Cisco Systems, Inc. announced that it is in the second of a five-phase, one-year strategy to deliver optical internetworking technologies for service providers to create networks optimized for data while leveraging current synchronous optical network/synchronous digital hierarchy (SONET/SDH).
As part of the strategy, Cisco announced a new high-performance interface for the Cisco 12000 Gigabit Switch Router and plans to work with Ciena Corp. to enable Cisco's high-end switches and routers to be overlaid directly onto Ciena's optical networking systems without separate time-division multiplexing (TDM) equipment.
In addition, Cisco and Ciena were among a group of vendors announcing the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) designed to accelerate deployment of next-generation products and services. Other founding members are AT&T, Bellcore, Hewlett-Packard Co., Qwest Communications International, Inc., Sprint Corp. and WorldCom, Inc. The OIF will complement efforts of the International Telecommunication Union, the American National Standards Institute and the Internet Engineering Task Force, which have already begun to standardize parts of the optical internetworking layer, Cisco said in a statement.
An optical internetwork is a data-optimized network in which switches and routers have integrated optical interfaces and are directly connected by fiber or optical network elements, such as dense wavelength division multiplexers. DWDM carries many channels of information as different wavelengths, or colors of light, on a single optical fiber. Using DWDM for native broadband data transmission enables as much as one terabit of information to be carried by a single optical fiber.
Under Cisco's new optical internetworking strategy, packets and cells can be statistically multiplexed over wavelengths in the optical network layer, allowing switches and routers to provide increased bandwidth efficiency and eliminating cost and bandwidth limitations of TDM, according to Cisco.
For phase one, Cisco introduced high-capacity platforms on which service providers could establish and offer profitable data services. The Cisco 12000 series of Gigabit Switch Routers and the Cisco 8000 WAN platform leverage SONET/SDH infrastructures via compatible IP and ATM optical interfaces up to 2.5G bit/sec.
For the second phase, Cisco is offering switches and routers that interface directly to the optical networking layer. Cisco is working with Ciena to deliver optical internetworks based on Cisco's high-end switching and routing platforms and Ciena's DWDM equipment.
Cisco's new optical line card offers the first clear-channel OC-48c/STM16 interface for the 12000 series of Gigabit Switch Routers, enabling the entire 2.5G bit/sec bandwidth to be treated as a single high-speed pipe. The product will begin shipping in the third-quarter of 1998 at a list price of $75,000.
For phase three, Cisco will integrate key SONET/SDH and optical capabilities with Cisco switching and routing platforms to reduce the cost of deploying fiber-based data networks where WDM is not required.
Cisco will expand optical internetworking into interoffice and metropolitan applications for phase four so businesses, campuses and data centers can offer data services. A key element will be the introduction of data-optimized rings that combine the efficiencies of statistical multiplexing and the resiliency of SONET/SDH ring architectures.
For phase five, Cisco will extend optical internetworking to the edge of the service infrastructure and let subscribers access increased network capacity.
