Low to Mid Range DWDM Platforms

Mon Oct 23 23:41:04 UTC 2023

Sorry for the late response, but I can speak about the FS M6200 product. We have been using the 10GOEO card for 10G DWDM/WDM on a span. The hardware works reasonably well though we had to reseat a card once in the last 18 months or so of operation. It also seems to be a bit finicky when you first install a new card. Their support had us slot/reslot and move around a few times before things started working as expected. My biggest complaint is that the ONLY way to manage the box is through the EMS system, which must be installed on a windows OS. It has an embedded apache server that provides the interface, so it doesn’t have to run on windows server. The EMS uses SNMP for all the configuration of the hardware itself. We figured out how to do some basic things like change the IP using snmp, but besides, that there is no way to manage it without connectivity back to the EMS, no CLI, no internal web interface, etc.

Collin R

From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+collinr=gmail.com at nanog.org> on behalf of Mike Hammett <nanog at ics-il.net>
Date: Friday, October 6, 2023 at 5:43 PM
To: David Bass <davidbass570 at gmail.com>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Low to Mid Range DWDM Platforms
Well, and that's kinda where I was going.

I've used FS passive systems for years. FS has an active platform or two (that I understand, they just whitebox). Does it really do everyone one would need to do? How much of a step is it to get something more?

-----
Mike Hammett
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________________________________
From: "David Bass" <davidbass570 at gmail.com>
To: "Dave Bell" <me at geordish.org>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Sent: Friday, October 6, 2023 8:55:21 AM
Subject: Re: Low to Mid Range DWDM Platforms
On the same topic, anyone have experience with the stuff from fs.com<http://fs.com>?

On Fri, Oct 6, 2023 at 9:53 AM Dave Bell <me at geordish.org<mailto:me at geordish.org>> wrote:
Smartoptics?

https://smartoptics.com/

Regards,
Dave

On Fri, 6 Oct 2023 at 14:43, Mark Tinka <mark at tinka.africa> wrote:

On 10/6/23 15:07, Mike Hammett wrote:

> I've been using various forms of passive WDM for years. I have a couple different projects on my plate that require me to look at the next level of platform.
>
> In some projects, I'll be looking for needing to have someone long distances of glass without any electronics. Some spans could be over 60 miles.
>
> In some projects, I'll need to transport multiple 100-gig waves.
>
> What is the landscape like between basic passive and something like a 30 terabit Ciena? I know of multiple vendors in that space, but I like to learn more about what features I need and what features I don't need from somewhere other than the vendor's mouth. Obviously, the most reliability at the least cost as well.

400G-ZR pluggables will get you 400Gbps on a p2p dark fibre over 80km -
100km. So your main cost there will be routers that will support.

The smallest DCI solution from the leading DWDM vendors is likely to be
your cheapest option. Alternatively, if you are willing to look at the
open market, you can find gear based on older CMOS (40nm, for example),
which will now be EoL for any large scale optical network, but cost next
to nothing for a start-up with considerable capacity value.

There is a DWDM vendor that showed up on the scene back in 2008 or
thereabouts. They were selling a very cheap, 1U box that had a different
approach to DWDM from other vendors at the time. I, for the life of me,
cannot remember their name - but I do know that Randy introduced them to
me back then. Maybe he can remember :-). Not sure if they are still in
business.

Mark.

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