Lucent Joins OCX Scrum; Crossconnect makers are nipping at Ciena's heels.
theneteconomy.com
January 31, 2002
Lucent Joins OCX Scrum
Crossconnect makers are nipping at Ciena's heels.
By Joe McGarvey
Posing a potential challenge to Ciena's dominance in the space, the competitive landscape in the optical crossconnect market continues to widen.
The most recent entrant into one of the few healthy segments of the optical networking space is the LambdaUnite MultiService Switch from Lucent Technologies. Similar to the SN 16000 SC introduced by Sycamore Networks last week, the LambdaUnite is a small-footprint device designed to clear space in crowded central offices by combining the functions of multiple Sonet multiplexers and digital crossconnects.
"We feel that we can save a lot of space in central offices," says Kaus Dechet, director of product management for LambdaUnite.
While the elimination of capital and operational expenses associated with legacy gear is the bread and butter of the LambdaUnite functionality, Dechet says the system offers advantages over currently shipping crossconnects. Fortified with long-reach optics, the LambdaUnite is able to eliminate additional Sonet ADMs by being able to close Sonet rings, says Dechet. Other crossconnects, he adds, must collocate an ADM with the crossconnect to terminate a ring.
In addition, the LambdaUnite is equipped with Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, as well as the potential to handle 40 gigabit-per-second traffic flows. While 40-gig deployments are few and far between these days, Dechet says several potential customers insisted on an upgrade path to the faster interfaces.
In terms of density, the LambdaRouter delivers 360 Gbps of capacity in a half bay. That contrasts with the Sycamore SC, which delivers 160 Gbps in the same space, says Dechet.
The 800-pound Gorilla in the optical switching space, however, is undisputedly Ciena's CoreDirector. The full-blown version of that product has already been installed in the networks of about two dozen carriers around the world. Much of Ciena's huge lead in the space can be attributed to having the market virtually to itself for more than a year. While Tellium, Sycamore, Corvis and Lucent have been shipping optical switches for roughly the same time period, Ciena's CoreDirector is the only one to offer grooming capabilities below wavelength granularity.
The ability to break wavelengths into tributaries as small as about 52 megabits has turned out to be a large advantage to Ciena, as the requirement for wavelength switching in the core of carrier networks has developed more slowly than originally anticipated.
In recent months, however, the competitive market has heated up. Sycamore last year introduced a grooming version of its optical crossconnect and then followed up last week with the introduction of a smaller version of that system. In addition to the LambdaUnite, a large-scale product from startup BrightLink is expected to be available in the near future.
Although Lucent currently offers a larger crossconnect system, Dechet says that the large-scale complement to the LambdaUnite will be Lucent's LambdaManager Terabit MultiService Switch, which is scheduled for delivery later this year.
Lucent's existing optical switch is the LambdaRouter, which is an all-optical device that uses tiny mirrors to move around bandwidth in chunks no smaller than wavelengths. While several equipment makers, such as Corvis and Ciena, have announced plans to eventually integrate all-optical and electronic grooming switches, Dechet doesn't envision Lucent fusing together the two product lines.
"I view the Lambda products as a tool kit," says Dechet, explaining that different products in the portfolio are likely to work together through a unified control plane, such as GMPLS. "We will introduce GMPLS support throughout the year, so these devices can talk to each other."
Dechet says that Deutsche Telekom is certifying the LambdaUnite for use in its network and will begin deployment when the testing is completed. |
