ADVA Optical Networking offers 100G encryption for metro networks

Optical transport systems vendor ADVA Optical Networking last week announced that it has added encryption capabilities to its direct-detect 100G Metro offering on the ADVA FSP 3000. The capabilities have already begun to roll out.

The new capabilities leverage a pair of encryption schemes, explained Uli Schlegel, director, data center business development, at ADVA. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), with a key size of 256 bits, provides the foundation; it requires the same key at each end of the communication to encrypt and decrypt the signal’s content. To pass the key from one end of the link to the other, ADVA uses a Diffie Hellmann dynamic key exchange capable of supporting more than 60 exchanges per hour. The combination supports fast, low-latency encryption (adding less than 150 ns to the latency figure, the company asserts) that is protocol agnostic, Schlegel said. The range of available interfaces on the FSP 3000 means that the platform can support encryption of Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, and Ethernet traffic at multiple transmissions rates – including, now, 100G.

To further promote a secure connection, ADVA encrypts not only the payload, but the header and checksum as well. The use of Optical Transport Network (OTN) framing ensures compatibility in point-to-point and multi-hop infrastructures. Meanwhile, the platform also supports separate network and encryption management. This feature enables users leasing encrypted services to keep their traffic private even from the services provider, if preferred.

While ADVA has paired the 100G encryption capabilities with its 4x28G direct-detect technology, Schlegel says the encryption scheme is agnostic to modulation format. It therefore could be applied to coherent-based metro 100G approaches as well.

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