Infinera is expanding its DTN-X family with new platforms to power cloud scale subsea networks, where bandwidth demand is rapidly rising due to Internet content providers who are moving content around the globe between data centers. This traffic is dominated by N x 100 Gbps elephant flows. Infinera said subsea operators need to maximize the fiber capacity of their cable plants and simultaneously optimize their networks to efficiently handle these 100 Gbps flows and support smooth scale-out of capacity.
Infinera introduced the XTS-3300 and XTS-3600 meshponders for subsea networks, and upgraded its DTN-X XTC Series to 12 Tbps of non-blocking Optical Transport Network (OTN) switching with a new 1.2 Tbs subsea line card. The solution features dynamic spectral sharing and access to real-time subsea link performance. Some highlights:
- DTN-X XTS-3300 and XTS-3600 meshponders. The compact 1 rack unit (1RU) and 4RU plug-and-play subsea platforms integrate Infinera’s new Infinite Capacity Engine with the Advanced Coherent Toolkit (ACT) for enhanced capacity and reach. The industry’s first meshponders combine 2.4 Tbps super-channels with sliceable photonics and in-flight line-rate Layer 1 encryption in a compact and lower-power form factor. They support Infinera’s unique Instant Bandwidth capability, providing rapid bandwidth management and service provisioning for success-based growth. The XTS Series features long-reach subsea-optimized modulation formats providing best-in-class capacity, as well as the industry’s first commercially available Nyquist subcarriers to improve transmission performance and soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) gain sharing to maximize capacity. The new platforms seamlessly interoperate with Infinera’s DTN-X XTC and XT Series, providing a unified end-to-end Intelligent Transport Network portfolio that enables end-to-end services covering subsea, long-haul, metro and data center interconnect applications.
- DTN-X XTC Series upgrade. The Infinera DTN-X XTC-4 and XTC-10 have been upgraded with subsea-optimized and Instant Bandwidth-enabled 1.2 Tbps line modules. The XTC-4 and XTC-10 platforms now have more than twice the switching and transmission capacity, enabling up to 12 Tbps of OTN switching via non-disruptive in-service upgrades. The new line modules coexist with previously deployed modules, thereby protecting prior investments in DTN-X platforms. The DTN-X XTC Series now offers up to 12 Tb/s of non-blocking switching capacity with ODU0-level switching granularity in a single unit, and unlike competitive systems, has no tradeoffs between client-side tributary capacity and line-side capacity.
- New subsea software tools for open systems. Dynamic spectral sharing enhances Infinera’s open architecture, allowing subsea operators to partition and monetize valuable fiber spectrum so that it can be securely shared with multiple tenants, independent of both cable and submarine line terminal equipment suppliers. Mission-critical subsea link performance data is available in real time, on-demand, via open software-defined network application programming interfaces. This enables subsea operators to monitor transmission health as well as identify opportunities for capacity adjustments. In addition to these new tools, Infinera’s Time-based Instant Bandwidth enables operators to instantly change network capacity as well as duration, facilitating a dynamic Intelligent Transport Network. Now operators can closely match traffic patterns to address bursty service demands from customers, match bandwidth to revenue, and instantly reroute bandwidth in the case of network disruptions.
Infinera is also expanding the capabilities of its Advanced Coherent Toolkit, which increases capacity and reach on submarine cables to include Nyquist subcarriers and SD-FEC gain sharing, 3QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation), matrix-enhanced phase-shift keying (ME-PSK) that surpasses binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) reach performance, and a new, high-gain SD-FEC algorithm.
Infinera has validated the benefit of Nyquist subcarriers in customer trials demonstrating approximately 20 percent increase in reach compared to single carrier transmission, facilitating increased capacity via higher spectral efficiency. The trials also validated SD-FEC gain sharing in which high-margin carriers share excess margin with carriers at lower optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) to improve performance, increasing capacity. These new capabilities are controlled by Infinera’s Xceed Software Suite and managed by Infinera’s Digital Network Administrator (DNA).
The XTS-3300 platform is planned for availability in the second quarter of 2017, with the XTS-3600 platform and the 1.2 Tb/s subsea line module for the XTC-4 and XTC-10 platforms to follow shortly thereafter.
“Infinera is committed to bringing advanced features to the subsea market. The XTS Series offers unprecedented ease of installation and scale-out, advanced transmission performance, and the power of Instant Bandwidth to deliver real value to cable system operators,” said Scott Jackson, Vice President of Subsea Business Group at Infinera. “The new capabilities announced today deliver leading capacity and reach, and provide the tools essential for cloud scale subsea networks. We are pleased to show Infinera’s investment in the subsea market, with solutions enabling operators to rapidly and cost-effectively deliver scalable services across open networks.”
https://www.infinera.com/subsea-networks-to-cloud-scale-with-new-dtn-x-platforms/