Alcatel-Lucent expands optical networking portfolio to meet enterprise and operator demand for video, cloud and data center traffic in metro networks

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Alcatel-Lucent

12 Mar, 2015, 13:00 GMT

-- High-capacity metro optical networking platforms to deliver access aggregation, content delivery, cloud and data center interconnectivity and other services

PARIS, March 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is to address the growing needs of service providers and large enterprises in coping with ever-increasing demand for high-bandwidth data traffic in metro and data center networks by expanding its portfolio of agile optical networking technologies.

As Enterprises and consumers embrace the promise of cloud services for content and applications, the metro network is coming under increasing pressure from massive traffic growth as well as changing traffic patterns. This is driving fundamental architectural changes in an attempt to optimize network flexibility and economics for service providers and their enterprise and consumer customers. 

Alcatel-Lucent is extending its successful 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) optical transport platform – to date in use by more than 500 customers worldwide – with the addition of new family members designed with a small form factor specifically for deployment in metro networks. These flexible optical networking units will allow operators and enterprises to scale their network capacity with any mix of services as traffic increases.

The new platforms support communications network services such as access aggregation, content delivery, and mobile backhaul to meet the needs of service providers. In addition, the multi-functional technology supports the network services needed by large enterprises, including data center interconnectivity and wide area networking.

The new 1830 PSS-4, 1830 PSS-8 and 1830 PSS-16 also extend Alcatel-Lucent's cloud-optimized metro portfolio – designed to meet the next generation of cloud-based customer demand by delivering agility, scale and efficiency across metro networks. These platforms support any mix of high-performance packet, optical and photonic services. 'No compromise distributed switching' and the ability to smoothly scale allow operators and enterprises to 'pay as you grow', easily adding capacity to meet demand.

The 1830 PSS Cloud-Optimized Metro platforms address the future needs of metro networks, which are expected to see 560% growth in traffic by 2017, according to a study by Bell Labs. In its most recent optical networking market share and forecast report*, Infonetics Research (a part of IHS, Inc.) estimates that metro WDM investment will be $35 billion during the next five years.

Alcatel-Lucent's 1830 PSS Cloud-Optimized Metro Platforms offer:

  • 'No-compromise distributed switching' means operators can right-size their capacity service to meet traffic demand at any time, taking advantage of 'pay as you grow' scaling as traffic increases.
  • Switching flexibility, supporting any mix of packet, optical transport network and photonic services as well as the intelligence to dynamically reconfigure network resources and rapidly deploy services to meet demand.
  • Double the capacity of optical metro solutions available in the industry today with platforms up to 50% smaller and delivering up to 40% power savings.
  • Smooth capacity scaling from 400Gbps to 1.6Tbps.  
  • Slot-to-slot card interconnectivity offering higher performance and capacity while supporting any mix of 10G, 100G and 200G-based services.
  • Can be deployed further into the metro network in space-constrained dense urban business districts and data centers.
  • SDN enabled to support application-driven, dynamic  service instantiation

The Alcatel-Lucent 1830 PSS family uses the 400G Photonic Services Engine to dramatically boost the performance of today's 100G networks and lay the foundation for 400G transport in the future. To-date Alcatel-Lucent has shipped more than 25,000 100G units across the globe.

Alcatel-Lucent will present the capabilities of its 1830 PSS Cloud-Optimized Metro Platforms as well as its Wavelength Routing technologies on booth #2101 in the Los Angeles Convention Center at The Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition 2015.

Quotes:

Andrew Schmitt, Principal Analyst, Carrier Transport Networking, Infonetics Research (a part of IHS, Inc.), said: "After spending the last few years renovating their core networks for 100G, operators are now moving to upgrade their metro networks. This is the single largest market opportunity and we estimate metro WDM investment will be $35 billion during the next five years. Alcatel-Lucent positioned itself for this opportunity by offering support for photonics, OTN and packet switched services in a single metro platform, a feature that in our research we find operators prefer in the metro."

Sam Bucci, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Terrestrial Optics, Alcatel-Lucent, said: "As traffic continues to grow, operators and enterprises need to deploy optical transport switches specifically tuned for metro applications. By optimizing our 1830 PSS for the metro environment, we are able to offer solutions that are right-sized to help meet transport demand now at low initial cost, with the right scale and switching flexibility, allowing them to grow capacity and deliver services rapidly as demand grows."

*Infonetics Research: 4Q14-Optical-Network-H/W-Market-Forecast. March 2, 2015

Additional Resources

About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU)
Alcatel-Lucent is the leading IP networking, ultra-broadband access and cloud technology specialist. We are dedicated to making global communications more innovative, sustainable and accessible for people, businesses and governments worldwide. Our mission is to invent and deliver trusted networks to help our customers unleash their value. Every success has its network.

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