OIF Approves Virtual Transport Network Service Implementation Agreement

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Tad Hofmeister of Google joins board of directors

Members of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) recently met in Ljubljana, Slovenia for a quarterly technical committee and approved an implementation agreement (IA) for an optical Virtual Transport Network Service.  They also made progress on the 400G-ZR project and were given a presentation on 100G and Beyond by Andre Pucko of Telekom Slovenije d.d.  Additionally, Tad Hofmeister of Google joins the board of directors, filling an open seat.

A Virtual Transport Network Service (VTNS) is the creation and offering of a Virtual Network (VN) by a provider to a user and is built on the virtualization of transport network resources. VNs may be dynamically created, deleted, or modified and users can perform connection management, connection monitoring and connection protection within their VN.

“Development of Transport SDN (Software Defined Networking) will enable service providers to offer new revenue generating services,”  said Lyndon Ong of Ciena and the OIF’s Market Awareness & Education Committee Co-Chair, Networking. “VTNS is one class of services of interest to many operators and can become a main driver for the deployment of SDN in their transport networks.”

In specifying the new VTNS IA, OIF identifies the requirements and characteristics of different virtual network service types, such as dynamic and static behaviors, as well as the attributes and parameters required for these service types and the requirements for support of service recovery and OAM. Different types of VTNS could be associated with operators offering, for example, Bandwidth on Demand (BoD) services, Network as a Service (NaaS) or Network Slicing for 5G Networking.

400G-ZR Project Update

The OIF’s 400G-ZR Interoperability project addresses both 400G ZR and short-reach DWDM multivendor interoperability such as might be required for cloud scale data center interconnect (DCI). The project made progress at the Q2 meeting by receiving 10 technical contributions addressing considerations such as power consumption of DSP, FEC proposals and experimental demos.  The work will continue to move forward with scheduled conference calls before the Q3 meeting.

OIF at Optinet China

OIF board member Junjie Li of China Telecom will speak at Optinet China in Beijing on June 13, 2017 at 12:25 pm.  Mr. Li will present “OIF Interop – the Key to Unlocking the Benefits of SDN”.

For more information on this presentation and other conferences that the OIF is speaking at click here.

About the OIF

The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

Plethora of OIF Activities at OFC 2017

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The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) announced today  an abundance of activities and demos at OFC 2017 in Los Angeles, March 21-23.  The OIF is hosting live demonstrations showing 56Gbps, CFP2-ACO and FlexEthernet by 11 OIF member companies.  The Forum will share details from its SDN Transport API Interoperability Demonstration which concluded in December of 2016 and, finally, the OIF is offering a half day 100G Serial Electrical Interconnect Needs workshop, which is open to the public.

OIF Delivers on Enabling Next Generation Networks!

OIF member companies have teamed up to demonstrate significant progress in delivering an interoperable ecosystem of suppliers and solutions for critical market needs:

  • 56Gbps live electrical signaling over all reaches
  • CFP2-ACO Optical Interoperability
  • FlexE (Flex Ethernet)

Public demonstrations will be on display March 21-23, 2017 at OFC in OIF Booth #3853. Additional information can be found here.

 

OIF Presentation: Enabling Next Generation Physical Layer Solutions

This session will cover the operating, live, interoperability demonstrations that OIF members are displaying in booth #3853. The panelists will discuss the OIF Implementation Agreement development work that has led to these demos and provide an update on the current status.  In addition, some of the OIF’s new, future work in process will be discussed.

This session will take place Tuesday, March 21, 2017 – 1:45pm–2:45pm – in Expo Theater III

Moderator: Steve Sekel, Keysight Technologies, Inc., OIF PLL Interoperability WG Chair

Panelists: Ed Frlan, Semtech, OIF Technical Committee Vice Chair; Karl Gass, OIF PLL WG Optical Vice Chair; Tad Hofmeister, Google, OIF Representative

 

SDN Transport API Interoperability Demo Public Read-Out

The OIF helps operators unlock the benefits of SDN for their optical networks through three interrelated projects:  interop demonstrations hosted by participating operators leveraging key interfaces such as the Transport API to bind together multi-layer and multi-domain carrier networks; Implementation Agreements that document new interoperability industry standards; and a new certification program that will address the gap between paper specifications or early implementations and products that carriers can realistically deploy.  Learn how these help realize commercial Transport SDN deployment and the promised benefits of accelerated time-to-revenue coupled with increased operational efficiency.

This session will take place Tuesday, March 21, 2017 – 3:00pm-4:00 pm – in Expo Theater III

Moderator: Dave Brown, Nokia, OIF President.

Panelists: Jonathan Sadler, Coriant, OIF Board Member and Networking Interoperability WG Chair; Lyndon Ong, Ciena, OIF MA&E Committee co-chair Networking; Victor Lopez, Telefonica.

 

OIF Workshop – 100G Serial Electrical Interconnect Needs

The OIF will host a half-day workshop focusing on potential electrical link and interconnect technologies being developed to support serial data rates of 100 Gb/s and higher. The workshop, which is open to the public, will give an industry view and dicuss the application spaces for the next generation interconnects, including Networking Trends and Cloud Scale applications.

Thursday, March 23, 2017 – 12pm-6pm

Los Angeles Convention Center

Level Two, West Hall – Room 518

To register for the workshop, click here.

Workshop Agenda

12:00pm: Registration and Box Lunches

12:30pm: Intro – Tom Palkert, OIF PLL WG Electrical Vice Chair, Molex

1:00pm: Industry Analyst – Alan Weckel, 650 Group

Session 1 – User Demand

  • High Level Systems – Katharine Schmidtke, Facebook
  • Equipment Perspective – Andreas Bechtolsheim, Arista

Session 2 – Component Suppliers’ Vision

  • Optics – Mark Nowell, Cisco
  • SERDES/semiconductor – Bart Zeydel, MACOM
  • Alternate Modulation – David Stauffer, Kandou Bus
  • Copper cable/connector/PCB trace – Greg Walz, Molex

5:15pm: Wrap-up – Nathan Tracy, OIF VP of Marketing, TE Connectivity

 

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

OIF Announces Multi-Vendor Interop Demo at OFC

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The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) announced today that member companies will demonstrate multi-vendor interoperability of Pluggable Coherent Optics, 56G Electrical Interfaces and for the first time, FlexE (Flex Ethernet) in live, operating environments. The demo will take place at OFC in Los Angeles from March 21-23, 2017.

