opex. Factors include the training and expertise needed by the staff, and their number and salaries. In turn, issues such as network availability, equipment footprint and the power consumption requirements.
“More and more operators view opex as a key factor in their TCO considerations,” says Epshtein. Operators look at the entire network and want to know what its cost of operation will be.
A third cost factor is the existence of both TDM and packet data in the operators’ networks. “When you look at the overall TCO, you need to take this into consideration,” says Epshtein. For some operators it [TDM] is more significant but it is always there, he says.
The NPT family is being aimed at various customers. One is operators that want to extend MPLS from the core to the metro network. “Here, TDM is not a factor,” says Epshtein. “We find this in wireless backhaul, in triple-play, carriers-of-carriers and business applications.” The second class of operators is those with legacy TDM traffic. Also being targeted are utilities. “Here reliability and security are key.”
Analysis
The choice of packet control plane - whether to use IP/MPLS or MPLS-TP - impacts both capex and opex. How the TDM traffic is handled, whether using circuit emulation over packets or native TDM, also impacts overall costs.
According to ECI, the number of network elements grows some tenfold with each segment transition towards the network edge. In the network core there are 100s of network elements, 1000s in the metro core and 10,000s in the metro access. The choice of packet control plane for these network elements clearly impacts the overall cost, especially in the cost-conscious metro as the number of platforms grows. “A network element based on MPLS-TP is lower cost than IP/MPLS,” says Epshtein. “The main reason being it is a lot less complex.”
He stresses that MPLS-TP is not a competing standard to IP/MPLS; IP/MPLS is the defacto standard in the network core. Rather, MPLS-TP is a derivative designed for transport. The debate here, says Epshtein, is what is best for metro.
“The main difference between the two standards is the control plane, not the data plane,” says Epshtein. MPLS-TP removes unnecessary control plane functions supported by IP/MPLS leading to simpler metro platform functionality, and simpler management and operation of the equipment. “We believe MPLS-TP is more suited to the metro due to its simplicity, scalability and capex benefits.”
Working with market research company, ACG Research, the TCO analysis (opex and capex) over five years using MPLS-TP was 55% lower than using IP/MPLS for metro packet transport (with no TDM traffic).
The cost savings was even greater with both packet and some TDM traffic.
Using the NPT, capex goes up 5% due to the line cards needed to support native TDM traffic. But for IP/MPLS using circuit emulation capex increases 37%, resulting in the NPT having a 66% lower capex overall. The resulting opex is also 64% lower. Overall TCO is lowered by 65% using MPLS-TP and native TDM compared to IP/MPLS and circuit emulation.
NPT portfolio
ECI says its NPT supports circuit emulation and native TDM. Having circuit emulation enables the network to converge to packet only. But native TDM simplifies the interfacing to legacy networks and also has lower latency than circuit emulation.
The NPT packet switch and TDM switch fabrics and the traffic types carried over each. Source: ECI Telecom
There are five NPT platforms ranging from the NPT-1020 for metro access to the NPT-1800 for the metro core. The NPT-1020 has a 10 or 50 Gigabit packet switch capacity option and a TDM capacity of 2.5 Gigabit. The NPT-1800 has a packet switching capacity of 320 or 640 Gigabit and 120 Gigabit for TDM.
The metro aggregation NPT-1600 and 1600c (160 Gig packet/120 Gig TDM capacity) platforms are available now. The remaining platforms will be available in the first half of 2013.
ECI says it has already completed several trials with existing and new customers. "We have already won a few deals," says Epshtein.
The platforms are managed using ECI’s LightSoft software, the same network management system used for the Apollo. ECI has added software specifically for packet transport including service provisioning, performance management and troubleshooting.
Further information, click here.
ECI Telecom's Apollo mission
The privately-owned system vendor has launched Apollo, a family of what it calls optimised multi-layer transport platforms.
Event
ECI Telecom has launched a family of platforms that combines optical transmission, Ethernet and optical transport network (OTN) switching and IP routing.
