CIENA Q&A HELEN XENOS
an operational perspective to offer multi-layer operational simplicity to manage these IP optical converged networks. So, in 2023 we can expect to see a movement from an evaluation stage to more of a deployment stage for service providers into these new converged IP optical architectures. PD Going back to the movement towards coherent at the edge, is that being largely driven by things like 5G and IoT, or is it more like FTTx?
similar inflection point. This is a big point of debate right now because it’s going to change who the suppliers are, and which technology will be used. It’s a big shift and I would say it’s not a question of if right now, but when. As switches and routers are upgraded to the next Ethernet rates where they need to support 800 Gig over 10 kilometres, 1.6 terabit rates, how are you going to achieve these speeds? This is where we’re running against challenges of the laws of physics, where the IMDD technology can no longer give you the capacity and reach that is required. There are now IMDD solutions to handle some of these new, more stringent and challenging technical requirements, but while they are becoming more complex and have similar power dissipation as coherent solutions, they don’t provide the benefits of linear impairment mitigation that coherent technology provides. This is why the debate is happening right now about which technology makes sense. And it’s happening in both IEEE and OIF.
always using the latest in technology and innovation so much, is that as bandwidth grows and increasing levels of capacity are deployed each year, quickly adopting new technology provides a bigger impact on sustainability goals. If you can deploy more capacity and do that more efficiently, it gives you a bigger bang at the end of the day and helps reduce your energy consumption, which also impacts your cooling, space and leasing costs for renting space, if that’s a factor. There’s a lot of implications there.
It’s driven mostly by operators moving to integrate separate access layers into a converged
HX
It seems that almost every week, plans for a new trans- national submarine route is
PD
network, handling mobile, enterprise and residential, all on one network. It’s also driven by cloud moving towards the edge and people building data centres closer to the edge of the network. This requires higher bandwidth connectivity at the edge, instead of traditionally going from the access into the metro and then to a centralised data centre. Networks are becoming more distributed with more cloud on and off ramps needed at different areas in the network, and in particular, closer to the edge of the network. Enterprise connectivity to the cloud is also a big driver. Businesses are realising that in an environment where an increasing number of people are working from home and need to have access to their business applications from any location, they need to migrate a lot of their applications into the cloud as well. The whole digital transformation is causing this move.
announced. That’s an area Ciena must be looking at closely with a product like GeoMesh Extreme.
Yes, absolutely. Submarine cables enable global connectivity which is why many
HX
are being built. Many are owned by hyperscalers who are supporting all the global connectivity they need for the content and cloud connectivity they’re offering to their customers. What WaveLogic 5 Extreme allows you to do is provide 400 Gig across 10,000 kilometres of submarine cable, so it’s quite significant, something we never thought possible a few years ago. It’s an exciting industry that we are working in and as we move forward more exciting things will come. Certainly, coherent technology has been used for long haul and submarine and that’s where its strength really shines.
Will it be a case of rip and replace existing technology or providing a migration path to
PD
coherent?
One of the reasons why WaveLogic 5 Extreme has been so successful is that our
HX
customers are able to deploy it over their existing photonic line systems, on existing shelves. Now, instead of using up one slot in the shelf for 400 Gig, they can use the same slot for 800 Gig and so it’s very easy to deploy. Indeed, ease of deployment and ease of operation are very important features because things are so complicated with so many technology choices, multi- vendor networks, so much demand coming from different areas and different sources right now, things need to be easy. This will also impact deployment of coherent optic solutions and routers when moving to a converged IP optical architecture. 2022 was the year where the technology was essentially at the evaluation stage, and while the space and power benefits are very real and compelling, customers are asking how they can manage it, how can they deploy it? Can they deploy this over existing photonic line systems? Moving forward, new types of coherent pluggables are becoming available that allow customers to more easily deploy them over existing brownfield networks, and there’s a lot of new developments happening from
Thank you.
PD
Do you see coherent technology becoming ubiquitous?
PD
Yes, coherent technology is beginning to move more towards the edge of the network
HX
with lower power and at lower costs. Something else that’s also exciting in 2023 is the big industry debate about which technology is going to win inside the data centre for the next Ethernet rates. It’s the debate between coherent technology and IMDD (Intensity Modulation Direct Detection), which has been the traditional technology of choice to date. This is kind of reminiscent because we had the coherent technology revolution in the WAN some 15 years ago, and now the need for higher capacities and speeds within the data centres are running up against the same laws of physics that we saw in the WAN, which will lead to a
Helen Xenos Senior Director, Portfolio Marketing, Ciena
23
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INDUSTRY FOCUS 2022/2023
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