Optical Internetworking Forum established interoperability working group to expedite testing of technical work
The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) announced that the highest number of members attended the July 31-August 2 meeting in Vancouver. During the quarterly meeting, the OIF formed the Interoperability Working Group to support development of further testing methodologies for both signaling and PLL implementation agreements (IAs). In addition, the PLL Working Group agreed to take on an additional technical project addressing TFI-5 - TDM fabric to framer interface for OC-768.
The Interoperability Working Group will facilitate the definition of testing methodologies to validate conformance to IAs and contribute technical leadership for future interoperability trials. The success of the interoperability test and demo at SuperComm in June in Atlanta has heightened the need for a specific working group to ease commercial implementation of the UNI and other IAs.
Building on the success of SPI-5 and SFI-5, the PLL Working Group has formed a new project to address TFI-5, a standard interface between OC-768/STM-256 capable TDM switching fabric and SONET/SDH framers. The interface, used within an optical cross-connect, can carry a mix of OC-48, OC-192 and OC-768 channels across both electrical and optical back-planes for intra- and inter-channel connections.
"TFI-5 will accelerate the development of next generation OC-768 based optical cross-connects by allowing best of breed framers and switching fabrics to work together across a standard interface," said Rick Barry, OIF board member and CTO of Sycamore Networks, Inc.
About the OIF:
Launched in April of 1998, the OIF is a non-profit organization with 300 member companies, including carriers and vendors. As an industry group 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. Optical internetworks are data networks composed of routers and data switches interconnected by optical networking elements. With the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products, the OIF actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. For more information, visit www.oiforum.com.