The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) announced that twenty-five vendor companies participated in the initial interoperability testing of the optical User Network Interface (UNI) protocol. The testing was held at the University of New Hampshire's Inter Operability Laboratory, in Durham, New Hampshire on May 7-11, 2001. All vendors that participated were able to successfully demonstrate Optical UNI interoperability. These companies will go on to demonstrate interoperability at SuperComm 2001 in Atlanta on June 5-7 in OIF's booth #150D in the Georgia Dome.
According to OIF, this will be the first interoperability demonstration. The following companies will participate in the demo at SuperComm 2001: Agilent Technologies, Alcatel, Avici Systems, CIENA Corporation, Cinta Networks, Cisco Systems, Inc., Coriolis Networks, Inc., Corvis Corporation, Data Connection Limited, Geyser Networks, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Lucent Technologies, Metro-OptiX Inc., Nortel Networks, ONI Systems Corp., Optisphere Networks Inc., Optivera Technologies, Redback Networks Inc., Spirent Communications, Sycamore Networks, Inc., Tellium, Inc., Tenor Networks, Turin Networks, Inc., Village Networks, Inc., Zaffire, Inc.
About Optical UNI Interoperability
OIF's UNI agreement enables client devices to dynamically set-up and tear-down Optical circuit connections across the transport network. During interoperability testing, participating vendors followed a rigid test methodology defined by OIF's ad-hoc interop testing group. The methodology focused on using RSVP UNI extensions to dynamically set-up and tear-down optical connections. Devices that demonstrated interoperability included Clients, Optical Network Elements (ONE), proxy ONE's, proxy Clients and UNI conformance test suites. Both the control plane and optical transport layer were verified for appropriate behavior during the trials.
Carrier Observer Day at the UNH
OIF Carrier Working Group members were invited to observe the final day of testing, review the test methodology and to view optical UNI implementations. Carriers shared ideas and observations with development engineers from vendor companies, while viewing live tests in progress. "Carriers are playing an important role in the development of the UNI, so it was extremely valuable for their representatives to witness first hand the great progress vendors have made implementing UNI capabilities in their products," said Tom Afferton, OIF board member and director of advanced transport technology and architecture for AT&T. "The service providers are pleased to see such a large number of vendors successfully demonstrating UNI interoperability. We look forward to contributing to the further development of the UNI towards a full implementation that is consistent with deployable network and service applications."
About OIF:
Launched in April of 1998, the OIF is a non-profit organization with 360+ member companies to date. Uniting representatives from packet and voice networks, the OIF helps advance the standards and methods of optical networks. OIF's purpose is to accelerate the deployment of interoperable, cost-effective and robust optical internetworks and their associated technologies. For more information, visit www.oiforum.com.