All-optical switch specialist Polatis has announced general availability of its new 48-fiber Series 6000 optical switching module (OSM).
The 48xCC OSM is a fully non-blocking, single sided all-optical 48-fiber matrix switch that is designed for ‘any-to-any’ port connectivity, enabling programmable interconnection architectures not possible with traditional symmetric NxN switch matrices.
The module has been designed specifically for OEM integration with network equipment, fibre management systems and test and measurement tools.
“As bit rates and network traffic increase, telco and data centre operators are deploying new architectures that add a flexible layer of optical switching to better manage the capacity necessary to meet those demands. With superior optical performance in a compact form factor and an attractive price point, the Series 6000 OSM is an ideal product for OEM’s seeking to add dynamic fibre layer cross-connects to their networking equipment,” said Gerald Wesel, Polatis CEO.
The 48xCC OSM is the latest variant built on the Series 6000 DirectLight dark fibre optical switch platform that provides ultra-low loss of less than 1dB and back reflection of typically -50dB. The module incorporates Polatis’ new ASIC-based controller to enable a compact form factor of just 41mm x 122mm x 266mm with power consumption less than 5W.
The low loss of the Series 6000 DirectLight platform enables multi-stage optical switch fabrics to be created within the restricted power budget of low cost transceivers that can scale to provide simultaneous non-blocking reconfiguration of over 12,000 endpoints without concatenation of switching delay.
“With easy integration of a software-controlled fibre layer under an SDN control plane, traffic that doesn’t require higher-layer packet inspection and grooming can be routed directly on the fibre. This creates a more efficient, higher-performing network that can dynamically allocate network resources when and to where they are needed most,” said Nick Parsons, CTO and VP of engineering at Polatis.
In addition, Polatis announced that it has released a NETCONF interface and associated YANG models required for integration with software defined network (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV) management platforms. This allows Series 6000 optical circuit switches to be deployed under an OpenFlow or NETCONF enabled control plane, which allows data centre and network operators to reconfigure the fibre layer on demand to deploy capacity where and when it is most needed.