The 9600 series platforms, dubbed Apollo, combines the functionality of what until now has required a packet-optical transport system (P-OTS) and a carrier Ethernet switch router (CESR).
The Apollo 9600 series architecture. Source: ECI Telecom
ECI refers to the capabilities of such a combined platform as optimised multi-layer transport (OMLT). Analysts view the platform as a natural evolution of P-OTS rather than a new category of system.
Why is it important?
ECI's Apollo 9600 series is the first to combine dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) with carrier Ethernet switch routing. It is also one of the first platforms that bring OTN switching to the metro; until now OTN switching has been confined to the network core.
Apollo addresses a shortfall of packet optical transport, namely its limited layer 2 capabilities, says ECI. This is addressed with Apollo that also adds layer 3 routing, another first.
“In the buying cycle, operators start with optical networking and add carrier Ethernet switch routing,” says Oren Marmur, head of optical networking & CESR lines of Business at ECI Telecom. Now with Apollo, operators can simplify their networks: they don't have to provision, or maintain, two separate platforms.
ECI claims the Apollo platform, with 100 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) transport and hybrid Ethernet and OTN cards, more than halves the equipment cost compared to using separate ROADM and CESR platforms. The company also says such an Apollo configuration reduces rack space by 38% and power consumption by some 60%.
What has been done
ECI has announced six Apollo platforms that span the access, metro and core networks. The platforms include the SR 9601 and OPT 9603 for metro access and the metro edge SR 9604 and OPT 9608 with four and eight input-output (I/O) cards respectively that support WDM or 100Gbps Ethernet MPLS packet switching. The final two platforms are the OPT 9624 for metro core and the OPT 9648 for regional and long haul, and both can accommodate a terabit universal switch.
Overall Apollo can support 44 or 88 light paths at 10, 40 and 100Gbps, 2-degree and multi-degree colourless, directionless and contentionless ROADMs, OTN and Ethernet switching, and IP/ MPLS and MPLS-TP. "MPLS-TP versus IP/ MPLS is almost a religious issue yet both are valid," says Marmur, who adds that at 40 Gig, ECI will use coherent and direct detection technologies but at 100 Gig it will use only coherent.
The universal fabric of the OPT 9624 and 9648 is cell based - ODUs and packets, not lower-order SONET/SDH traffic. If an operator has any significant amount of SONET/SDH traffic, ECI’s XDM platform or another aggregation box is needed.
The platforms can be configured as CESR platforms, OTN switches, optical transport platforms or combinations of the three.
Analysis
Gazettabyte asked Sterling Perrin, senior analyst at Heavy Reading; Rick Talbot, senior analyst, optical infrastructure at Current Analysis and Dana Cooperson, vice president of the network infrastructure practice at Ovum for their views about the ECI announcement.
Sterling Perrin, Heavy Reading
Apollo has several noteworthy aspects, according to Heavy Reading.
“It is a big announcement for ECI and a big announcement for the industry," says Perrin. “They are doing with the technology some fundamental things that are new.” That said, it remains to be seen how quickly operators will embrace an OMLT-style platform, he says.
Apollo confirms one networking trend - moving the OTN switching fabric into the metro network. So far OTN has been confined largely to the core network. “I know operators are interested but they are still evaluating it,” says Perrin. “But OTN will migrate down from the core to the metro.” Others that have announced such a capability include Ciena and Huawei.
ECI has also put the DWDM transport with the CESR platform. “This is another trend we figured would happen,” he says. “This puts ECI very early, if not first, in doing that function.”
Perrin has his doubts about how quickly the layer 3 functionality added to the platform will be embraced by operators: “What I've seen from the industry is that MPLS-TP will give you that functionality over time as it matures, so this sort of platform may not need the full layer 3 functions.”