“It’s important for the industry that companies continue to test and prove interoperability of these key technologies,” said Steve Sekel of Keysight Technologies, Inc. and the OIF’s Physical and Link Layer Interoperability Working Group Chair.  “The interoperability demo serves as an important validation phase for the Implementation Agreements the OIF is working on.  These documents are nearing the end of the draft review process, and this demo provides important feedback that devices designed to the draft specifications actually interoperate.”

The OIF’s Physical and Link Layer working group demonstrations include live 56G electrical interface interoperability with multiple silicon suppliers over a range of channel reaches from VSR (chip to module) to LR (backplane and copper cables) using both NRZ and PAM4 modulations. The expanding ecosystem for CFP2-ACO pluggable coherent optics will be showcased through live demos. Test equipment for 56G and coherent optics will also be demonstrated.  The FlexE demo provides on-going validation of the implementation agreement.

Demo participants include Amphenol, Credo Semiconductor, Finisar, GlobalFoundries, Keysight Technologies, Inc., Lumentum, Molex, TE Connectivity, Xilinx and Yamaichi Electronics.

OIF Delivers on Enabling Next Generation Networks!

OIF member companies have teamed up to demonstrate significant progress in delivering an interoperable ecosystem of suppliers and solutions for critical market needs:

  • 56Gbps live electrical signaling over all reaches
  • CFP2-ACO Optical Interoperability
  • FlexE (Flex Ethernet)

Public demonstrations will be on display March 21-23, 2017 at OFC in Los Angeles, CA in OIF Booth #3853. Additional information can be found here.

Also at OFC, the OIF will present “Enabling Next Generation Physical Layer Solutions” and host a workshop on “Serial 100Gbps electrical”.  With the above mentioned 50Gbps CEI projects nearing completion, the industry is beginning the task of addressing serial 100G electrical links.

OIF Presentation: Enabling Next Generation Physical Layer  Solutions

March 21, 2017 – 1:45pm–2:45pm – Expo Theater III

Moderator: Steve Sekel, Keysight Technologies, Inc., OIF PLL Interoperability WG Chair

Panelists: Ed Frlan, Semtech, OIF Technical Committee Vice Chair; Karl Gass, OIF PLL WG Optical Vice Chair; Tad Hofmeister, Google, OIF Representative

For more information on this presentation, click here.

 

OIF Workshop – 100G Serial Electrical Interconnect Needs

March 23, 2017 – 12pm-6pm

Los Angeles Convention Center

Level Two, West Hall – Room 518

To register for the workshop, click here.

About the OIF

The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Concludes SDN Transport API Interoperability Testing

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The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) conducted a six-week long global testing of the Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) standard from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). The OIF managed the multi-location demonstration which started in mid-October 2016 and concluded in December 2016.  Vendor participants executed a multi-domain path selection and recovery test plan with intra-lab and inter-lab testing across five carrier labs located in Asia, Europe and North America. A technical white paper on the demonstration is available to download here.

“As operators move from SDN PoCs and lab trials into commercial deployments, lack of interoperability between the SDN controllers and the orchestration layer above has quickly become the biggest technical barrier for many operators,” said Sterling Perrin, principal analyst, Heavy Reading. “Building a standardized northbound interface and successfully testing interoperability across different vendors and different networks – as the OIF has demonstrated – is a major step forward in addressing the northbound interface challenge and bringing SDN architectures to wide-scale commercial use.”

OIF SDN Transport API Interoperability Demonstration

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) are leading the industry toward the wide scale deployment of commercial SDN by testing key Transport Application Programming Interfaces (T-API). The interoperability test and demonstration, managed by the OIF, addresses multi-layer and multi-domain environments in the following carrier labs; China Telecom, China Unicom, SK Telecom, Telefonica and Verizon. These carriers defined real world use cases including multi-domain orchestration of services delivered through Ethernet, OTN and optical switching. Carriers and vendors demonstrated how Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and SDN configured connectivity are combined to deliver service life cycle management.

Participating vendors include ADVA Optical Networking, Ciena, Coriant, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Infinera, Juniper Networks, NEC Corporation, Sedona Systems, and SM Optics. Consulting carriers include Orange and TELUS.  Academic and/or research institution participants include China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR) and Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC).

Additional information can be found here.

Participants in the OIF Transport SDN interoperability event also submitted a proof of concept demo proposal to ETSI NFV.  The proposal, “Mapping ETSI-NFV onto Multi-Vendor, Multi-Domain Transport SDN”, was accepted and details are located here. The open demonstration of NFV concepts in a Proof of Concept (PoC) helps to build industrial awareness and confidence in NFV as a viable technology. Proofs of Concept also help to develop a diverse, open, NFV ecosystem. Results from PoCs may guide the work in the NFV ISG by providing feedback on interoperability and other technical challenges.

“Being able to dynamically establish connectivity between Virtual Network Functions enables carriers to provide greater service agility and reduce opex,” said Jonathan Sadler, of Coriant and the OIF Interoperability chair.  “Integrating multiple technologies using transport SDN further enables the right connectivity mechanisms used for service delivery.  Having this demonstration recognized by ETSI NFV provides building blocks for the development of future SDN-WAN.”

Public Read-Out Event at OFC 2017

Tuesday, March 21, 2017 – 3:00-4:00 pm

Theater III, Los Angeles Convention Center

Moderator: Dave Brown, OIF President, Nokia.

Panelists: Jonathan Sadler, OIF Board Member, Coriant; Lyndon Ong, OIF MA&E Committee co-chair Networking, Ciena; Victor Lopez, Telefonica.

http://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/exhibit-hall/show-floor-programming/oif-interop-%E2%80%93-the-key-to-unlocking-the-benefits-of/

“SK Telecom is delighted that we have successfully tested interoperability using SK Telecom’s Transport Infra Orchestrator and T-API. The test proves that standardized T-API can be used to control multi-layer, multi-vendor transport network infrastructure in an integrated manner,”

said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center at SK Telecom. “SK Telecom will continue to make efforts to develop 5G and network virtualization technologies to realize Network as a Service (NaaS).”

