Digital Optical Network Benefits
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By exploiting the architecture simplicity and operational flexibility of a Digital Optical Network, carriers can significantly reduce OpEx costs of operating a network while increasing service flexibility and revenue-generating "On-Net" network footprint. In addition, a Digital Optical Network provides the opportunity to significantly improve carrier networks by simplifying architectures, consolidating transport and bandwidth management, enabling flexible add/drop, and providing end-end service management.
The benefits of the Digital Optical Network include the ability to:
- Simplify Network Architecture
- Consolidate Transport and Bandwidth Management
- Maximize Add/Drop Flexibility
- Expand Network Access and Increase Revenue Capture
Simplify Network Architecture
The cost-effectiveness of Digital Optical Network enables carriers to avoid the compromise between minimal network cost and maximum customer access imposed when using existing WDM systems. In such cases, a regional or "collector" network is often deployed to maximize "on-net" access in all target markets, at the expense of high per channel cost for any end-end circuit. To lower end-end circuit costs, carriers can deploy an overlay ultra-long haul or "express" network which provides network access only at major cities, but minimizes OEO cost for end-end circuits. Finally, separate metro WDM systems are often deployed to connect carrier central offices (COs), data centers, and carrier hotels in large metropolitan areas. Such overlay network architectures, although a justified compromise given today's WDM technology options, impose unnecessary capital and operating costs while increasing network architecture complexity.
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By comparison an Infinera Digital Optical Network can be cost-effectively deployed to address both the needs of frequent network access along high-density regional routes, long-haul transport on express routes, and metro core connectivity requirements. In this case network equipment and capacity are deployed in a manner more closely correlated to capacity use, avoiding the need for duplicate capital expenditures to build both "collector" and "express" networks, both of which will initially operate at only a portion of their maximum capacity.
By provisioning customers' services over a common transport backbone, a Digital Optical Network reduces backhaul traffic between "collector" and "express" networks, and creates a flatter network which reduces inter-network connections at junction nodes, thereby reducing the need for Optical Cross-Connect (OXC) to manage capacity at junction nodes.
The use of a common Digital Optical Network deployed for metro core, regional and long-haul applications reduces the number of system technologies, simplifies network engineering, and reduces costs for installation, sparing, training, documentation, space allocation, power consumption, network management, and maintenance.
Consolidate Transport and Bandwidth Management
Leveraging low-cost OEO access at each Digital Node, a Digital Optical Network provides flexible sub-wavelength bandwidth management within the optical transport layer, and eliminates the "point-to-point" and "back-to-back" architectures of typical WDM systems. This allows nodal architecture simplification by managing the high capacity circuits of core backbones within a single Digital Optical Network layer.
Thus pass-through or "transit" traffic can remain within the Digital Optical Network, thereby eliminating the operational and service turn-up inconvenience typical of manual back-back interconnections between point-point WDM systems. Trunk circuits originating or terminating at a Digital Node are connected to local service platforms, thus allowing SONET/SDH OXCs or add/drop multiplexers (ADMs) to provide maximum value by grooming and multiplexing lower-rate services at the edges of the network.
A Digital Optical Network therefore simplifies nodal architecture by consolidating digital transport, flexible multi-service add/drop, and multi-wavelength capacity into a common Digital Node for core networks, complementing local SONET/SDH and data service platforms.
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Maximize Add/Drop Flexibility
By combining flexible electronic add/drop of sub-
services at any Digital Node with a standards-compliant GMPLS control plane, a Digital Optical Network unifies optical service transport and management across a single network layer. This provides carriers the ability to implement "point-and-click" end-end service management, and enables automated circuit provisioning, topology self-discovery and system turn-up.
This improves management of customer circuits, increases speed of service provisioning, simplifies service and performance management, and allows carriers to easily turn-up transport capacity between any Digital Nodes within the network, irrespective of topology.
In addition, the grooming capability of a Digital Node provides efficient line side optical transport (at 10G per wavelength) while simultaneously providing sub-lambda add/drop and bandwidth management to enable customer signals on different wavelengths, or originating from different locations, to be combined and add/dropped to the same client interface card or switched to different wavelengths.
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This provides carriers with significant simplification in the planning, engineering, and activation of new services compared to the manual connection of costly back-to back transponders at WDM terminal nodes, or complex wavelength planning rules, banding constraints, and wavelength contention common in Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers (O-ADMs). In addition, the flexible add/drop architecture of a digital node provides equipment savings and simplifies operations over solutions that tie add/drop of services to a specific wavelength, as is the case with WDM terminals or O-ADM implementations.
The ubiquitous access to the underlying digital data at each Digital Node also significantly extends the flexibility to add and drop customer traffic where and when required, without requiring extensive pre-planning or reconfiguration. A Digital Node can be initially deployed to pass-through traffic transiting that location, and upgraded in-service to provide add/drop access to a new customer. This is accomplished simply by adding tributary interfaces and cross-connecting the client service from/to the already active wavelengths via an electronic switch within the system. This ability to rapidly activate a new customer circuit across more "on-net" locations without complex manual provisioning operations will reduce back-haul or access charges, shorten provisioning lead times, increase customer satisfaction, and accelerate "time to revenue" for carriers.
Expand Network Access and Increase Revenue Capture
By permitting the cost-effective deployment of an Infinera Digital Optical Network anywhere customer access is required in the network, carriers can lower the business case threshold required to connect customers, thus increasing potential revenues. In contrast, with today's WDM technology, carriers face the dilemma of either minimizing network cost by minimizing OEOs (and thus the number of add/drop sites) or maximizing customer revenue, but not both. A Digital Optical Network eliminates the need to make such a compromise.
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Exploiting the ultra-low cost OEOs enabled by photonic integration to provide unconstrained add/drop, a Digital Optical Network can provide carriers with the opportunity to maximize "Revenue Capture" for top-line growth. By providing costeffective add/drop, carriers can deploy Digital Nodes more frequently in their networks to provide service in more markets, including secondary markets that may have previously been bypassed. By increasing the "on-net" footprint of their networks, carriers can benefit from several important benefits, including:
- Extend network connectivity to customers with geographically extensive service requirements
- Increase addressable market by providing "on-net" access in under-served markets or those with historically limited choice of service providers
- Maximize "Revenue Capture" from their network to increase top-line growth
- Increase margins by reducing reliance on leased back-haul circuits
- Improved pricing competitiveness by reducing the cost of "on-net" access
- Increase service offerings by offering lower bit rate services where previously only wholesale wavelength services might have been justified
- Maximize service responsiveness to new demands, changing customer connectivity, or new service requirements
© 2008 Infinera Corporation.