The modular nature of the design that allows operators to add the functionality they need helps avoid one issue associated with integrated platforms, paying for functionality that is not needed. And there are cost savings by having a single integrated platform. “You do want to save capex and opex and this is definitely a way to get that done,” says Perrin.
In the network core, the question remains whether packet needs to be combined with the optics. “Metro lends itself more to the integration than the core does,” he says.
ECI’s biggest competitor is probably Huawei and over time also ZTE, says Perrin. ECI has done well in India and other emerging markets that many of the system vendors were ignoring. “Now they have Huawei in the mix, it is definitely tougher,” he says. “This [Apollo] announcement will definitely help them.”
Rick Talbot, Current Analysis
Current Analysis categorises the smaller members of the Apollo family as a packet-optical access (POA) portfolio, playing the same role as Ericsson’s SPO 1400 family and Cisco’s CPT series. The market research firm views the largest two Apollo platforms - the OPT 9624 and 48 - as packet-optical transport systems.
The Apollo POAs bring protocol-agnostic packet switching to the aggregation network, says Talbot, a rarity in this part of the network. Several vendors offer P-OTS with universal switching fabrics but most do not extend that architecture into the aggregation network, Tellabs with the 7100 Nano OTS being the exception. Also the 9600 series IP/ MPLS and MPLS-TP options are very strong, providing what Cisco and Ericsson call unified MPLS, he says.
For Current Analysis, the significance of the portfolio is that the Apollo family delivers converged packet and time-division multiplexing (TDM) switching in a single switch fabric, and provides an infrastructure that extends from the network core to the access network edge.
The switching fabric provides the greatest efficiency for the ultimate traffic type - packets - while simplifying the network architecture and minimising equipment cost. In turn, the breadth of the portfolio provides a common set of capabilities across an operator’s network, minimising training costs and spares inventory.
As for the specification, the wide range of MPLS features integrated into this product family, its terabit universal switch and its 100Gbps DWDM transport capabilities are impressive, says Talbot.
“The primary gap in the portfolio, and it is hard to fault ECI for this, is that the highest capacity member of the family supports ’only’ 1 Terabit-per-second of switching capacity,” he says. “This is not large enough for a Tier 1 core optical switch.”
ECI must first execute on the production of the Apollo family, but if it does, Talbot believe that ECI will capture the interest of larger and more end-to-end operators in markets they already serve.
ECI will also have positioned itself to capture the attention of many European operators and, if it makes a push there, the North American market. However Talbot believes ECI will still be challenged to capture the attention of Tier 1 operators because of the family’s limited maximum scale.
Dana Cooperson, Ovum
Size and scale breeds specialisation, says Cooperson. “Large service providers, including the Tier 1s, won’t be so interested in the OMLT, but they aren’t the target anyway,” she says. Large service providers need plenty of scale when it comes to WDM and CESR functionality, while they also tend to have compartmentalised operations groups. “So an all-in-one product like the OMLT isn’t targeted at them,” she says.
ECI has always done well selling to the Tier 2 and Tier 3 carriers as well as enterprises such as utilities that have carrier-like networks. That is because ECI's modular, packet-based platforms are sized and priced to match such operators' and enterprises’ requirements. “I see the OMLT as a continuation of ECI's positioning of its XDM platform,” she says.
Cooperson says that it can be difficult to position vendors’ switch announcements and that they should do more to explain where they sit. But she stresses that the Apollo 9600 series is very different from Juniper's PTX, for example.
“The PTX is positioned in the core as a lower-cost alternative to core routers, while the OMLT as a CESR or even an OTN switch is meant more for smaller sites,” she says. Also the switch capacities of the smaller Apollo platforms fit with ECI's focus and positioning on smaller customers and smaller sites.
Cooperson also highlights the need for the XDM platform if an operator requires SONET/SDH support but says ECI has alluded to add/drop multiplexer blades as well as packet blades. "The [Apollo] focus is on the packet and photonic bits,” says Cooperson. “ECI did emphasize that the XDM isn’t going anywhere, but we’ll see what happens over time and how much SONET/SDH ECI builds in [if any to the Apollo].”