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Approves Agreement on Polarized Multiplexed Quadrature Modulator

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Starts 112G inside Multi-Chip-Module Project, Google’s Bikash Koley speaks at Q1 Meeting

Members of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) recently passed an Implementation Agreement (IA) for an optical integrated Polarization Multiplexed (PM) quadrature modulator for coherent applications with nominal symbol rates up to 64GBaud. The agreement supports the 16QAM modulation format for 400G applications.

“As we go to higher data rates, we need higher performing optical components that maintain a reasonable level of complexity.” said Karl Gass of Qorvo and the OIF’s PLL Working Group – Optical Vice Chair. “These components are targeted for 400G applications.  RF bandwidth is the highest priority for this project.”

The forum members also started the CEI-112G in MCM project to support interconnect within Multi-Chip-Modules (MCMs). In addition to the CEI-112G-VSR specification that is being developed, there is a need to support high rate interconnect amongst large logic devices as well as to small driver devices within an MCM.

Members have also started a maintenance project to produce amendments to the User Network Interface (UNI) 2.0 and External Network to Network Interface (E-NNI) 2.0 specification documenting the extensions for support of OTN rates higher than 100G. Adding these extensions to UNI 2.0 and E-NNI 2.0 will facilitate vendor interoperability.  The project seeks to assist the IETF as it develops the required routing and signaling extension by providing a description of the Byond100G data-plane and the operations to be controlled by GMPLS.

Also at the forums’ Q1 meeting, Bikash Koley, distinguished engineer and director of network architecture, engineering and planning at Google was invited as a guest speaker and presented on the Zero Touch Network.

Following the quarterly meeting in San Jose, a well-attended FlexE workshop was held. An overview of the completed and in process FlexE projects was provided, along with presentations and discussion on the future direction of FlexE. The workshop started with a summary of the FlexE 1.0 Implementation Agreement and was followed by an overview of the active FlexE 2.0 project.  Speakers and panelists include Luca Della Chiesa, Cisco; Tad Hofmeister, Google; Maarten Vissers, Huawei; Dave Ofelt, Juniper; Tom Issenhuth, Microsoft; Scott Irwin, MoSys and Stephen Trowbridge, Nokia.

 

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Announces 100G Serial Electrical Interconnect Workshop

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The Optical Internetworking Forum announced today a half-day workshop, open to the public, featuring subject matter experts from the OIF and an industry view by Alan Weckel of Dell’Oro.  The workshop will address 112 Gbps per lane serial electrical interconnect needs and will take place concurrent with OFC on March 23, 2017 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

In August 2016, the OIF began the CEI-112G project to define the serial electrical interface for next generation optical modules at 112 Gbps.  This technical work is expected to be the first of a series of CEI-112G clauses for various reaches, ranging from ultra-short reach interfaces designed for intra multi-chip module (MCM) communications to longer chip-to-chip interfaces.

“Operation of electrical interfaces at 112 Gbps speeds is feasible, but demands careful attention to some of the thorny technical issues that are involved and the technology trade off decisions that are going to be required,” said Nathan Tracy of TE Connectivity and the OIF vice president of marketing . “This workshop will present the multiple facets and perspectives for the 112 Gbps serial electrical development work including applications, equipment, optics, SERDES, connectors and channels.”

The first half of this workshop will focus on the industry view and application spaces for the next generation interconnects, including networking trends and cloud scale applications. It is anticipated that requirements for these application spaces are characterized by a combination of parameters such as:

  • loss budgets (distance, number of connectors),
  • electrical and optical data rates,
  • electrical channel properties,
  • power constraints,
  • equalization and retimers,
  • mechanical constraints (faceplate density, etc.)

The second half of this workshop will focus on potential electrical link and interconnect technologies being developed to support serial data rates of 100 Gbps and higher.

Workshop details can be found at http://www.oiforum.com/meetings-and-events/march-2017-workshop-100g-serial-electrical-interconnect-needs/

Agenda

12:00pm:  Registration and Box Lunches

12:30pm:  Intro – Tom Palkert, OIF PLL WG Electrical Vice Chair, Molex

1:00pm:     Industry Analyst – Alan Weckel, Dell’Oro

 

Session 1 – User Demand

1:40pm:  High Level Systems

2:20pm:  Equipment Perspective

3:00pm:  Coffee break

 

Session 2 – Component Suppliers’ Vision

3:15pm:     Optics

3:55pm:     SERDES/semiconductor

4:35pm:     Copper cable/connector/PCB trace

5:15pm:     Wrap-up

6:00pm:      Informal Networking at local bar & grill (TBD)

 

March 23, 2017

12pm-6pm

Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA

 

OIF Members: $150.00 USD; Non-members: $200.00 USD (fee includes lunch).

OIF Members, click HERE to register.

Non-Members, click HERE to register.

 

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Announces SDN Transport API Demo Read-Out Events

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The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) is winding down a six-week long interoperability demo on the Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) standard from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF).   The demo started in mid-October and will conclude in early December.  Participants executed a multi-domain path selection and recovery test plan with intra-lab and inter-lab testing across multiple global carrier labs. The results of the demo will be shared in three invitation-only read-out events at China Telecom, Telefonica and Verizon for participating companies. A public readout event will take place at the OFC Conference in Los Angeles, March 21, 2017.

“China Telecom is pleased to once again host the Global Transport SDN demo in our lab in Beijing.  Transport API for SDN is an important technology to simplify the maintenance and increase the efficiency of networks, which matches China Telecom’s CTNet2025 network re-architecting target.” said Mr. Chengliang Zhang, Vice President, China Telecom Beijing Research Institute. “This demo provided interesting and important results and key findings and was worthwhile for China Telecom to participate.”

“Telefonica is happy to have participated in the OIF SDN demo and to have hosted vendors in our labs,” said Mr. Juan Pedro Fernández-Palacios, Head of Transport Telefónica GCTO.  “The work to demonstrate interoperability for transport API among multiple vendors is important for the industry as a means to unlock and reap the expected benefits of SDN.”

“Shaping next-generation technology through discussion and collaboration is key to commercial SDN deployment. Verizon’s role as a host carrier for OIF’s interoperability testing of the global SDN T-API underscores our commitment to solving problems that will help evolve the efficiencies needed in the next-generation network,” said Glenn Wellbrock, director, transport network architecture, design and planning, Verizon.

