*OT* sort of...
>>I would suggest the t_11 reflector. There is an excellent presentation there on using SONET for this application. Ask yourself why this might be a better solution.<<
For the short haul and metro, it very well might be. At least, some very hot SONET MSPP (Multiservice Provisioning Platform) companies think so. Gilder seems to think that the advent of DWDM automatically spells the demise of SONET, revealing the weakness of his linearly static view of technological change:
"The key to the shining new city on the hill is wave-division multiplexing.
WDM is the crucial technology driving the bandwidth blowout. With the
arrival of WDM, SONET rings become Nortel nooses (and Lucent
lodestones). As Desh Deshpande, chairman of Sycamore, explains, a
SONET ring is like a railroad line with no express trains. Not only does
every train stop at every station but every passenger must get off at
every stop and trundle over to the stationmaster to show a ticket, to
get approval either to leave the station or get back on the train. At the
next stop it is all repeated again, perhaps 20 or more times coast to
coast."
But things change:
SONET goes POP
lightreading.com
Sonet MSPPs are designed to sit in carrier COs and POPs, and, in some cases,
on the customer premises.
They switch voice, video, and different types of data traffic. They all have three
features in common:
DWDM (dense wavelength-division multiplexing), which increases the
capacity of fiber lines by dividing them into channels (or wavelengths) over
which service providers can multiplex different types of traffic.
Some level of support for Sonet, the broadband optical transmission
standard for carrier networks that ensures QoS for time-sensitive
applications like voice and video.
Layer two or layer three data intelligence, which allows products to switch
or route data traffic efficiently and support value-added services like VPNs
or video broadcasts.
Sonet MSPPs can be described as on- and off-ramps for optical backbones.
They sit at the edge of the metro network and complement core optical transport
technologies from vendors like Ciena Corp. (http://www.ciena.com), Corvis Corp.
(http://www.corvis.com), Qeyton Systems AB (http://www.qeyton.com), and
Sycamore Networks Inc. (http://www.sycamorenet.com), which are typically
protocol transparent and switch whole wavelengths of light.
The new equipment works with those core technologies by providing carriers with
the means to pack lower bandwidth services into each wavelength -- thus
enabling them to get a bigger bang for the buck out of their core gear.
Carriers say that Sonet MSPPs are overdue. One reason that the first metro
DWDM gear didn't sell, they say, was that it couldn't efficiently parse legacy [sonet]
traffic onto the optical backbone. |
