Cisco @ OFC – Bold Innovations to Power Your Future-Ready Network

Capacity, bandwidth, open, convergence, automation, simplification, sustainability – the industry buzzwords that reign in today’s optical networking ethos. As we head to OFC, Cisco isn’t just “talking the talk” – we’re walking that talk backed by deployed solutions and industry customer trials.

When we first introduced Routed Optical Networking around 28 months ago, there was expected skepticism, fueled by differing industry opinions. Yet today, Cisco now has more than 24 Routed Optical Networking deployments, 12 of which are public. And, the solution was the Light Reading “Leading Lights” winner in December, named “The Most Innovative Routing and Switching Solution.”

The Bright ZR+ is now available to expand Routed Optical Networking to brownfield networks to add more capacity. Vodafone Turkey became the first operator in Turkey to test 400G speeds with multiple suppliers and network layers. In the trial, carried out using Acacia Bright 400ZR+ modules and Cisco routers, a speed of 400 Gbps was achieved with optical routing between Vodafone’s data centers in Tuzla and Esenyurt. Additionally, Arelion was the first network operator to successfully demonstrate 400G coherent connections between Cisco 8000 and NCS 5700 router platforms over third-party open line system using Bright 400ZR+ modules supporting high transmit power.

Acacia (now a part of Cisco) also recently shipped a 1.2 Tbit/s optical module. Crossing the Tbit/s threshold is an optical networking industry milestone. As we’ve been saying, Cisco believes in and is committed to open networking. At the show, we’ll have live demos on:  the Acacia Coherent Interconnect Module 8 (CIM 8) powered by the Jannu, our new NCS 1014 with the 2.4T WDM line card based on CIM 8, the Cisco NCS 1010 C&L band Optical Line System (with C&L band ZR+ optics), and Bright ZR+ and the QSFP-DD OLS pluggable.

Cisco is also participating in three show floor interoperability demonstrations this year: OFCnet, OIF, and OpenROADM.

The technology and innovation for co-packaged optics continues to evolve in support of next-generation data center architectures. While still in the early stages, co-packaged optics offers significant power advantages versus traditional switch designs, with potential improvements in density and latency.  Cisco’s expertise in systems, ASICs, and optics makes it uniquely positioned to lead the industry in the advancement of this technology.

In addition to these and more than 10 OFC workshops and panels, Cisco will showcase our latest Routed Optical Networking feature sets, including PLE and automation; network as a Sensor; and our 400G and 800G Optics portfolio.

We’re excited about what the future holds and welcome the opportunity to help you navigate this journey. Join us at the Cisco booth #6401 to discuss these topics and more. To set up a meeting in advance, email us.

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