Public Event at OFC 2017

Tuesday, March 21, 2017 – 3:00-4:00pm

Theater III, Los Angeles Convention Center

Moderator: Dave Brown, OIF President, Nokia.

Panelists: Jonathan Sadler, OIF Board Member, Coriant; Lyndon Ong, OIF MA&E Committee co-chair Networking, Ciena; Victor Lopez, Telefonica.

http://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/exhibit-hall/show-floor-programming/oif-interop-%E2%80%93-the-key-to-unlocking-the-benefits-of/

A technical white paper and an executive summary of the demo will be available in early February.

2016 OIF SDN Transport API Interoperability Demonstration

The OIF and the ONF are partnering to lead the industry toward the wide scale deployment of commercial SDN by testing key Transport Application Programming Interfaces (T-API). The interoperability test and demonstration, managed by the OIF, will address multi-layer and multi-domain environments in global carrier labs. The testing builds on the 2014 demo which was based on prototype T-APIs and helped advance transport SDN standardization. Additional use cases based upon the API standards will be clarified during the testing and defined through OIF implementation agreements to provide a common set of requirements. Global Carrier participants hosting the interoperability testing include China Telecom, China Unicom, SK Telecom, Telefonica and Verizon.

Participating vendors include ADVA Optical Networking, Ciena, Coriant, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Infinera, Juniper Networks, NEC Corporation, Sedona Systems, and SM Optics. Consulting carriers include Orange and TELUS.  Academic and/or research institution participants include China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR) and Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC).

Additional information can be found at http://www.oiforum.com/meetings-and-events/2016-oif-sdn-t-api-demo/

 

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Announces New Flex Ethernet Projects and Workshop

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The Optical Internetworking Forum announced two new FlexE projects started at the quarterly meeting last month.  The OIF is also holding a workshop titled, FlexE Today and Tomorrow, in San Jose on January 20th.

“The datacenter and communications industries are demanding a solution for flexible deployment and provisioning of Ethernet bandwidth,” said Scott Irwin of MoSys and the OIF’s Physical and Link Layer (PLL) Working Group protocol vice chair. “Building on its first generation of FlexE, the OIF has started a new project to support the next generation of Ethernet PHY rates currently under development within the IEEE 802.3 Working Group.  Because of the large industry interest in FlexE, the OIF is also hosting a workshop on the topic which allows non-members to learn about the work first hand.”

The FlexE 1.0 implementation agreement, completed in March of this year, provides a mechanism to map one or more FlexE clients over a group of 100 Gb/s Ethernet PHYs.  The client rates supported are 10G, 40G, and n×25G.  The new FlexE 2.0 project will add the ability to create FlexE groups of 200 Gb/s and 400 Gb/s Ethernet PHYs and to consider several other feature additions.

  • More detail on use of FlexE management channels
  • Coarser calendar granularity to reduce gate count for high bandwidth devices
  • Management of skew for specific applications
  • Transport of frequency or time by the FlexE group

FlexE 1.0 and ongoing revision enable 802.1 LLDP over management channels for FlexE Connectivity Verification.  However, FlexE capabilities discovery is still required to facilitate the setup of FlexE Group(s) and Clients. The new FlexE Neighbor Discovery project will introduce some OIF organizational specific FlexE Extension to LLDP for FlexE capabilities discovery.

FlexE Today and Tomorrow Workshop

January 20, 2017

9:30am-3:00pm

Hilton San Jose

This workshop will feature subject matter experts from the OIF who will provide a summary of completed and current FlexE projects, along with presentations and discussion on the future direction of FlexE. The workshop will begin with a summary of the FlexE 1.0 Implementation Agreement and will be followed by an overview of the active FlexE 2.0 project.  The workshop is open to the public.

Speakers and panelists include Luca Della Chiesa, Cisco; Tad Hofmeister, Google; Maarten Vissers, Huawei; Dave Ofelt, Juniper; Tom Issenhuth, Microsoft; Scott Irwin, MoSys and Stephen Trowbridge, Nokia.

AGENDA

9:30am: Registration and Continental Breakfast

10:00am: Welcome and Intro

10:15am: FlexE 1.0 Applications and IA

11:30am: FlexE 2.0 Project Summary

11:45pm: Lunch

12:45pm: FlexE Vision – Panelist presentations

2:25pm: Open Q&A with Panel

2:55pm: Wrap-up

 

REGISTRATION

  • Deadline to register is January 16, 2017
  • OIF Members: $150.00 USD; Non-members: $200.00 USD (fee includes lunch).

 

OIF Members, click HERE to register.

Non-members, click HERE to register.

 

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Partners With UNH-IOL to Certify Optical Control Plane UNI

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Enables Multi-vendor, Multi-layer Interoperability Using RSVP-TE Signaling

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) today announced an agreement with the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL), an independent provider of testing and standards conformance services for the networking industry, to provide certification for Optical Control Plane User Network Interfaces (UNI) based on industry standards.  In line with OIF’s mission to enable global interoperability in optical transport networks, the Forum’s certification program will address the interoperability of optical and packet products, complementing OIF’s work on unlocking the benefits of SDN for carriers.

While an optical control plane is already deployed by a large number of operators around the world, interoperability between vendors is constrained by lack of an interoperable UNI. Multi-vendor interoperability of the optical control plane remains absent from commercial products, although various demonstrations have proven it is feasible.  The optical control plane facilitates operations and enables dynamic provisioning, restoration and optimization across optical networks. The UNI extends these capabilities to client nodes and the OIF’s UNI certification will help enable the availability of control plane interoperability in commercial products.

“The advent of interoperability in optical networks is a paradigm shift, which will dramatically increase flexibility and innovation in our networks,” said Philippe Lucas, SVP Strategy Architecture and Standards of Orange. “The OIF certification is a step to unlock the market by providing a unique reference and a critical market advantage to compliant, interoperable products.”

“The benefits of multi-vendor interoperability combined with certification can help broaden and accelerate the market for optical products, reduce costs, introduce new features and operational agility,” said Timothy Winters, Senior Executive of UNH-IOL.  “Certification can fulfill operator’s and vendor’s requirements with reduced repetitive testing and a higher level of confidence when going to market.”

