Routed optical networks

Tue May 2 20:28:16 UTC 2023

So right Jared....magic has been in the NPU capacity increase that's driven
the cost per 100G down on 1RU routers; and the integration of DSPs and more
into QSFP-DD form factors at much lower power than expected. The standards
for optical links are maturing as well, but we still have work to do on the
management side for the electrical interfaces.
Eve

On Tue, May 2, 2023 at 3:33 PM Jared Mauch <jared at puck.nether.net> wrote:

>
>
> > On May 2, 2023, at 2:29 PM, Etienne-Victor Depasquale via NANOG <
> nanog at nanog.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, May 01, 2023 at 02:56:47PM -0600, Matt Erculiani wrote:
> > > In short, the idea is that optical networks are wasteful and routers
> do a
> > > better job making more use of a network's capacity than ROADMs. Take
> the
> > > extra router hop (or 3 or 8) versus short-cutting it with an optical
> > > network because the silicon is so low-latency anyway that it hardly
> makes a
> > > difference now. Putting more GBs per second on fewer strands means
> saving a
> > > lot of money on infrastructure costs.
> >
> > This is a very convoluted way of backing into the ole packet-switched
> > vs. circuit switched decision.
> >
> > I don't follow.
> > While ROADMs can be thought of as circuit-switchers,
> > the number of concurrent clients and switching latency put ROADMs on a
> different operational level than packet switchers, right?
>
>
> I’ve seen proposals for an LSR MPLS/ROADAM type solution, where imagine
> you are at a hop where in a long distance system solution, you would end up
> with OEO, but instead you get directionality capability with an IP/MPLS
> capable device.  As mentioned previously, the 400-ZR/ZR+/ZR-Bright/+0
> optics are the latest example of that.
>
> I know of a few companies that have looked at solutions like this, and can
> expect there to be some interesting solutions that would appear as a
> result.  Optical line systems tend to have pretty low power requirements
> compared to a router, but some of the routers are getting pretty low power
> as well when it comes to the power OPEX/bit, and if you have the ability to
> deliver services as an integrated packet optical you could see reduced
> costs and simplified components/sparing.
>
> I’ll also say that I’ve not yet seen the price compression that I had
> expected in the space yet, but I figure that’s coming.  We are seeing the
> bits/watt ratio improve though, so for the same or less power consumption
> you get more bits.  Some of this technology stuff is truly magical.
>
> - Jared
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