Further Reading
For accompanying White Papers, click here
Cisco's P-OTS: Denser and distributed
Cisco claims the CPT is its second-generation packet optical transport system (P-OTS), complementing the ONS 15454. But some analysts view the CPT as the vendor’s first true packet optical transport product.
"This announcement is an acknowledgement that P-OTS equipment is important and that operators are insisting on it"
Sterling Perrin, Heavy Reading
The CPT family comprises the CPT 200 and CPT 600 platforms, while the CPT 50 port extension shelf enables the CPT products to be implemented as a distributed switch architecture.
Gazettabyte spoke to Stephen Liu, manager, service provider marketing at Cisco Systems about the announcement and asked three analysts on the significance of Cisco’s CPT, how the product family advances packet optical transport and how the platforms will benefit operators.
Carrier packet transport family
The CPT platforms are aimed at operators transitioning their metro networks from traditional SONET/SDH to packet-based transport.
Cisco says the CPT is its second-generation P-OTS. A first generation P-OTS supports dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) with some Ethernet capability. “The truly integrated P-OTS that unites the simplicity of optical delivery with packet routing is in the second generation,” says Cisco’s Liu.
Market research firm, Heavy Reading, defines P-OTS as a platform that combines SONET/SDH, connection-oriented Ethernet, DWDM and, depending on where the platform is used within the network, also optical transport network (OTN) switching and reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs). The global P-OTS market will total $870 million in 2010, says Heavy Reading.
The CPT combines DWDM, OTN, Ethernet, multi-protocol label switching – transport profile (MPLS-TP) and ROADMs. MPLS-TP is a stripped down version of the multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) protocol and is used for point-to-point communication. MPLS-TP’s ability to interoperate with IP-MPLS allows operators to combine packet-based technology with transport control in the access and aggregation part of the network, says Cisco.
So what is new with the introduction of the CPT platforms? “The ability to do high-density packet optical transport with MPLS-TP,” says Liu.
Cisco has fitted 160 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) switching capacity into the two-rack-sized CPT 200 platform and 480Gbps in the six-rack CPT 600. The respective platform port counts are 176 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 352 GbE ports, says Liu.
Cisco also stresses the functionality integrated into the dense platforms. “We have ROADMs coming together with transponders that do the electrical-to-optical conversion, and the TDM/Ethernet switching functions,” says Liu. “It takes about 30 inches of ROADM/transponder and TDM/Ethernet switching functions on separate platforms; with the CPT it is condensed into 10.5 inches of rack space.”
The result, says Liu, is a 60% operational expense (OpEx) saving in power consumption, cooling and space. Cisco also claims that unifying the management of the optical and packet transport domains will result in a 20% OpEx saving.
The CPT 50 satellite shelf complements the CPT platforms. The CPT 50 has 44 GbE ports and four 10GbE uplink ports. “The shelf can be deployed locally next to a CPT platform or up to 80km away, but from a management point-of-view it all looks like a single box,” says Liu.
The platforms do not support 40 or 100Gbps interfaces but that is part of the product roadmap, says Liu. Earlier this year, Cisco acquired 40 and 100 Gigabit transport specialist, CoreOptics. Nor will the platform family be limited to the metro. “Long-haul opportunities are certainly open to us,” says Liu.
Cisco says that the CPT platforms are being trialled and will be available from 1Q of 2011. Several large operators including Verizon, XO Communications and BT are in various stages of platform evaluation.
Analysts’ comments
Sterling Perrin, senior analyst at Heavy Reading
We believe the CPT is Cisco’s most significant optical announcement since its acquisition spree at the beginning of the decade.
Cisco has always positioned its legacy product, the ONS 15454, as packet transport but really it is a multi-service provision platform (MSPP) – or as Cisco calls it, a multi-service transport platform (MSTP) – with SONET/SDH and DWDM. We have not counted that as a P-OTS. What it is doing now is entering the [P-OTS] market.
