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Aloha to optical Ethernet
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INET required WDM for its flexibility and bandwidth capacity as it extends its network to outlying areas. SONET proved unwieldy for handling increasing loads of data traffic from Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet switches at the INET's three users. "[WDM] simplifies things for us," says David Lassner, technology director at the University of Hawaii. "We didn't have to perform a complete forklift of our current platform. If we were replacing the SONET completely, we would have also had to change out all our [customer premises equipment] at all sites. This way we can do it gradually." The INET backbone is made up of two physical rings. The rings are tied together at the Hawaii Community College campus using a Fujitsu SONET switch and a Cisco Layer 3 switch. INET considered upgrading this network OC-48 SONET to handle increasing traffic loads, but that would involve replacing the SONET add-drop multiplexers at each site. Also, the three users of the SONET ring had different bandwidth requirements. Independently allocating, regulating and expanding the network capacity would be difficult in the shared SONET ring because all three users would have to agree on any change. In addition, each user had different voice and data requirements ranging from T-1 to 10/100M bit/sec and Gigabit Ethernet. While T-1 service is easily mapped into SONET, the various data services would require SONET framing and the inherent overhead and bandwidth inefficiencies. INET decided to keep the existing OC-12 SONET network in place, carrying traffic using the 1,310-nm wavelength. Ethernet would be multiplexed natively onto the ring at various International Telecommunication Union 1,500-nm wavelengths, essentially creating multiple virtual networks over one pair of fiber. At the backbone location, the individual International Telecom Union wavelengths are wave division multiplexed together, and this signal and the 1300-nm wavelength from the collocated SONET switch are combined into a single fiber output. The WDM in INET's new optical Ethernet network is key, Lassner says. "If we were to implement Ethernet directly at the optical layer without WDM technology, we could only have one carrier," he says. "This would give us substantially less capacity and would also make network management among three independent users much more complex, perhaps even unworkable." A wholesale change-out of the SONET infrastructure would also be unworkable. INET is keeping SONET around for now to limit the scope of its upgrade project and take advantage of SONET's 50-millisecond path recovery, which optical Ethernet cannot yet match. As a result, optical Ethernet will "underlay" INET's existing SONET infrastructure, he says. The smaller scale of the INET project is just about the right size for the LuxN product, says Ronald Kline, senior analyst at RHK. "Private networks don't have to worry about [large-scale] integration or sharing," Kline says.
Hawaii opts for optical Ethernet net
 
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The state of Hawaii is deploying an optical Ethernet network to support increasing amounts of bursty data traffic and cap its investment in SONET.
Hawaii's Institutional Network (INET), which connects the state government, Department of Education, and the University of Hawaii and its community colleges, is in the early stages of implementing LuxN's WavSystem wave division multiplexing (WDM) platform to augment an OC-12 SONET ring. The multimillion-dollar installation will be completed in 60 days with a WavSystem in 25 sites.Aloha to optical Ethernet
Sign up for our "View from The Edge" newsletter to keep up with all of the news from The Edge.
INET required WDM for its flexibility and bandwidth capacity as it extends its network to outlying areas. SONET proved unwieldy for handling increasing loads of data traffic from Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet switches at the INET's three users. "[WDM] simplifies things for us," says David Lassner, technology director at the University of Hawaii. "We didn't have to perform a complete forklift of our current platform. If we were replacing the SONET completely, we would have also had to change out all our [customer premises equipment] at all sites. This way we can do it gradually." The INET backbone is made up of two physical rings. The rings are tied together at the Hawaii Community College campus using a Fujitsu SONET switch and a Cisco Layer 3 switch. INET considered upgrading this network OC-48 SONET to handle increasing traffic loads, but that would involve replacing the SONET add-drop multiplexers at each site. Also, the three users of the SONET ring had different bandwidth requirements. Independently allocating, regulating and expanding the network capacity would be difficult in the shared SONET ring because all three users would have to agree on any change. In addition, each user had different voice and data requirements ranging from T-1 to 10/100M bit/sec and Gigabit Ethernet. While T-1 service is easily mapped into SONET, the various data services would require SONET framing and the inherent overhead and bandwidth inefficiencies. INET decided to keep the existing OC-12 SONET network in place, carrying traffic using the 1,310-nm wavelength. Ethernet would be multiplexed natively onto the ring at various International Telecommunication Union 1,500-nm wavelengths, essentially creating multiple virtual networks over one pair of fiber. At the backbone location, the individual International Telecom Union wavelengths are wave division multiplexed together, and this signal and the 1300-nm wavelength from the collocated SONET switch are combined into a single fiber output. The WDM in INET's new optical Ethernet network is key, Lassner says. "If we were to implement Ethernet directly at the optical layer without WDM technology, we could only have one carrier," he says. "This would give us substantially less capacity and would also make network management among three independent users much more complex, perhaps even unworkable." A wholesale change-out of the SONET infrastructure would also be unworkable. INET is keeping SONET around for now to limit the scope of its upgrade project and take advantage of SONET's 50-millisecond path recovery, which optical Ethernet cannot yet match. As a result, optical Ethernet will "underlay" INET's existing SONET infrastructure, he says. The smaller scale of the INET project is just about the right size for the LuxN product, says Ronald Kline, senior analyst at RHK. "Private networks don't have to worry about [large-scale] integration or sharing," Kline says.
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