Infinera embraces Transmode, new products in metro portfolio

Optical transport systems vendor Infinera used its annual Insight Infinera analyst and media briefing Tuesday to beef up its metro applications story. Having promised a metro aggregation platform at last year's event (in addition to launching the Cloud Xpress), Infinera followed through with two of them, as well as outlining the first steps towards fully integrating into its portfolio the TM-Series metro-focused platforms it gained when it acquired Transmode (see "Infinera looks to metro with Transmode buy"). The company also released a long-haul-capable complement to the Cloud Xpress.

The new optical transport systems include a pair of metro core and regional aggregation platforms, the DTN-X XTC-2 and XTC-2E. The systems use the oPIC-100, one of two "sliceable bandwidth" metro photonic integrated circuits (PICs) Infinera first described last March (see "Infinera hints at upcoming metro aggregation platforms with new PIC introductions"). The PICs enable the 500-Gbps bandwidth enabled by an ePIC-500 on a core DTN-X platform to be split in 100-Gbps slices to be used by individual line cards on the XTC-2 and XTC-2E. Both of the new XTC platforms offer WDM, Optical Transport Network (OTN), and packet capabilities. They offer 1.2 Tbps of non-blocking OTN switching, which Infinera says will grow to 2.4T with ODU0 (1.25G) granularity. Client-side interface can range from 155 Mbps to 100 Gbps, including SDH/SONET, Ethernet/packet, Fibre Channel, and video inputs. The 2E version also supports inclusion of optical line system cards.

The platforms are scheduled to ship in the fourth quarter of this year.

Infinera also announced that the Transmode TM-Series metro packet-optical transport systems can interoperate with its DTN-X systems, thanks to a new range of hardware and software features. For example, new hardware modules for the DTN-X XTC Series enable direct 100-Gbps WDM line-side interoperability with the former Transmode platforms. The company says it has tweaked its Infinera Digital Node Administrator (DNA) network management system to enable unified control of the DTN-X and the TM-Series platforms.

Infinera also unveiled a new PT-Fabric for the TM-Series to extend the line's capabilities to terabit switching and metro 100 Gb/s networking. However, it did not unveil PIC integration into the TM-Series. Pravin Mahajan, director of product and corporate marketing at Infinera, said the company wasn't discussing when it might add PIC-based capabilities to the line. But such a move appears inevitable.

Finally, Infinera also launched the DTN-X XT Series, with the 2RU XT-500 platform the first member of the family. Infinera has targeted the system aimed for long-haul point-to-point applications, including data center interconnect. It thus competes with similar platform announcements from Ciena and ADVA Optical Networking (see "Ciena adds long-haul version of Waveserver data center interconnect platform" and "ADVA Optical Networking enhances FSP 3000 CloudConnect data center interconnect platform"). The system leverages the PIC-500 to support 500-Gbps superchannels at a power consumption Mahajan described as 1 W per gigabit. It will support 10, 40, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet clients.

It also is slated to ship during the current quarter.

For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer's Guide.