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To: Greg h2o who wrote (41983)	4/9/2004 5:27:51 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42804

Hi Greg, All, For anyone who may not yet be up to speed on GFP, or Generic Framing Procedure as referenced in your (preceding) post, it is a new set of standards that after several years of development is emerging as a form of SONET elixir, as I recently wrote on the Gilder board, and copied here in a slightly edited form (see below). Gaining a level of familiarity with GFP and other ITU-sanctioned Optical Transport Network (OTN) constructs would be well worth the time for anyone who tracks technology as a form of leverage when assessing optical networking investments, fwiw. FAC frank@fttx.org ------------------------------------------- GFP: A SONET Elixir? [FAC: Several years in the making, the generic framing procedure, or GFP, is now seeing its way into news articles on a daily basis. A form of elixir, I like to characterize it, GFP promises to extend the life of SONET infrastructure by delivering greater bandwidth efficiencies and flexibilities than ever before. Take for example sending a 200 Mb/s Fibre Channel stream across an existing ring. In the past it would have been necessary to dedicate an entire OC-12 (622 Mb/s) to accomplish this, resulting in a waste of some 400 Mb/s capacity when all was done. Today, carriers have the ability to send the same payload over four chunks of ~50Mb/s each, freeing up what was previously left to go unused, but paid for by the user. The following press release by Packetlight is an example of what I'm reading about on a daily basis, it seems. To what extent will GFP and its brethren protocols - virtual concatenation (VC) and link capacity adjustment scheme (LCAS) - extend the life of legacy SONET assets? Only time will tell. But for those carriers who've sunk billions into the older technology, they're not about to write those assets off anytime soon just to prove that they get it. What do you think? BTW, there is a good tutorial on the ITU G.709 Optical Transport Network framework from Innocor that does a good job describing GFP interface standards: innocor.com ] ------------------------- PACKETLIGHT NETWORKS TO FOCUS ON STORAGE TRANSPORT, FORMER ECI EXECUTIVE APPOINTED CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD PacketLight Networks to provide a series of optical access devices for storage transport using its field proven technology. Kfar-Saba Israel March 31, 2004 - PacketLight Networks (www.PacketLight.com), a developer of multi-service optical transport and access systems for the Metro, announced today that company activities will focus on the growing storage transport market. This announcement is accompanied by the appointment of Mr. Hezi Lapid as chairman of the board of directors. PacketLight offers a range of products for storage over DWDM and SONET/SDH, using the latest GFP/VCAT and FC-BB standards. The company's new product line offers high-speed storage services, such as Fibre Channel, FICON, and ESCON over large distances-without performance degradation-using SONET/SDH and DWDM. "Carriers are now starting to offer large enterprise customers the storage services that address their needs for business continuity and disaster recovery. This means using their huge widely deployed installed base of SONET/SDH to allow cost effective offerings," states Yaki Luzon, acting CEO and VP Marketing of PacketLight Networks. "PacketLight products will allow them to deliver that demand with higher density and better flexibility, based on GFP and FC-BB standards." Mr. Hezi Lapid, newly appointed chairman of the board, brings to PacketLight over 25 years of experience. As one of the pioneers of SDH development in ECI, Lapid has vast experience working with telecommunication operators worldwide. " I see tremendous business potential in PacketLight technology and the company's new business directions, and am excited to join the PacketLight board of directors," noted Lapid. Lapid is the former CEO of Innowave, an ECI company acquired last year by Alvarion, and previously serviced as general manager of the optical SBU of ECI. Other additions to the PacketLight board of directors include Mr. Eitan Bek from Pitango Venture Capital, and Dr. Michael Mesh CTO and co-founders of PacketLight. About PacketLight Networks: PacketLight Networks is a provider of multi-service optical transport and access systems. PacketLight target customers are telecommunications service providers and telecommunications vendors that are active in optical communications. PacketLight offers highly innovative systems that enable carrier to offer high-speed revenue-bearing services such as storage, data, voice and video over a variety of interfaces, including Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, ESCON/FICON and SONET/SDH. PacketLight is backed by Pitango Venture Capital and ADC Telecommunications (NasdaqNM: ADCT-news), a leading international supplier of transmission and networking systems. PacketLight offices are located in Kfar Saba, Israel. ---------------------------------------------------