CALIENT Technologies’ S320 optical circuit switch (OCS) will play a key connectivity role in SCinet, the “world’s fastest network” at next week’s SC18 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking and Storage in Dallas.
The 320-port S320 OCS will be used to create an optical overlay network connecting core routers from Juniper and Cisco with optical transport systems from Juniper, Ciena and Infinera, using 100GbE connections.
Any connection from the core routers can be switched to any port on the optical transport systems without re-fibering. With support for up to 400GbE and less than 30ns of latency per port, the use of the S320 adds significant connectivity flexibility without impacting network throughput or latency.
Network test equipment from Spirent, Ixia, Viavi, and Exfo was also connected to the S320 to create a fiber-once test infrastructure, allowing network operators to remotely and dynamically switch a test set to any router or optical transport system port when needed. Network engineers made use of this flexibility to configure and test network connections during set up and it will also be used to assist with troubleshooting equipment and optical links while the network is operational.
“Working with SCinet puts CALIENT front and center with the biggest vendors in the industry in one of the highest-bandwidth data center and wide area networks in the industry,” said David Altstaetter, CALIENT Vice President of Product Marketing. “By adopting the S320 for remote network testing and configuration, SCinet is demonstrating a best practice that many service providers and data centers are advocating.”
Calient doubles capacity of its MEMS-base fiber-optic cross connect
CALIENT Technologies introduced its Edge|640 Optical Circuit Switch (OCS) with 640 fiber-optic cross connections – up to twice the capacity of its current S320 OCS product.
CALIENT uses 3D microelectrical machine (MEMS) optical mirror technology to create protocol agnostic optical connections between ports at speeds up to 400 Gbps. The all-optical nature of the switch results in very low latency connections. The switch features built-in optical signal power monitoring on each link and features low power consumption of 90 Watts typical.
CALIENT said its new Edge|640 is organized into two switching groups of 320 ports each. Devices connected to a switch port on one of the switch groups can be connected to a device on any of the ports in the other switch group. This connectivity is ideal for “wire-once” network applications or for testing applications where devices under test need access to a range of test systems.
“Network virtualization and software-defined networking (SDN) are driving demand for fully automated networks on a massive scale, and the Edge|640 supports this trend through its high port density and very low latency connectivity,” said David Altstaetter, CALIENT Vice President of Product Line Management. “Some of the largest networks in the world trust CALIENT Optical Circuit Switch technology. The proven nature of technology sets the stage for the Edge|640 to be used in very high-density mission-critical applications.”