Cisco is an IP router and Ethernet switch company and is strong on IP-over-DWDM. It has pushed that story to operators for years and while that has been happening, there has been the packet optical transport trend which has been gaining steam. Vendors have either used P-OTS for next-generation networks or have had a dual strategy of switches and routers and P-OTS. Cisco have always been in the switch-router space. This announcement is an acknowledgement that P-OTS equipment is important and that operators are insisting on it.
Cisco will be competitive with the CPT based on its newness. The density looks impressive – 480Gbps for the six-rack and 160Gbps for the two-rack platform. But this is a generational thing; in time as everyone else releases their next product, they will also have a dense platform. But for now it is a differentiator. The remote shelf is also interesting but it is unclear to what degree that will be telling with operators.
As for the operators mentioned in the Cisco press release, Verizon has already picked Fujitsu and Tellabs as the P-OTS suppliers for its metro and regional networks. The big opportunity with Verizon is in the core, and the first two CPT platforms are not for core.
Mention of BT is also interesting as the operator is in favour of the opposite approach, based on switches and routers from Alcatel-Lucent and Juniper, and has moved away from P-OTS. XO is probably the most likely operator [of the three mentioned] to adopt the platform and already uses Cisco’s ONS 15454.
The opportunity for Cisco is protecting the ONS 15454 customer base that is looking to move from MSPPs to packet optical transport.
Heavy Reading believes the standalone DWDM and MSPP markets are declining, but will remain large markets for the next two years. Accordingly, it makes sense for Cisco to continue supporting the legacy product line.
Eve Griliches, managing partner, ACG Research
The CPT is more along the lines of a purpose built P-OTS than some variations that have came to market. It has all the requirements a P-OTS should have including a hybrid switch fabric that supports packet and OTN. I suspect the packet functionality is very good, and possibly better than other transport carriers have delivered, but the operators are still testing and they will speak soon. I do know that operators I've spoken with are already very impressed with what they’ve seen.
"Operators I've spoken with are already very impressed with what they’ve seen"
Eve Griliches, ACG Research
In terms of how the CPT will benefit operators, the CPT is a metro aggregation P-OTS box, and it will have to compete with Tellabs and Fujitsu who have been shipping equipment for the metro for two years. But Cisco will likely bring better packet functionality, which is what operators have been waiting for.
Rick Talbot, senior analyst, transport and routing infrastructure, Current Analysis
Cisco is introducing a product into a space recently defined by other vendors – packet-based access/ aggregation devices for backhaul, currently mobile backhaul. Example devices are the Alcatel-Lucent 1850 TSS-100, ECI Telecom’s BG-64 and the Ericsson OMS 1410.
"The CPT will likely blur the line between metro P-OTS and packet-based access/ aggregation devices"
Rick Talbot, Current Analysis
CPT brings quite a significant advantage in port density and packet-switching capacity. The CPT 200’s 160Gbps capacity is twice that of the OMS 1410, the current leader in that category. The CPT 600 boasts the capacity of a full metro P-OTS in a chassis the size of a small MSPP. From Cisco’s perspective, the CPT product line is not about introducing a new access/ aggregation device but extending the metro architecture closer to cell towers and end-users.
The CPT will likely blur the line between metro P-OTS and packet-based access/ aggregation devices. It has a modest size and power consumption. It also extends MPLS, in the form of MPLS-TP, to the very edge of the operator’s network, enabling a single end-to-end packet-forwarding method.
The high capacity and low-power consumption of the CPT will, of course, save operators OpEx and CapEx. In addition, the platform extends a single connection-oriented management view to the end-user site, minimising management expense.
The flexibility of the platform will further benefit the operator if and when the operator deploys cache content storage at the network edge. But such deployment of servers beyond the central office remains to be seen.
Related links:
See also Intune Networks' packet optical transport platform