CEO Wavelength

January 2007

 

The Gold Standard of reliability has always been the 5 nines (.99999 up time) telecom reliability standard. With the increasing usage of datacom equipment and standards in the telecom network, this standard has been increasingly difficult and costly to maintain. 

The articles in this issue of the Newsletter of the New Optical Internet  examine the issue of reliability from the optical perspective. 

Optical switches built with MEMS technology have begun to be deployed in the telecom network, first as parts of ROADMs and then as full photonic cross-connects.  When MEMS was first suggested a decade ago, there were serious questions about MEMS reliability.  However, well-designed MEMS switches have proven to be highly reliable.  We will look at why.

Telecom networks have always been designed to include both highly reliable nodes and architectures, such as SONET/SDH rings, which are highly resilient to link or node failures.  We will look at how photonic cross-connects fit into each of these facets of network reliability.

Finally, we will look at the Amsterdam Internet Exchange, AMS-IX, to see the real world use of intelligent optical switches in a highly reliable network. 

Reading these articles, you’ll see why intelligent optical switching can help create, monitor and protect the lightstreams in your network. 

 

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