Transcript TEN-155: Europe moves into the fast lane II

SERENATE WP3
Equipment Study
Valentino Cavalli, TERENA
slides from Roberto Sabatino, DANTE
WP3 (Equipment) Mission
• A study of into the availability and characteristics
of equipment for next-generation networks
• More specifically, to look at developments of
routing, switching and transmission equipment
over the next 2-5 years
• Efforts concentrated on addressing:
• higher capacities (i.e. 40+Gbps)
• optical technology for switching and transmission
• developments in network management and the control
plane
• impact on network architectures
Work Plan
• Bi-lateral meetings with 11 equipment vendors
and 2 university research labs during November
and December 2002
• Equipment vendors:
• Alcatel, Calient, Ciena, Cisco, Corvis, Juniper, Lucent,
Nortel, Photonex, Tellium, Wavium*
• e.g. cross-section of players from the well established to
the newly started-up
• University research labs:
• University of Essex (Prof Mike O’Mahoney)
• University of Ghent (Prof Piet Demeester)
• Attempted to contact a number of other vendors
who either did not respond or declined to take
part
Questionnaire
• A confidential questionnaire was developed to:
• set the context of the bi-lateral meetings for the vendors
(questionnaire was sent to them in advance)
• provide some guidance for discussion during the
meetings
• Questionnaire addressed the following broad
topics:
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40+Gbps capabilities (drivers & technical difficulties)
Device scalability
New control plane paradigms
switching and transmission developments
The Team
• DANTE (leader)
• TERENA
• NREN Consultants from:
• CESNET
• PSNC
• HEANet
Routing developments
• Scalable to terabits, in multi-chassis platforms
• require experts for installation?
• 40Gbps backplane support and slot capability
exists today
• 40Gbps interface capability “planned”, but not yet
available
• SONET/SDH framing
• coloured interfaces ?
• Maybe but proprietary solutions
Router functionality
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Differentiated Classes of Service
multicast
ipv6
MPLS-based VPNs
G-MPLS
• following standards, expected improved
interoperability
• interdomain functionality still questionable
Switching developments
• Optical Cross Connects (OXC)
• Essentially digital cross connects with optical interfaces
• Also called O-E-O switches
• Photonic Cross Connects (PXC)
• Devices that work entirely in the optical domain
• Also called O-O-O switches
OXCs
• Scale to hundreds of Gbps, using advanced
ASICs
• bandwidth grooming performed with proprietary
techniques (not interoperable!)
• GMPLS developments: implementations still have
proprietary features, although some
interoperability demonstrated
• Colour DWDM interfaces: some proprietary
examples
• Will only work with same vendor’s transmission
equipment
PXCs
• All the rage a few years ago
• Now all but a few vendors have either moth-balled
their products or gone out of business
• Can save on O-E-O conversions hence:
• footprint
• power consumption
• cost
• Bit rate, protocol & wavelength independence
• Scale up to tens of Tbps switching capacity
• Earliest envisaged use (of smaller products) as
“remotely manageable optical patch panel”
PXC difficulties
• re-routing of wavelengths leads to optical
channels in different route length: amplification
and dispersion control difficult
• QoS hard to control
• Need external TDM devices for BW grooming
• interoperability
Transmission equipment
• Capabilities of current state-of-the-art DWDM
transmission equipment far exceeds BW needs
for the next few years
• Little vendor interoperability amongst
transmission components nor is this likely to
happen
• nature of systems is proprietary and analogue
• only “standards” are ITU grid wavelength specs
• may be possible to mix & match for low capability
systems (CWDM, lower bit rates e.g. 2.5Gbps)
• Every DWDM link is bespoke:
• No “off the shelf” deployments
Reach
• Very complex equation. Depends on:
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fibre type (G.652, G655….)
capacity of each wavelength
number of wavelengths
amplification technology used
transmission technology used
FEC
Reach with Nothing In Line (NIL)
• Using pre and post amplification
• up to 280km at 2.5Gbps (Cesnet experience)
using RAMAN
• using cheaper equipment (1GE, EDFA amplifier)
result was 189km
• 350km demonstrated
LH and ULH systems
• LH (to 1,500km) and ULH (to 4,000 km) require
amplification at each span (40-100km)
• larger spans if less wavelengths (200km) at
10Gbps
• RAMAN
• FEC
• 40Gbps can reach 1,000+km with 80km spans
• RAMAN
• dispersion compensation at receiver
• PMD mitigators (depending on fibre)
Some conclusions
• 40Gbps: first in LH? Some say metro-area…..
• depends where economics work in its favour
• common view is that main driver will be router interface
cards
• still more than 4x cost of 10Gbps…
• 80Gbps, 160Gbps technically possible, but in
labs. (600Gbps has been demonstrated)
Network architectures
• New set of requirements for research networks:
• traditional users at large
• relatively limited number of users with requirements for
limited coverage but very high capacity
• accessibility of “cheap” wavelengths in some
parts of Europe
• developments of transmission technology
• in some cases NRENS can “do better without carriers”
Network Options
• Traditional IP (layer-3) only
• mixed layer-2 + layer-3, with OXCs (or PXCs)
• Owned fibre network
• a mix of all
Network Management and control
• Different network architecture means NRENS will
manage new network elements
• Use traditional telco-style management systems
as well as SNMP-based ones
• Integration of two needs work!
• G-MPLS has potential for integrated control, but
interoperability and implementations conformant
to standards not there yet