“Development of the UNI certification test specification is happening at an important time in our industry,” said Tim Doiron, Principal Analyst Intelligent Networking, ACG Research.  “We’ve never gotten the optical domain out of vendor isolation when it comes to the optical control plane. Certification and interoperability will aid service providers in their migration toward a multi-vendor programmable, dynamic optical underlay with increasing automation, service agility and reduced operational costs.”

The Optical Control Plane UNI Certification Program

The new certification program, along with OIF’s well established and successful interop testing process and implementation agreements, helps the industry realize open, programmable and interoperable optical networks in commercial deployments, bringing to reality the promised benefits of transport SDN, with accelerated time-to-revenue coupled with increased operational efficiency. 

  • Certification is based on compliance with relevant industry standards including IETF RFCs on RSVP-TE signaling.
  • Addresses the main use cases enabled by an optical control plane, including simplified provisioning, automated path selection, dynamic restoration and multi-layer optimization.
  • Enables several deployment cases which are of primary importance to operators and require immediate interoperability, including IP/WDM integration, packet-optical interconnect, multilayer optimization and alien wavelength deployments.
  • Contributes to OIF efforts to unlock the benefits of SDN for flexible networks
  • Facilitates multi-vendor deployments.

Development of the UNI certification test specification is starting now. Visit the OIF webpage for more information. Formal testing of participating vendor products will start early 2017 and pre-testing is already open at UNH-IOL. The first OIF certified products are expected to be on the market in approximately 12 months from now.

About the OIF

Launched in 1998, the OIF is the first industry group to unite representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world’s leading carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing, component and networking systems technologies. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of standards bodies and industry forums with the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products.  Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

About the UNH-IOL

Founded in 1988, the UNH-IOL provides independent, broad-based interoperability and standards conformance testing for data, telecommunications and storage networking products and technologies. Combining extensive staff experience, standards-bodies participation and a 28,000+ square foot facility, the UNH-IOL helps companies efficiently and cost effectively deliver products to the market. http://www.iol.unh.edu/

OIF Launches Optical Projects to Enable Next Generation Modules

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At the conclusion of the Optical Internetworking Forum’s (OIF) latest quarterly meeting, the organization announced that it has begun work on two optical interface projects, marking an evolutionary step to integrate optics as the industry moves to aggressively shrink module size. The IC-TROSA project would enable manufacturers to have a higher level of integration for transmit and receive optical components. The OIF’s CFP2-Digital Coherent Optics (DCO) project will work with other standards bodies to implement coherent modulations formats in CFP modules.

 “The IC-TROSA project tackles much more than just a simple size reduction,” said Karl Gass of Qorvo and the OIF’s Physical and Link Layer (PLL) Working Group – Optical vice chair.  “It addresses optical packaging in a way that isn’t done in high volumes today. We want to come to industry consensus in this pre-competitive environment.”

Integrated Coherent Transmitter-Receiver Optical Subassembly (IC-TROSA) is the evolutionary step that combines Polarization Multiplexed Quadrature (PMQ) Transmitter (Tx) and Integrated Coherent Receiver (ICR) components to create a single integrated optics package.  The optical sub-assembly that supports high-bandwidth and high-order QAM operations is suited for data center interconnect, metro and long-haul applications. As module sizes decrease, current coherent optics components need similar size reductions to enable next generation multi-terabit switches, line cards, and transport. Density requirements for next-gen line cards, front-pluggable and future on-board 400G+ optical modules are driving the need for further integration and miniaturization.

The OIF’s CFP2-DCO project includes a way to build address management interface and identify registers necessary to talk to the DSP located in the module, specific to coherent modulation techniques. The CFP2-DCO is intended to be used for 100G, 200G or 400G applications for metro, long-haul and data center interconnections and it can support different formats such as DP-QPSK and DP-xQAM.

About the OIF
Launched in 1998, the OIF is the first industry group to unite representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world’s leading carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing, component and networking systems technologies. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of standards bodies and industry forums with the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products.  Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

OIF Announces Plans for SDN Transport API Interoperability Demonstration

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The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) announced today plans for a global Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) interoperability demonstration in the fall of 2016. The OIF is partnering with the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the adoption of open SDN, to take the testing into carrier labs worldwide and lead the industry towards the wide-scale deployment of commercial SDN. Network virtualization and flexibility to deal with peak traffic events, link failures and network slicing are driving motivations behind the demonstration. Currently the transport layer operates with no awareness of the packet layer above it, so manual intervention is often needed to address issues. By incorporating the T-API, the problems can be corrected automatically through software.

Host carriers for the demonstration include China Telecom, China Unicom, SK Telecom, Telefónica and Verizon. Participating vendors include ADVA Optical Networking, Ciena, Coriant, Fiberhome, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Juniper Networks, NEC Corporation, Sedona Systems, SM Optics and ZTE. Consulting carriers include Orange and TELUS.  Academic and/or research institution participants include China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR) and Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC).

“In the modern operating environment, carriers need to dynamically move capacity to handle quickly changing traffic demands,” said Jonathan Sadler of Coriant and the OIF’s technical committee vice chair and acting networking interoperability chair. “The APIs that are being tested create a new breed of applications. Like so many of the interoperability agreements developed by the OIF, demand from carriers continues to drive the technical direction of the Forum.”

“ONF and the OIF are united in our goal of moving these technical advances into the market for the benefit of network operators and their users,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. “We are pleased to extend our longstanding collaboration with the OIF on T-API, leveraging OIF’s specialized optical expertise, and these demonstrations inspire operators and vendors alike to accelerate development and deployment.”

One main focus of the global demonstration is the notification interface – the means for notifying applications that congestion is being observed, triggering moving around of traffic and addition of capacity. Additional use cases based upon the API standards will be clarified during the testing and defined through OIF implementation agreements to provide a common set of requirements. Regional demonstration read-out events will take place in early 2017 and a whitepaper describing the event will be available to the public. Additional information can be found at http://www.oiforum.com/meetings-and-events/2016-oif-sdn-t-api-demo/.

