Courtesy of TPN35 over on the Yahoo CIEN thread..
>>Players like Chorum Technologies, Monterey Networks and Lightera have
stepped to the forefront this year with products designed to reroute
wavelengths at the core of a carrier's network.
But now, one of them has landed a customer for its product. Ciena [CIEN],
which bought Lightera in mid-March, has penned a contract with Williams
Communications Group [WCG], the national fiber optic backbone provider.
Williams will beta test and then buy Ciena's MultiWave CoreDirector switch.
The carrier is expected to purchase at least $40 million worth of the switches
by the end of the three-year agreement.
"We're still developing a plan as far as the total number of points of presence
the CoreDirector will be in," says Greg Floerke, vice president of engineering
and construction at Williams. "If everything goes according to plan, we will
have close to 10 switches deployed by the end of next year. Ultimately, we
could have 20 to 25 switches in our network. Our network planning group is
still working on this.
"A lot of the total number of switches deployed will depend on the current or
projected traffic patterns, and us determining where our needs are," Floerke
adds.
First, Williams will test the CoreDirector. The company will have a
CoreDirector switch in its labs by the end of this month. Williams will slowly
begin running traffic over the switch to check out its specifications. In March
of 2000, Williams will begin a field trial on its network and, by late in the
second quarter or early in the third quarter, the carrier will begin deploying
CoreDirector switches across its backbone.
"The deployment process will be slow at first, so we can see how the switches
react to live traffic," Floerke says.
Why did Williams decide to invest in the CoreDirector instead of other systems
on the market?
"Our technology development group became aware of the switch 18 to 24
months ago," Floerke says. "We are always looking for higher density and
higher capacity systems, and this system met our requirements. It has higher
capacity than other systems that are in development."
Floerke declines to say which other systems have less capacity, however.
Floerke also says the CoreDirector is further along in development than other
optical switching systems on the market, although he refuses to say which
ones.
Williams wanted to avoid setting up sonet rings on its network as well, which is
a weakness of the Monterey Networks system. It still requires sonet add/drop
multiplexers to aid in the aggregation of signaling. Cisco bought Monterey
Networks, and its optical switching technology, in late August.
Williams execs also went with the CoreDirector because they like the
combination of Ciena's manufacturing and the Lightera design. In particular,
the executives like the design of the application specific integrated circuits
for the switching fabric of the CoreDirector. Williams' executives say they
expect a reliable, on-time product from Ciena.
The full mesh restoral available on CoreDirector also attracted Williams.
"We need full mesh restoral because we have a lot of traffic running from one
city to another," Floerke says. "With full mesh restoral, we can pre-calculate
the back-up path for a downed wavelength or fiber. But, we don't have to
reserve the back-up path for back-up traffic alone because there is
intelligence in the CoreDirector, and it knows whether traffic is high priority or
not. When a cut occurs, the CoreDirector can decide which traffic to run over
the back-up route."
Other Benefits
Charles Chi, Ceina vice president of marketing, says Williams will receive
another benefit as well: CoreDirector can automatically select and install
paths from end-to-end on a network in real time. It uses an operating system
and custom protocol to accomplish this feat. Conversely, each network
element in a sonet network has to be programmed to set up a
communications path, which can take from days to weeks.
"The Williams purchase is not the biggest surprise," says Lawrence Gasman,
president of Communications Industry Researchers, a high-tech consultancy
in Charlottesville, Va. "I know Williams wanted to trial that product and
Williams worked with Lightera on its development. So the sale shouldn't be
taken as a sign the product will be sold everywhere. One of the things about
Williams is that the company sells bandwidth, and this product fits that need."<<
No link to original article provided... |
