Huawei — at the Next Generation Optical Networking (NGON) 2017 — has released its mesh backbone network solution to enable operators to deliver high bandwidth, meeting demands of enterprises, Internet content providers and cloud services.
Huawei said its mesh backbone network solution features all-optical switching, full mesh, and one-hop service transmission. The solution uses the industry’s first commercial Optical Cross-Connect and Optical Transport Network (OXC+OTN) cluster devices to re-construct Data Center (DC) centric backbone networks.
The latest mesh backbone network solution from Huawei provides wavelength/sub-wavelength connections between DCs for one-hop transmission, ensuring low latency and ultra-large bandwidth between any two DCs.
Huawei also demonstrated innovative dynamic grooming of optical wavelengths and cross-connections through OXC, as well as OTN cluster, high-integration and multi-functional service boards.
Due to development of Internet and cloud services, traffic between DCs is expected to grow by 50 percent over the next few years. Inter-DC traffic will become the main type of traffic on transport backbone networks.
Operators need DC-centric networks that enable mesh interconnectivity between network nodes and one-hop service transmission because present backbone networks are designed for traditional telecom services.
Huawei said it has developed the OXC+OTN cluster mesh backbone network solution to reconstruct operators’ transport backbone networks for the cloud era. The OXC+OTN cluster mesh backbone network architecture enables one-hop transmission between any two cities, minimizing the latency for DC interconnections.
Huawei said OXC, using wavelength-level switching and Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) technologies, provides 320T to 640T cross-connect capacity and supports wavelength grooming in up to 32 optical directions with power consumption of hundreds of Watts.
The introduction of optical backplanes addresses the issues of complicated fiber connections within traditional Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers (ROADM). Optical backplanes simplify fiber connections, reduce connection losses, and improve system reliability.
The OTN solves the access and grooming requirements of small-granularity services that are at the sub-wavelength level. The cluster technology achieves non-blocking cross-connections between OTN subracks and provides resource pools for transmission channels, enabling continuous smooth expansion of channel resources between DCs.
“One of the challenges created by all-optical solutions, including current ROADM technology, is the complexity of fiber connections. The optical backplane (of OXC) simplifies fiber connections within the system, which reduces the possibility of fiber errors,” Don Frey, principal analyst at Ovum, said.
Ovum’s Don Frey said digital optical monitoring will enable control and wavelength management, promising a more elegant fiber management approach. The OTN cluster allows carriers to offer more flexible services to Cloud CSPs and enterprises.
Meanwhile, the fiber optics market is expected to reach $9.12 billion by 2025, according to Grand View Research. Leading fiber optics companies are Corning, Optical Cable Corporation and Sterlite Technologies.
