On November 17, 2016, Infinera announced the Infinite Capacity Engine, a meshponder for 200Gbps+ that utilizes Infinera’s fourth-generation Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC). Infinera has been lagging the market with its 200G+ solution and point solutions in regional networks, so this will allow it to compete more effectively by offering higher capacity and purpose-built point solutions for high traffic scenarios.
Infinera catches up on 200G+ solutions and has more to come
Infinera needed to deliver a 200G+ solution and has created the Infinite Capacity Engine, a solution based on a sliceable 1.2TB super-channel meshponder. It has laid out a plan for six products over the next year that address metro/regional and backbone markets and use or enhance the Infinite Capacity Engine.
Figure 1: Infinera meshponder-based products
Source: Infinera
The next-generation PIC in Infinera’s meshponder provides 2.4x the capacity of its previous PIC, 200G, and a roadmap to 400G. The new meshponder can be connected to different meshponders with different slices (channels) directed to the appropriate meshponders. The slicing capability is enabled by the new Flexgrid ROADM. Infinera’s solution can slice “elephant flows” of traffic for data centers and “mouse flows” for carriers and everything in between in 100G increments. The new PIC can adjust below 100G on a channel if the optical fiber can only support that much bandwidth, shifting to a QPSK, 8QAM, and 16QAM capability as conditions require. The solution relies on the Xceed SDN Controller to manage the digital signal processor (DSP) for modulation, slicing the network, and adding bandwidth on demand between meshponders. Infinera will release a 400G solution once standards are finalized.
Infinera’s portfolio of meshponders addresses the growing bandwidth needs of carriers and data centers by offering 200G, open line systems, and purpose-built solutions. The Infinite Capacity Engine, just like the DTN-X which replaced the DTN, will allow Infinera to grow its revenue based on new 200G upgrade opportunities. The new meshponder offers carriers and webscale companies the openness and flexibility they need to grow their backbone or submarine networks.
Don Frey is prinicpal analyst for intelligent networks at Ovum. For more information, visit www.ovum.com/