 

About the OIF
Launched in 1998, the OIF is the first industry group to unite representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world’s leading carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing, component and networking systems technologies. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of standards bodies and industry forums with the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products.  Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

OIF Launches CEI-112G Project for 100G Serial Electrical Links

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In the wake of its 3rd quarter meeting, the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) announced that it has begun work on a 100G Serial Electrical Link project. The very short reach (VSR) CEI-112G chip-to-module interface project is aimed at meeting the most immediate needs of the industry, with both shorter and longer reach projects expected to follow. CEI-112G-VSR will support a nominal lane rate of 112 Gb/s, enabling narrower interfaces to optical modules and is expected to be more energy efficient than previous interfaces. The CEI-112G-VSR specification doubles data rates over the current generation CEI-56G-VSR interfaces.

Following the OIF’s industry workshop “100G Serial Electrical Links and Beyond” in March, a large number of Forum members supported the development of an implementation agreement addressing CEI-112G. That workshop, held at OFC 2016, was open to the public and featured OIF and industry subject matter experts addressing both 100 Gb/s serial applications and the interfaces needed to address higher bandwidth.

“Optical lane speeds have run faster than electrical lane speeds since the introduction of 10G Ethernet. While this is not a problem in the early days of a new data rate, the lowest module cost is achieved when optical and electrical lane speeds are the same,” said Dale Murray, Principal Analyst with LightCounting Market Research. “The first optical modules running 100 Gb/s serial are expected in 2018, so now is the time for the OIF to begin work on this CEI-112G project.”

“As bandwidth increases, electrical interfaces need to reflect that trend. Given the lead times, development of standards for the next generation of electrical links needs to start now,” said David Stauffer of Kandou Bus and the OIF’s Physical and Link Layer Working Group Chair and board member.  “The OIF is continuing its roadmap for 100 Gb/s thru 400 Gb/s and beyond applications, addressing multiple reaches for chip-to-chip and chip-to module interfaces.”

OIF Leaders Speaking at Ethernet Alliance TEF in September

Two OIF industry experts will address the Ethernet Alliance TEF event in September in Santa Clara. Nathan Tracy, OIF Technical Committee Chair, TE Connectivity will speak about the OIF’s CEI-112G project at a panel session entitled “Are Standardized Ethernet Optics Obsolete?” Tom Issenhuth, OIF Board Member from Microsoft will address the OIF’s FlexE implementation Agreement at a session entitled “Ethernet Flexes Its Ports”. More information about the conference can be found at http://www.oiforum.com/meetings-and-events/2016-speaking-engagements-and-supported-events/ .

About the OIF

Launched in 1998, the OIF is the first industry group to unite representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world’s leading carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing, component and networking systems technologies. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of standards bodies and industry forums with the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products.  Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

OIF Starts Work on CFP8-ACO and Completes Multi-Link Gearbox Agreement

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The Optical Internetworking Forum has approved Multi-Link Gearbox (MLG) 3.0, an agreement that supports 100G links and allows independent 10GBASE-R signals to transit physical 20G and 40G lanes for higher bandwidth capability. In addition, the members voted to start work on a CFP8-ACO project, building on the recently approved CFP2-ACO IA that was demonstrated in market-available products at OFC in March of this year.

CFP8-ACO Project Start

The OIF has commenced work on a new analog coherent optics project that supports higher baud rate and higher wavelength/ carrier-count applications at higher density than the existing CFP2-ACO. The new project, dubbed CFP8-ACO, utilizes the existing CFP8 definition from the CFP-MSA group and provides up to 4 wavelengths/carriers per module. In addition to a 20w power profile, the new specification includes a 9.5mm module height, allowing for a double-stack line card or belly-to-belly. A 40mm module width will enable a 2 x 8 configuration for a 16 module line card.  This allows for an increased number of modules as well as an increased number of wavelength/carriers.

“The OIF is looking ahead to what is needed in 2018 and we need to get started now to support the market needs for more wavelength/carriers in coherent optics modules,” said Karl Gass of Qorvo and the OIF Physical and Link Layer Working Group optical vice chair.  “Our goal with the CFP8-ACO module is a 4x increase in faceplate density and we expect to complete this next year.”

Multi-Link Gearbox Implementation Agreement Completed          

The MLG 3.0 specifies a logic layer between the Ethernet MAC and PHY layer hardware that allows the data from multiple MACs to be aggregated onto higher speed data links.  This allows independent 10GBASE-R and 40GBASE-R signals to transit 4x25G and 8x25G gearboxes. The agreement defines three MLG configurations: A 4x25G lane configuration is comprised of 20 MLG lanes. An 8x25G lane configuration is comprised of 40 MLG lanes. A 2x20G/1x40G lane configuration is comprised of 4 MLG lanes (similar to 40GBASE-R) to carry up to four 10GBASE-R signals.
“It remains important to the industry to be able to upgrade bandwidth without replacing the entire existing infrastructure,” said David Stauffer, Kandou Bus, S.A and the OIF Physical and Link Layer Working Group chair. “The MLG IA simplifies the migration path for adoption of new technology.”

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

OIF Completes FlexE IA for Data Center Interconnections

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Only one year after starting a project to enable flexible Ethernet for Data Center and transport interconnect efficiency, OIF members have finalized an implementation agreement (IA).  The Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) IA provides a way for Ethernet equipment to more efficiently utilize optical link bandwidth.  Ethernet connections between routers or transport gear need to be flexible in order to provide incremental increases in bandwidth beyond 100G.  The FlexE IA bridges the gap between previous, current and next-generation rates.

“The FlexE IA allows Ethernet to be used more efficiently in response to ever changing technologies, link rates, and bandwidth needs,” said Scott Irwin of MoSys and the OIF’s Physical and Link Layer Working Group – Protocol Vice Chair.  “OIF members worked hard to get this IA completed in record time to meet the industry’s need for flexible and scalable bandwidth provisioning.”

The FlexE Implementation Agreement provides a generic mechanism for supporting a variety of Ethernet MAC rates that may or may not correspond to any existing Ethernet PHY rate. This includes MAC rates that are both greater than (through bonding) and less than (through sub-rate and channelization) the Ethernet PHY rates used to carry FlexE.

The FlexE implementation agreement can be viewed here.

