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Technology Stocks : Frank Coluccio Technology Forum - ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (973)	1/17/2000 1:40:00 AM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1782

re: Optical Domain Service Interconnect - ODSI ====== "Sycamore teams to make networks easier to operate" By Ben Heskett January 11, 2000 URL: news.cnet.com A group of networking upstarts plans to unveil a strategy tomorrow to make the growing web of fiber-optic based networks easier to operate. Spearheaded by high-flying optical equipment provider Sycamore Networks, the new initiative aspires to allow service providers to extend network connections to customers without much of the technical “heavy lifting” that now accompanies such operations. Those planning to join the effort include telecommunications companies such as Enron Communications, MCI WorldCom's UUNet and Williams Communications. Equipment providers such as Ciena, Redback Networks, Germany's Siemens and Cabletron Systems, among others, also plan to team with Sycamore. A number of start-ups are also involved, including Pluris, Convergent Networks, Avici Systems, Ennovate Networks, and Tellium, among others. "A lot of innovation is happening at the smaller companies,", Sycamore chairman and co-founder Desh Deshpande said. "In some ways, the younger companies need to innovate even more." Sycamore and its partners are all reacting to the growing need for bandwidth as more people use the Internet and businesses see the benefits of expanded corporate networks. Along with this need has come the realization that technology must become increasingly sophisticated to meet the rapidly evolving demands of businesses worldwide. The initiative, called optical domain service interconnect (ODSI), hopes to take the rigid nature of current network layouts and make them more flexible. For example, a customer could call a service provider and have network bandwidth provisioned that same day under the new program, according to Deshpande. The program also aims to allow better communication between equipment that shuttles data across an optical network and technology--like an Internet router, for example--that makes intelligent decisions concerning where to send data. The first meeting of the group will take place later this month. A resulting draft recommendation is expected by mid-year, according to Scott Larson, Sycamore's director of marketing for its strategic programs group. The group then hopes to have a final standard it can demonstrate by the end of the year, executives said. Suprisingly absent from the coalition are industry leaders Nortel Networks, Lucent Technologies, and Cisco Systems, as well as routing upstart Juniper Networks. But Deshpande said their absence was simply an organizational factor, as the group formed just three months ago. Cisco, for one, remains "undecided at this time" whether they will join the effort, according to a company spokeswoman.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (973)	1/17/2000 8:30:00 AM
From: James Fulop	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1782

>>I viewed their composite trunking feature with some uncertainty, and feel that they could have been a little more generous with their explanations, to tell you the truth.<< Thanks for the comments. I'm not sure if the following helps, but I did find this over on their site... >>Optical Internetworking Avici Systems provides complementary technology designed to enhance the ODSI initiative. ODSI proposes an open signaling interface between the optical and data layers so that end-to-end dynamic provisioning and restoration can be achieved. Avici's TSR© is ideally suited to ODSI by virtue of its immense port capacity. The TSR is optimized to route traffic onto the hundreds of wavelengths that new optical equipment will provide as the network scales; enabling a smooth migration path to link rates of 40 Gbps and beyond. The Avici TSR Composite Link feature has the ability to recognize heavy traffic demand, and dynamically add a new member(s) to the Composite Link. This result is on-the-fly creation of additional bandwidth for adapting link capacity to fluctuations in Internet traffic flows. Avici will be working with other members of the ODSI to promote protocols that enable Composite Links to summon the optical core for additional bandwidth between any two TSRs (City A to City B). A key aspect of Composite Links is the ability to add and remove links with no impact to IP routing tables. Therefore, as the composite link membership dynamically adjusts to meet network demand, the size of the IGP remains constant. There is absolutely no need to update routing tables, increasing the speed with which service providers can provision new service. ODSI coupled with MPLS traffic engineering and the Avici's TSR provides network operators the ability to offer bandwidth to the service layer in a dynamic fashion while applying resources to network hot-spots. The result is an improvement in flexibility that is significantly beyond what is currently available in today's statically provisioned networks. Composite Links as a means for migration to OC-768 Avici Systems' Composite Links enables a smooth migration to link speeds equivalent to OC-768 by utilizing existing physical link resources at OC-12c and OC-48c speeds. The interfaces used in Composite Links can have a 4-1 speed mismatch. For example, this would allow OC-48c members to be combined with OC-12c members, so that a smooth migration path from OC-12c to higher speed trunks can be provided. Traffic is distributed over active composite link members, accommodating a 4-1 speed mismatch with weighed fair queuing at each ingress module. This is a far more intelligent load balancing scheme when compared to other methods currently in use such as Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP). Composite Links Defined A composite link is comprised of up to (16) physical links or fiber interfaces between two Avici TSRs. Upper layer protocols view these individual links as a single logical entity with an equivalent capacity of the aggregated composite members. Packet ordering is maintained at the microflow level to protect packet sequence integrity. Packet ordering is accomplished by a hash value calculated from the IP source and destination address, and used to select the Composite Link member. Each Composite Link member is a SONET interface, using Packet over SONET (POS) encapsulation. Each member is established using standard PPP protocol thus offering multi-protocol support. Although each member maintains a PPP connection, the protocol layers above; either IP or MPLS are only presented with a single, logical PPP interface, which represents the aggregate of the composite link members. When a member of a Composite Link fails, all data that was being transmitted on that link is automatically re-distributed to one of the other active Composite Link members. This re-distribution occurs in less than 45ms. << avici.com