The ‘cloudification’ of information technology has produced benefits in seemingly every aspect of business. The cloud has created a virtualized compute oversubscription model by automating functions at the higher layers of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) stack. This has allowed customers to have on-demand access to a range of compute functions through the development and deployment of software-defined / virtualized switches, routers, firewalls, servers and storage. On-demand and self-service consumption models for these services have reduced human error, enhanced speed of delivery and performance, and increased customer satisfaction. However, on-demand services at the lowest layer of the OSI stack, the fiber layer, have not been available – until now.
In a recent press release, Zayo announced “Waves on Demand” for large bandwidth customers who need data center connectivity quickly and easily [1]. This new service offers same-day turn-up on high demand routes, greatly reducing the delivery time for these services. In discussing these new services, Bill Long, Chief Product Officer at Zayo, stated “the only way to stay ahead of the digital curve is to continuously transform. Transformative ideas need a reliable, resilient, and on-demand network.” He went on the say that these services “ensure customers have unprecedented speed and resilience with more flexibility and elasticity.”
While customers have requested faster turn-up of bandwidth services for years, one barrier has been the cost of implementing this feature. The simplest but costliest path to offer faster turn-up on services is to install transmission equipment ahead of demand and have it in place, tested and ready for the customer to order. This is costly since equipment needs to be in place for every route and each customer, creating a lot of idle capacity. In essence each customer has a reserved port on any route that this service is offered. To cover the cost of this approach, service providers may require a lengthy contract of a year to several years once services are purchased, which limits the “on-demand” aspect and flexibility of these services.
A more flexible and cost-efficient approach is to place a low-cost robotic switch between the customer’s gear and the long-haul transmission equipment. When a customer orders services, their port can be put in service using the robotic cross connect to link to the active long-haul port. While some level of overprovisioning of equipment is still needed to have the capacity ready when ordered, this approach greatly reduces the amount of over-provisioning required since the extra capacity can be shared among all customers subscribing to this service. This approach also allows a truly “on-demand” and flexible service since the robotic system can just as easily disconnect the customer from the long-haul port, freeing up the bandwidth for another customer. This allows service providers to provide a “bandwidth-on-demand” service. Customers can use this service when they have large data sets that will consume significant bandwidth but only periodically need to send these large data sets, such as with a software update, sending a new digital movie release to theaters or a periodic back-up for business resiliency. This also avoids the need to use “sneaker-net,” where large amounts of data are sent in physical form to the destination since the fiber delivery was either not available on demand or too costly [2].
Telescent offers a low-cost, scalable all-fiber robotic switch that meets the needs for a wavelength-on-demand or bandwidth calendaring service. The Telescent system is purely fiber-based, offering low loss and a latching design that matches manual patch panel performance. When a connection is requested, the Telescent robot grabs the end of the fiber and weaves it around the other fibers in the system to the requested port. A key advance in the Telescent system is an algorithm that the robot uses to weave around the other fibers while avoiding any blocking or knotting. This preserves the ability of the system to make any connection request (i.e. non-blocking) while scaling to over 1,000 duplex ports per system. Test equipment such as power meters and OTDRs can be included with the Telescent system to allow monitoring of any fiber when requested. The Telescent system also meets the reliability requirements for service providers and has passed NEBS Level 3 certification as well as multiple customer trials and has over 1 billion port hours in operation. The Telescent system has also been qualified with a > 10 year life and can be treated as part of the fiber infrastructure, unlike electronic hardware that needs to be replaced every 3 to 4 years.
With the Telescent robotic fiber switch, the benefits of the cloud can now be brought to the physical fiber layer – allowing on-demand bandwidth services that will enhance speed of delivery and performance, reduce human error, and increase customer satisfaction. Contact Telescent today to learn how to implement automation in your network.