CALIENT, Spirent target optical test lab automation

Optical switch vendor CALIENT Technologies, Inc. has teamed with test and measurement instrument developer Spirent Communications (LSE: SPT) to create an automated way to use optical switching in optical network hardware test environments. The partnership sees CALIENT's S Series Optical Circuit Switch integrated with the Spirent Velocity testbed orchestration software. This integration enables the Velocity platform to control CALIENT's S320 and S160 Optical Circuit Switches to provide Layer 1 optical topology reconfiguration in network equipment test labs.

The companies will target the combined offering at network test labs evaluating optical transport gear operating at data rates of 40 Gbps and above. Use of the software-controlled optical switches will enable operators to build a "fiber once" infrastructure, then manage and control topology and testing of the connected equipment. Such a setup will reduce cabling errors, accelerate equipment testing, and enable tests to be conducted remotely at centralized lab facilities, the companies say.

Velocity is a Lab-as-a-Service (LaaS) test orchestration platform designed to orchestrate, manage, and monitor the testing of physical and virtual network equipment and software, including multi-user remote testing. CALIENT's S Series Optical Circuit Switches include the S320 and S160; the S320 is a 320-port switch and the S160 is a 160-port switch.

"Network equipment manufacturers are rapidly evolving their product lines to support 100 Gbps rates and new software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) initiatives, which means a lot of investment in the ability to test these new products," said Daniel Tardent, vice president of marketing and product management for CALIENT. "The functionality and market leadership of Spirent's Velocity platform combined with our unique MEMS-based all optical switching is a powerful solution for effective testing of the next generation of networking equipment."

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