OFC is this week out in California in the US, and as such we are seeing optical vendors roll out some big product announcements and technological developments.
Infinera is doing just that today, unveiling its next generation of SDN technology in the transport layer, called Instant Network.
Instant Network is aimed at allowing service providers to turn up vast amounts of capacity in minutes, bypassing the traditional months-long process through automation, without requiring them to lay out the capex in advance.
The hardware is there already of course in the form of its 500G PIC and 2.4T Infinite Capacity Engine, but it is turned on via licenses can be moved around from route to route. Decisions on turning capacity up and down can also be automated based on various criteria.
Infinera had already been doing some of this with its Instant Bandwidth capabilities, and sees this move as the next step toward cognitive networking. That's where networks automatically update themselves rather than wait for mere humans to recognize issues and react.