Up next: IP/optical convergence
Much of the innovation for subsea optical technology is often driven from the terrestrial side of the optical business. 40G is one emerging example. The next big innovation could be the blending of the IP and optical layers into one cost-optimized layer that could not only save carriers serious capex/opex savings, but also improve latency.
That's the pitch behind Alcatel-Lucent's "converged backbone transformation" (CBT) solution. And while it may sound like another IP-over-DWDM solution - and indeed, IPoDWDM is the starting point for CBT - it's "much more than that", says Alberto Valsecchi, Alcatel-Lucent's optics marketing VP.
"We are talking about data-plane, control plane and management plane integration between the IP and optical layers," he says.
Valsecchi touts Alcatel-Lucent's optical and router expertise as an advantage over vendors focused mainly on one or the other - and partnerships don't count, he said in an apparent reference to the partnership formed by Nokia Siemens Networks and Juniper Networks in June this year to develop IPoDWDM solutions.
"There are some things that can't be done through partnerships and we believe and core/optical convergence is one of them," he says. "It's much harder to offer this solution through partnerships in terms of aligning road maps, interoperability testing. With multiple vendors, it gets tricky."
CBT addresses one of the chief downsides of IPoDWDM: inefficiency. IPoDWDM maps one router port to each optical wave, which means the wave becomes underutilized during off-peak hours.
Alcatel-Lucent intends to provide traffic grooming options from the wave level (i.e. IPoDWDM) to the sub-port level using ODUflex technology, an emerging ITU standard due for completion next year, which provides higher granularity by enabling VLANs or pseudowires within a port to be logically or virtually mapped to the same wave.
Result: carriers can maximize capacity without spending more money on extra core routers, and yield capex savings of "at least 30%, in addition to savings in power, space and operational complexity".