Ciena announced significant additions to its portfolio, including two new chipsets to power its next-gen optical transport systems, along with a new 100G photonic architecture. These innovations are aimed at solving the web-scale dynamics caused by cloud computing, network virtualization and openess.
The two new Ciena WaveLogic 3 coherent optical chipsets, the WaveLogic 3 Extreme and WaveLogic 3 Nano, are designed for the massive bandwidth requirements of web-scale networks.
WaveLogic 3 Extreme — a new coherent optical chipset that incorporates four programmable coherent modulation formats: QPSK, BPSK second generation 16QAM coherent modulation for high-bandwidth metro/regional applications, and a new patent-pending 8D-2QAM modulation for extreme long distance submarine applications. 16QAM enables 200G wavelengths in the same amount of spectrum as current 100G links (50GHz). The new 8D-2QAM modulation format enables enhanced 100G performance. When combined with flexible grid technology, capacity increases of 85% have been realized on trans-Pacific links when compared to today’s BPSK modulation format. The WaveLogic 3 Extreme is currently available and has already been deployed in a regional scenario with Verizon and in multiple submarine scenarios announced last month.
WaveLogic 3 Nano — the next generation of Ciena’s WaveLogic 3 technology for metro and data center applications. WaveLogic 3 Nano targets 100G metro density by reducing the footprint and power consumption of the coherent 100G design. Innovations include shrinking the electro-optics to enable lower power consumption, taking advantage of new ASIC integration technologies, and tailoring the chipset’s chromatic dispersion compensation characteristics for metro distances. The new WaveLogic 3 Nano chipset is being implemented across Ciena’s portfolio of converged packet-optical and packet networking products, including the 6500 and 5430 converged packet optical platforms. It doubles capacity of metro and regional networks and combined with Flexible Grid technology has enabled up to 85% greater capacity in submarine networks.
Coherent Select photonic architecture — a flexible metro architecture for high-capacity user-to-content connectivity. By combining software with the native receiver tunability of WaveLogic chipsets, Coherent Select enables service providers to cost-effectively bring 100G closer to the metro. Ciena sees this as a third alternative next to passive fixed optical filters or ROADM architecture. Ciena’s Coherent Select consists of a wavelength broadcast and select architecture which leverages WaveLogic coherent receivers to tune to the frequency (wavelength) of interest. Ciena said this also retains much of the operational benefits associated with ROADMs, including automatic real-time power balancing, full photonic topology visualization, and remote wavelength reconfiguration with colorless, directionless and flexible grid capabilities.
In addition, Ciena expanded its Packet Portfolio with the additions of the 3904 and 3905 Service Delivery Switches aimed at both indoor and outdoor small cell mobile backhaul. The 3905 is an environmentally hardened Ethernet platform for that can be deployed in a variety of mounting options. The 3905, as well as its indoor variant 3904, is purpose-built to provide next-gen Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) connectivity from the small cell to the macro tower or Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO). Both feature an advanced Ethernet control plane, sophisticated VLAN encapsulation and tagging, hierarchical QoS for strict SLAs, carrier-grade Ethernet OAM capabilities, flexible power options including Power over Ethernet Plus, WiFi console port, automated and error-free Zero Touch Provisioning, and MEF Carrier Ethernet 2.0 compliance.
“Networks are now facing the realities of the ‘web-scale effect.’ Cloud services, on-demand networking and virtualization are becoming more ubiquitous and businesses expect connect, compute and storage services to be available 24/7. With Ciena’s new coherent chipsets, metro architecture and backhaul solutions, our customers can arm their networks with the bandwidth, efficiency and agility that is required in today’s web-scale world,” stated Steve Alexander, Senior Vice President and CTO, Ciena.
