OFC 2014 product round-up - Final part

Part 2: Client-side technologies

The industry is moving at a clip to fill the void in 100 Gig IEEE standards for 100m to 2km links. Until now, the IEEE 10km 100GBASE-LR4 and the 10x10 MSA have been the interfaces used to address such spans.

But responding to data centre operators, optical players are busy developing less costly, mid-reach MSAs, as was evident at the OFC exhibition and conference, held in San Francisco in March. 

Meanwhile, existing IEEE 100 Gigabit standards are skipping to the most compact CFP4 and QSFP28 form factors. The -LR4 standard was first announced in a CFP in 2010, and moved to the CFP2, half the size of the CFP, in 2013. Now, several companies have detailed CFP4 -LR4 products, while Source Photonics has gone one better, announcing the standard in a QSFP28.

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Industry in a flurry of mid-reach MSA announcements

Another day, another multi-source agreement.

The CLR4 Alliance is the latest 100 Gig multi-source agreement (MSA) to address up-to-2km links in the data centre. The 100 Gig CLR4 Alliance is backed by around 20 companies including data centre operators, equipment vendors, optical module and component players and chip makers.

The table provides a summary of the latest MSAs and how they relate to the IEEE 100 Gigabit client interface standards. Source: Gazettabyte.

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OFC 2014 industry reflections - Part 2

Ciena and Ovum comment on the noteworthy developments and trends following the recent OFC 2014 exhibition and conference. 

The high cost of 100 Gigabit Ethernet client modules has been a major disappointment to me as it has slowed adoption

Joe Berthold, Ciena

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OFC 2014 industry reflections - Part 1

Gazettabyte is asking industry figures for their thoughts following the recent OFC 2014 exhibition and conference: the noteworthy developments and trends, what they learnt at the show, and the topics to track in the coming year.  

T.J. Xia, distinguished member of technical staff at Verizon

The CFP2 form factor pluggable - analogue coherent optics (CFP2-ACO) at 100 and 200 Gig will become the main choice for metro core networks in the near future. 

I learnt that the discrete multitone (DMT) modulation format seems the right choice for a low-cost, single-wavelength direct-detection 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE)  interface for data ports, and a 4xDMT for 400GbE ports. 

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OFC 2014 product round-up - Part 1

Part 1: Line-side technologies

 

Technologies for 100 Gigabit were prominent at this year's OFC conference and exhibition held in San Francisco earlier this month.

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Ciena uses software to dip into the photonic layer

Ciena has enhanced its control plane and line elements to enable software to control the optical networking layer. The additions are part of Ciena's OPn network architecture evolution to enable greater visibility and automation. "It is about putting software into a system to allow you to program the photonic line," says Michael Adams, vice president of product & technology marketing at Ciena.

"For an SDN controller to control a photonic line, we need to present it as a programmable layer. The infrastructure is now there to be programmed."

Michael Adams, Ciena

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Acacia uses silicon photonics for its 100G coherent CFP

Acacia Communications has revealed the innards of its 100 Gig coherent pluggable module for metro networks. The AC-100 CFP combines a low-power DSP-ASIC with a silicon-photonics-based optics chip. The CFP's reach is 80km to 1,200km, and its power consumption is 24-26W, well within the pluggable's maximum power profile of 32W.

The power consumption of the AC-100 CFP, and its main components, and the target power consumptions of the components needed for a digital CFP2. Source: Gazettabyte

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