7 April 2003 Fremont, CA Lightwave--The Optical Internetworking Forum's (OIF) recent real-time interoperability demonstration of the UNI/NNI and Physical & Link Layer (PLL) protocols has been deemed a success by the forum and the 24 participating vendors. Twelve companies displayed interoperability between six electrical and optical interfaces on the PLL side, while an additional 12 companies demonstrated the integrated UNI/NNI solution--representing a significant industry milestone towards achieving an open network layer, say OIF representatives.
"The most cost effective method to move the industry forward in the development of optical networking equipment is to create basic interface agreements for electrical, optical, and control planes," explains Joe Berthold of CIENA Corp. and president of the OIF. "The measure of the OIF's success is the verification of our implementation agreements via interoperability events. These events not only prove that the agreements are robust, but are being commercially implemented. Additionally, the live demo included the largest public display of multi-vendor interworking of an optical signaling and routing control plane based on the OIF UNI and NNI specifications."
"At [OFC], the OIF assembled all of the transport circuits necessary for a network element by connecting demo boards and modules from each vendor using OIF interface implementation agreements from the PLL working group," adds Steve Joiner of Ignis Optics and technical committee chairman of the OIF. "It was incredible to see the OIF's Implementation Agreements in action. The SPI 4.2, SFI-5, TFI-5, SFI-4.1, VSR-4 interfaces and the tunable lasers all performed beyond expectations."
The PLL participants include ASSP, FPGA, ASIC, optical module, and test equipment vendors highlighting protocol testers, signal integrity measurement equipment (including eye diagrams and jitter measurements), video generation, and display equipment. The PLL participating companies included AMCC, Big Bear Networks, Intel Corp., Iolon, Multiplex Inc., NEC Electronics, Network Elements, Santur Corp., Tyco Electronics, Velio, Vitesse, and Xilinx. Agilent Technologies and Tektronix supported the event with their optical test equipment
The UNI/NNI participants include manufacturers of IP routers, optical cross connects, metro and long haul optical transport equipment, and add/drop multiplexers. Protocol test equipment and software was also highlighted. In conjunction with the UNI/NNI event, the OIF's Call Detail Records Implementation Agreement (CDR 1.0 IA), which enables billing for UNI 1.0 connections, was demonstrated publicly for the first time. The UNI/NNI participating companies included Alcatel, Avici Systems, CIENA Corp., Data Connection, ELEMATICS, Mahi Networks, Motorola Computer Group/NetPlane, NEC, Nortel Networks, Sycamore Networks Inc., Tellabs, and Tellium Inc.