 

About the OIF

The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF Approves Pluggable Coherent Optics Module Implementation Agreement for Industry Use

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CFP2-ACO Addresses Next Generation Optical Networking Equipment

Fremont, Calif –February 18, 2016 – The membership of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has approved an Implementation Agreement (IA) on pluggable coherent optics modules for industry use. The CFP2 Analog Coherent Optics (CFP2-ACO) IA contains all functions required to perform bi-directional dual polarization coherent optical signaling over a pair of single mode optical fibers. These modules are expected to be applicable across multiple coherent DSP ASIC generations from various DSP vendors.

Faceplate density of optical IO is a key metric for switching and line-side transport applications. The roadmap for reduction in module size is accelerated by moving functions from the traditional CFP-series module to the host board. Moving the high power electronics functions to the line card permits optimal cooling of the electronics, enabling higher performance line-side applications as well as increasing the reliability of the module itself.

“A long life-span for the CFP2-ACO solution is expected by providing optical module vendors a large addressable market,” said Ian Betty of Ciena and OIF board member and IA editor. “Significant innovation and cost reduction in the coherent optics solutions for Metro-to-Regional reach line-side transport is anticipated with the CFP2-ACO solution.”

OIF member companies will demonstrate multi-vendor interoperability of the expanding ecosystem for pluggable coherent optics in a live environment at OFC, March 22-24 in Booth #3619.  More information on the OIF PLL Interoperability Demonstration 2016 can be found here.

The CFP2-ACO module implementation agreement can be found here.

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF to Host Public Workshop on 100G Developments

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The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) will host a public workshop addressing the latest developments in 100G Serial, immediately following OFC 2016 in Anaheim, California. The event, OIF Workshop – 100G Serial Electrical Links and Beyond, is open to the public and scheduled for Thursday, March 24, 2016, from 12:30 pm to 6:15 pm at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel. The workshop will feature subject matter experts from the OIF and will include an industry view presented by Dale Murray, Principal Analyst at LightCounting Market Research.

“This event presents an opportunity for members of the larger optical networking industry to see the technical direction of 100G Serial,” said Tom Palkert, OIF Physical & Link Layer Working Group Vice Chair – Electrical, System Architect at Molex. “100G developments are evolving rapidly – companies that are prepared with interoperable solutions will have a distinct advantage.”

The deadline to register is March 17, 2016. Registration fee includes a one-hour cocktail reception. For details including registration information, please click HERE.

Two working sessions led by OIF subject matter experts will focus on 100G serial application requirements and 100G serial electrical technology.

Session 1 – 100G Serial Application Requirements

1:40 pm -2:20 pm:  Networking Trends – Matt Traverso, Principal Engineer, Cisco Systems, Inc.

2:20 pm – 3:00 pm:  Cloud Scale – Brad Booth, Principal Architect, Microsoft Azure Networking

3:00 pm – 3:40 pm:  Storage and CPU – Scott Kipp, Senior Technologist, Brocade

Session 2 – 100G Serial Electrical Technology

4:00 pm – 4:40 pm:  PAM Options – Atul Gupta, Chief Technologist, MACOM

4:40 pm – 5:20 pm:  100G Connectors/Cables – David Helster, Director, Signal Integrity and System Architecture, TE Connectivity

5:20 pm – 6:00 pm:  Alternate Modulation – David Stauffer, Senior Engineer, Kandou Bus, S.A.

6:00 pm – 6:15 pm: Wrap up – Tom Palkert

6:30 pm – 7:30 pm:  Reception

 

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

OIF Launches Flex Coherent DWDM Framework Effort, Elects New Officers

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Members of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) are working to specify a framework for Flex Coherent DWDM Transmission in the application fields of long haul, metro, and data center inter-connection. The framework will build upon work the OIF completed for 100G LH DWDM and provide guidance for 400G.

“We’ve discussed the hardware implications of SDN for a couple years now,” said Junjie Li, of China Telecom and OIF board member. “We need to move away from fixed performance transceivers in order to provide Service Providers with a flexible solution, complete with software ‘knobs’ that can be dialed-in to achieve the desired performance.”

Dynamic networks require flexibility in reach, data rate, and spectral efficiency. This can be accomplished through the following flexible transceiver attributes: modulation formats, symbol rates, and number of subcarriers. Flex Coherent DWDM will outline a software-defined optics ecosystem that initially leverages past and current OIF projects for tunable lasers, high bandwidth PMQ modulated transmitters and integrated coherent receivers. The Flex Coherent DWDM Transmission will start with the following modulation formats suitable for different scenarios; QPSK, 8QAM, 16QAM for long haul and metro applications and 32QAM, 64QAM for data center inter-connection applications.

Board Elections

The OIF announced the results of its recent leadership elections, welcoming Peter Landon of BTI Systems as the chair of the Networking & Operations Working Group committee for 2-year term.

Newly elected to the Board of Directors are Ian Betty of Ciena for a 2-year term, Tom Issenhuth of Microsoft for a 2-year term and Mike Tessaro of Qorvo for a 1-year term. Junjie Li of China Telecom was re-elected to the board for a 1-year term. John McDonough of NEC America will serve as president. Dave Brown of Alcatel-Lucent continues to serve as VP of Marketing and Dave Stauffer of Kandou Bus continues to serve as secretary/treasurer.

OIF Day at Huawei Technologies

In conjunction with the Forum’s recent quarterly meeting in Shanghai, the OIF and Huawei Technologies hosted a day of interactive and educational workshops featuring OIF and Huawei Technologies subject matter experts. Topics covered included OIF projects and technical work, intelligent optical networking, and 400G. The exclusive event was focused on helping attendees understand system vendor challenges and strategies, strengthening member/executive support for the OIF and establishing an input and validation process for strategic/project planning.

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

OIF to Display 400G CEI 56G Interfaces, Discuss SDN Work at ECOC

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The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) will showcase the “Next Generation of Pluggable Modules” to ECOC attendees at the Forum’s booth #345 in Valencia, Spain, September 28-30. OIF representatives will also present sessions on the Forum’s latest work on 400G and SDN.

On September 25th, the OIF and global telecom carrier Orange will host an interactive and educational workshop at the Orange Labs in Issy les Moulineaux near Paris. The event features subject matter experts from the OIF and Orange addressing intelligent optical networking, Transport SDN and 400G, as well as OIF projects and directions.  This event is the latest of a series of OIF Day programs held with select carriers and optical vendors to inform them on the latest developments in optical network physical and control interfaces and exchange views on future directions in the optical networking industry.

