KRISHNASWAMY WHITEBOXES
T here are two common themes emerging from telecom service providers and internet content providers: the imperative for 1) accelerating innovation cycles, and 2) enabling greater flexibility in deploying networking infrastructure as and when needed. These have been the primary motivations for the pursuit of disaggregated whitebox switches and servers inside the data center, and they remain the primary motivation for the pursuit of disaggregated solutions outside the data center, even within the optical layer. The challenges of disaggregating an inherently analog technology will necessarily limit early application use cases to the less complex portions of the network, namely high-capacity point- to-point interconnect (DCI) and metro/ edge mesh nodes interconnected by short spans. Even within such applications, the performance expectations from the optical layer only continue to go up, with 16QAM and TrueFlex® Colorless Directionless and Contentionless Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers (ROADMs) already field-deployed. So in the context of the optical layer, disaggregation and whitebox approaches are less about commoditizing hardware and more about enabling agility and flexibility in deploying and utilizing what is and will continue to be a high-end asset for network operators. Additionally, Lumentum envisions broad adoption of whiteboxes to enable greater e ciencies in the development and introduction of WDM line systems, which in turn will accelerate investments into core optical technologies (wavelength switches, amplification, monitoring and diagnostics) that are featured within those whiteboxes, enabling even more innovative WDM line systems to keep pace with the evolution of coherent transponders and direct-detect transceivers. Disaggregation
Optical whiteboxes in pursuit of
disaggregated open networks
The main trends coming from service providers and content providers are the imperative for accelerating innovation cycles, and achieving greater flexibility in deploying networking infrastructures.
MADHU KRISHNASWAMY
and technology providers that aim to reimagine the traditional approach to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure. ● Open ROADM: The Open ROADM Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) defines interoperability specifications for ROADM. Included are the ROADM switch as well as transponders and pluggable optics. Specifications consist of both Optical interoperability as well as YANG data models. ● ONOS: The Open Network Operating System (ONOS) is a software defined networking (SDN) OS for service providers that has scalability, high availability, high performance and abstractions to make it easy to create apps and services. The platform is based on a solid architecture and has quickly matured to be feature rich and production ready. The community has grown to include over 50 partners and collaborators that contribute to all aspects of the project including interesting use cases such as CORD. Within these consortia, active participation of representatives from across the optical networking value chain will be critical in framing the use cases where disaggregation can work and ensuring robust interoperability. To this end, Lumentum has been and intends to continue being a direct or indirect participant as appropriate and contribute meaningfully to the dialogue and the attempt to make networking systems more open.
thus has the potential for clarifying and benefiting the entire value chain within a complex ecosystem. OPEN NETWORK BENEFITS Several consortia have been established across the industry promoting interoperability and openness. These include: ● Telecom Infra Project: The Telecom Infra Project (TIP) is an engineering- focused initiative driven by operators, infrastructure providers, system integrators,
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• Moderate networking complexity (Metro/Edge) • Agility and flexibility of deployment very important • Close coupling between hardware and software, but less emphasis on control plan co-ordination • Hardware di erentiation depends on application specific complexity
• Moderate/low networking complexity (Pt-to-Pt) • Agility and flexibility of deployment and maximum importance • Individual NEs as object models • Hardware di erentiation depends on application-specific complexity
• Highest netwworking complexity (LH, P-OTP) • Tight coupling between hardware, software, and control plane to maximise optical performance • Broad scope for hardware di erentiation
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| ISSUE 7 | Q3 2016
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