Meriton Networks Enters Emerging Carrier Ethernet Transport Market
Source: Press Release
February 5, 2007 - Ottawa, Canada
Leverages Strength in Agile Optical Networking to Support Converged Optical-Ethernet Capabilities; Highly-integrated, Highly-scalable Solutions Give Carriers Efficient, Ethernet-friendly, Flexible Metro Transport Infrastructure
Meriton Networks today announced that it will leverage its strengths in Agile Optical Networking to support converged Optical-Ethernet capabilities and enter the emerging Carrier Ethernet Transport (CET) market. CET combines the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of native Ethernet with the reliability and power of WDM to deliver unparalleled flexibility, efficiency and cost savings — particularly for interconnecting Gigabit Ethernet. Meriton Networks is announcing a multi-phase CET product delivery strategy that will extend its wavelength networking capabilities to more effectively deliver Ethernet transport bandwidth. These new capabilities are being added to Meriton’s 7200 OSP (Optical Switching Platform), an integrated switching and transport system.
Phase one of Meriton’s CET capabilities enables carriers to support high-density Gig E networking within the metro using sub-wavelength switching (SWS) and grooming of nine Gigabit Ethernet streams onto a 10 Gb/s wavelength. The capability of switching a Gig E path within the optical transport layer and maintaining the path throughout the entire network and assuring it with a Service Level Agreement (SLA) makes it ideal for wholesale interconnect services.
Phase two will introduce support for Carrier Ethernet Tunnel switching and aggregation for local handoff. The first Ethernet tunnel technology to be supported by Meriton will be Provider Backbone Transport (PBT), which is currently undergoing ratification within the IEEE, under the proposed name of Provider Backbone Bridging – Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE).
Meriton’s CET solutions deliver the following networking capabilities, which allow carriers to cost-effectively and rapidly meet the growth demands of the ‘Ethernet explosion’ while strengthening their networks to handle future, as-yet-unknown, traffic demands:
- With the growth in endpoints driving GigEs to increasingly disparate destinations, there is a need to switch traffic, end-to-end, across the entire network. CET embeds key any-port-to-any-port network switching capabilities: Wavelength Switching, Sub-wavelength (typically Gig E) Switching, and Carrier Ethernet Tunnel Switching
- Separation of the service delivery architecture from the underlying transport architecture. By doing so, the transport network is transparent for service creation and modification (e.g. adds, moves and changes)
- Reliable, deterministic, end-to-end connections that can support guaranteed SLAs
- Optimized hand-off of Ethernet traffic so there is less “hairpinning” of traffic to layer 2 switches and the resulting unnecessary consumption of ports on these switches
As carriers worldwide migrate to next-generation networks (NGNs) to reduce their costs and improve their ability to support high bandwidth-intensive services with guaranteed SLAs, they need a flexible, scalable optical transport infrastructure – especially in the metro network – that efficiently supports Ethernet and minimizes operational complexities. Recognizing the inherent cost and manageability advantages of a “circuit oriented” approach to carrier-scale transport, CET is an architectural design that integrates Ethernet Gateways/Tunnels, such as PBB-TE and T-MPLS, with intelligent WDM to allow carriers to use Ethernet as a “Tunnel Support” protocol, creating end-to-end Ethernet tunnels.
Meriton’s CET solutions will enable carriers to significantly reduce metro “head-end” (GigE) port consumption, and reduce the requirement for a separate layer 2 aggregation platform between the optical and packet layers. By keeping the switching in the optical domain, carriers can achieve a deterministic QoS, low latency, low jitter approach for switching Carrier Ethernet traffic. Additionally, keeping traffic in the optical transport domain wherever possible minimizes tributary handoff and the number of layer 2/layer 3 hops. CET enables end-to-end path management of individual GigE optical paths, with point-and-click provisioning, protection, and bridge-and-roll functionality, while optimizing fiber usage.
“We have listened closely to the requirements of our major carrier customers, and we agree that there are powerful advantages to keeping a Gig E path in the sub-wavelength domain across the optical transport network and opting for tunnel processing only when necessary,” said Bill Gartner, chief operating officer for Meriton Networks. “The advantage is a simpler network, delivering better performance since fewer layer 2 queues are traversed. A key benefit to the Meriton 7200 OSP is its ability to scale to 320 Gb/s in a single shelf platform. With the pending explosion of video services, this scale quickly becomes an essential part of any metro node implementation.”
“Industry analysts estimate that CET equipment sales will reach approximately $1.3 billion by 2009, displacing sales of (amongst others) Ethernet switches, traditional routers, Carrier Ethernet switches and SONET/SDH equipment,” said Ken Davison, vice -president of marketing and business development . “We’re proud that Meriton is the first AON vendor to announce support for CET on its WDM platforms.”
“It is a natural evolution of the Carrier Ethernet market to subdivide into segments for Carrier Ethernet Transport and Carrier Ethernet Services,” said Scott Clavenna, Chief analyst with Heavy Reading. “With operators worldwide looking to embrace Ethernet as a universal networking technology, the transport network must evolve while maintaining itsreliability and robustness, extending its connection-oriented approach to networking up into the Ethernet layer.”
Phases 1 and 2 of Meriton’s Carrier Ethernet Transport functionality on the 7200 OSP will be available in the second half of 2007.
