Article courtesy inflammer over on the Yahoo thread..
Look Out, Ciena, Nortel
BrightLink to unveil rival to CoreDirector's sub-wavelength granularity
By Joe McGarvey
While Ciena is busy mixing it up with Nortel Networks for leadership in the optical-networking market, a startup in the optical space is hoping to sneak up on both companies from behind.
Relatively quiet since announcing its optical crossconnect this past summer, BrightLink Networks expects to unveil its first product in the next couple of weeks, according to Gary Law, vice president of marketing and business development at BrightLink.
Law describes the company's optical switch as a potential successor to Ciena's CoreDirector, an optical crossconnect that is gaining traction in the market. The first version of the switch is expected to be expandable up to 1,024 channels, compared to the 256 ports that the CoreDirector can now handle.
"We're going to give the CoreDirector a run for its money," says Law. "We're the bright lights that Ciena is about to see in its rear-view mirror."
BrightLink's fixation on Ciena is a reflection of that company's recent success in attracting attention to its optical-switching devices. More than 10 carriers have announced plans to purchase the electronic-based optical switch from Ciena. Based on customer accounts, CoreDirector has been more successful than similar optical switches from Cisco Systems, Sycamore Networks and Tellium. Analysts attribute CoreDirector's success to the fact that it handles bandwidth in much smaller increments than switches from other suppliers.
Similar to CoreDirector, the BrightLink switch is designed to divvy up bandwidth in sub-wavelength increments, allowing service providers to better match bandwidth to customer demands. Law says that Ciena's success with CoreDirector validates the company's decision to focus on an electrical switch capable of grooming, when most of the industry is concentrating on all-optical switching.
"The bad news for us is that Ciena is already out there with a product," says Law. "The good news is that CoreDirector's success has proved that grooming [of bandwidth] is essential."
Law says that the new switch will eventually scale to over 4,000 ports, a claim that many industry experts expressed doubts about when the company launched last year. "We've had out doubters and we're anxious to prove that the architecture works," says Law, adding that BrightLink will disclose details about the system next month. "We have a good shot at leapfrogging the CoreDirector."
Although he did not address the challenge of BrightLink directly, Ciena chief executive Patrick Nettles says that a newcomer looking to play catch-up with Ciena in the optical-switch market will have its work cut out for it.
"For these types of products, there's enough software complexity that you have to prove you can meet to get into a network," says Nettles. "Once someone establishes position, it's a big reach to think that a carrier will decide to go with an upstart."
Ciena is hoping that CoreDirector's success is an example of history repeating itself. The company made a similar impact on the industry in 1996, when it was the first to introduce DWDM equipment. Nettles says that the intelligence offered by optical switching has the potential to be as much of a industry-altering force as DWDM technology.
In addition to BrightLink, Cisco, Sycamore and Tellium, Ciena also faces a challenge from optical-market leader Nortel, which has been sinking in stature recently as quickly as Ciena has been rising. Nortel will unveil the details of its successor to its Connect DX crossconnect, which also offers the ability to groom traffic into increments below a wavelength of capacity. The company will announced the Connect HDX system, an optical crossconnect with more than 3 terabits of capacity, at the Optical Fiber Conference in March. Nortel's Don Smith says the HDX will be the first crossconnect to work with streams of bandwidth as broad as 40 gigabits per second.
The optical-switching landscape is additionally crowded with the coming wave of systems that employ all optical switch fabrics. Lacking the agility to change the frequency of wavelengths, or sub-wavelength granularity, these systems are expected to be deployed in the core of the network backbone.
theneteconomy.com
Link to the BOSS 1000 description page (Brightlink's product in this space)
brightlink.com
Also here is another article about the recent CIR report, this time with a little more substance than some of the others I have seen..
"Optical networking strategies of service providers will continue to evolve, reports Communications Industry Researchers"
lw.pennnet.com |