 OIF at ECOC – “Enabling the Next Generation of Pluggable Modules”

The OIF will show 56Gb/s NRZ and PAM4 electrical interfaces as well as pluggable coherent optics demonstrations at ECOC in booth #345. The demonstration will include CFP2-ACO, showing key components of the ecosystem necessary to accelerate the movement of coherent optics into the pluggable realm. The two Common Electrical Interface (CEI) demos address the fourth generation CEI-56G. These demos show the next generation electrical data rates in chip to module implementations. The current efforts include the definition of both PAM4 and NRZ modulations to enable 56Gb/s electrical interfaces across diverse industry applications.

OIF Presentations at ECOC Market Focus Theater

Monday, September 28 – 2:05-2:35 pm
Topic: OIF’s CEI 56G Interfaces – Key Building Blocks for Optics in Next Generation 400G Data Centers
Presenter: Ed Frlan, OIF Physical & Link Layer Interoperability Working Group Chair, Semtech

Tuesday, September 29 – 1:35-2:05 pm
Topic: Gearing up for Transport SDN Deployment – a starter kit for early adopters
Presenters: Christophe Betoule, Orange and Jonathan Sadler, OIF Technical Committee Vice Chair, Coriant

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

 

OIF Technical Work Continues at Rapid Pace With 400G White Paper, New Implementation Agreements

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Continuing a tradition of producing timely, relevant technical work, the members of the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) have published a whitepaper that provides the carrier perspective on 400G technology options and its impact on future high-capacity WDM applications. The Forum also approved implementation agreements that outline service provider requirements for Neighbor Discovery and updated specifications for the industry standard Integrable Tunable Laser MSA.

In an effort to bring order and clarity to the race to build 400G transport solutions, the OIF’s 400G whitepaper summarizes the technology options for specific applications such as long-haul, metro and data center interconnect. Entitled “Technology Options for 400G Implementation”, the whitepaper provides a consensus from carriers on the specific system parameters and network requirements needed for 400G to support increased bandwidth demands in optical networks.

“As the industry moves forward towards 400G-transmission speed, it is crucial to have carriers and vendors working together, as was achieved with 100G optical interfaces,” said Karl Gass, of Qorvo and the OIF PLL working group vice-chair, optical. “This whitepaper summarizes the requirements by carriers for specific technology applications, and we expect to start projects to define the best, near term solutions for 400G networks.”

Implementation Agreements Approved

Service providers need to streamline and reduce cost of operating their optical networks; one way is to reduce manual effort by automating link configuration processes. Automating the process of link identification and exchanging the link configuration data is known colloquially as Neighbor Discovery. The ITU-T has defined an architecture and protocol for Neighbor Discovery in G.7714 and G.7714.1, but implementation of the specifications has been limited. The OIF’s “Neighbor Discovery Implementation Agreement 1.0” utilizes ITU-T specifications to support the exchange of:

  • Identity of the network element port connected to the far end of the link,
  • Data-plane capability of the network element ports on each link end,
  • Management-plane details for each link end,
  • Control-plane details for each link end.

The resulting specification provides carriers with an interoperable solution complete with use cases, requirements, procedure and protocols conforming to the ITU-T’s specifications.

The OIF continues to build on the industry standard for tunable lasers established by the forum six years ago. The OIF has updated the existing MSA and assembly IA to add the functionality needed for next generation, highly flexible networks.

The Integrable Tunable Laser Assembly MSA (ITLA-MSA 1.3) and Micro – Integrable Tunable Laser Assembly IA (OIF-MicroITLA-01.1) updates add the provision of high resolution registers and raises the protocol version to 3.0.0.

The 400G white paper and implementation agreements can be found here.

About the OIF
The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements (IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies, and to network control and operations including software defined networks and network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking, including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors, component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

It’s Getting Hot In Here!

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In an effort to help optical module suppliers and system designers reduce heat and thermal management issues, the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has approved a thermal interface implementation agreement (IA) for pluggable optics modules. The agreement summarizes the information to be provided by module suppliers to facilitate thermal integration of
the module within the host system. It also defines the requirements and methods for testing a thermal interface between a pluggable optical module and the hostsystem heatsink.

“When optical modules are mated with heatsinks, the goal is to remove over 90% of
the heat through the interface area into the airflow stream via the heatsink,” said
Torsten Wuth, of Coriant and the OIF Physical Layer User Group Working Group chair.
“Nominal ranges of heat flux are defined as Power Density classes. The OIF
agreement defines acceptable thermal impedances for the contact area for various
pluggable module types and a method of measuring the impedance.”

The OIF previously addressed various methods that could be employed by system
designers to reduce the temperatures of modules in air-cooled systems in the
Thermal Management at the Faceplate white paper. Those methods included the
direction of airflow over the modules, internal system baffling to direct airflow,
placement of the modules and other heat dissipating devices on the blade,
optimizing fin layout on the heatsink, and increasing the thermal conductivity of the
heatsink, as well as the importance of thermal contact resistance between the
module and the heatsink.

The new IA specifies generic interface properties but includes specific examples
such as, CFP, CFP2, CFP4, XFP, SFP, SFP+, QSFP, QSFP+, and CDFP. Of primary
concern are interfaces where the pluggable module slides through the faceplate and
under a spring-loaded heat sink. This type of interface has limited contact force
because the insertion and extraction force and force from the heatsink on the
connectors are limited.

For more information go to http://www.oiforum.com/documents/implementationagreements/

About the OIF

The OIF facilitates the development and deployment of interoperable networking
solutions and services. Members collaborate to drive Implementation Agreements
(IAs) and interoperability demonstrations to accelerate and maximize market
adoption of advanced internetworking technologies. OIF work applies to optical and
electrical interconnects, optical component and network processing technologies,
and to network control and operations including software defined networks and
network function virtualization. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of
national and international standards bodies. Launched in 1998, the OIF is the only
industry group uniting representatives from across the spectrum of networking,
including many of the world’s leading service providers, system vendors,
component manufacturers, software and testing vendors. Information on the OIF
can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.