DANTE, the organization that manages the GÉANT pan-European research and education network, announced a milestone in the rapid provisioning of bandwidth capacity on a live network.
Infinera and DANTE were able to install and activate 2 Terabits per second (Tbps) of long haul super-channel optical capacity and provision a 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) service over the GÉANT production network all in less than 12 minutes from plugging in the first line card.
Infinera reports that the demonstration was carried out using production DTN-X platforms and deployed on the GÉANT backbone. The demonstration used a long distance link from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, a distance of 671km, including 10 fiber spans. First the 2 Tbps of line side capacity was activated and then the 100 GbE service was deployed as part of the test to show that the capacity was immediately available for service. We believe that rapid delivery of capacity and service is a key advantage of Infinera solutions and allows carriers to respond to customers’ rapidly changing demands.
The trial involved lighting up four 500Gb/s super-channels, and then provisioning a 100GbE service across the link.
“When Infinera was involved in the procurement process for the GÉANT backbone they made a number of claims about their ability to turn up long haul capacity very rapidly, and we decided to put those claims to the test,” said Michael Enrico, CTO of DANTE. “The fact is that critical science experiments across Europe are generating immense quantities of data that are often difficult to fit into a forecasting process, so this ability to turn up, or redirect long haul capacity in a matter of minutes will help us transform the service we offer to our National Research and Education Network partners.”
