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networkZONE Products for the week of June 9, 2008
Galazar Networks Says…
MXP Product Family Targets OTN Networks
Muxponder-on-a-chip products for ROADM/DWDM Applications
Galazar Networks Inc. has announced the further expansion of its comprehensive portfolio of carrier transport solutions with the introduction of the MXP product family. This product family effectively addresses metro networking applications by combining the Next-Gen SONET/SDH functions of an MSPP and the OTN functions of a transponder to provide a muxponder-on-a-chip. This enables ROADM equipment providers to greatly reduce the costs and increase efficiencies of their equipment in the service provider’s network.
The explosive demand for bandwidth in the Metro Network is forcing Service Providers to utilize their WDM wavelengths more efficiently. Rather than dedicating an entire wavelength to a single service, providers can maximize their investments by multiplexing a number of revenue generating services on a single wavelength. Up to now, achieving this has required an MSPP to multiplex rate and protocol diverse customer services and a separate transponder to feed into a WDM network. The MXP family combines these functions to enable development of a single muxponder platform, reducing the capital and operating costs of their networks.
Muxponding functions currently exist on some DWDM/ROADM equipment, but the older, multi-chip solutions on which they are based do not support the latest requirements in key service growth areas such as Storage Area Networking and High Definition Video Transport. In order to enable these markets, equipment manufacturers must update their platforms to support higher speed interfaces such as 4Gb/s FibreChannel, HD-SDI and 3G-SDI. The MXP family provides the level of integration necessary to enable this new generation of muxponder solutions. Muxponder cards based on Galazar’s MXP family can efficiently address all service types including Ethernet, SONET/SDH, SAN and Video. This allows equipment manufacturers to add new services to existing platforms or consolidate multiple, service specific cards while reducing space, power and cost.
The MXP product family contains devices addressing muxponder applications from 2.5 Gb/s up to 40 Gb/s. The first of these is the MXP2 which provides a single-chip solution for 10 Gb/s muxponder applications.
The MXP products join Galazar’s existing broad portfolio of Ethernet over SONET/SDH and Ethernet over PDH solutions such as MSF2500, VersaNode, RadioNode, CopperNode and PicoNode and enjoy the same look and feel for both hardware and software interfaces. All Galazar IC solutions are packaged with comprehensive device management software, documentation and support which has enabled remarkable acceleration of design and integration to greatly reduce time-to-market in the development of industry leading media conversion, MicroMSPP, MSPP and DWDM/ROADM solutions available today. This application focused approach allows system integrators to rapidly develop a range of platforms based on reusable Galazar IC and software technology.
EN-Genius Says…
Galazar’s introduction of its Optical Transport Network (OTN) integrated multiplexer/transponder (muxponder) family is a major strategic move that takes them beyond the highly-competent packet-based SONET/EOS transport products that brought them to profitability. Boasting a 10 Gbit/s capacity, the MXP2 is the first of the series and also one of the first devices on the market designed to cash in on OTN technology ability to efficiently encapsulate nearly any mix of packet- or frame-based traffic into highly manageable 2.5 Gbit/s OTU streams. Even with its extremely long lead time (sampling Q1 2009), it marks one of the more significant developments in the recent wave of OTN technology deployment that may make the term ‘muxponder’ one of the most over-used buzzwords since ‘convergence.’
The MXP2 is designed to fill a 10 Gbit/s OTU-2 channel with whatever mix of traffic types you desire, allowing you to make the most efficient use of an expensive optical link. Its ability to connect directly to a tunable laser module should help accelerate the trend that’s pushing the functionality of the stand-alone ADM boxes of yesteryear onto a single transponder blade in a ROADM/DWDM box. Since the same muxponder blade can be tuned for use in any band of a DWDM system, it eliminates the need for service-specific and frequency-specific cards. Its flexibility sets it apart from some of the other early OTN silicon that’s hit the scene recently such as AMCC Pemaquid 10G ENET/OTN Framer/Mapper/PHY (reviewed here February 2008). The 10G-in 10G-out Ethernet/OTN mapping device will probably find lots of applications in simple Metro Ethernet OTNs, but it will take a considerable amount of extra silicon to add the multi-service multi-rate multiplexing capabilities the MXP2 offers.
 A closer look at the MXP2 guts reveals a collection of SONET/SDH framing and pointer processing elements they’ve borrowed from their earlier transport and access products teamed with the mapping, overhead and termination elements required to support the new OTN service. Incoming data streams from the GbE and SONET/SDH ports are transparently multiplexed and framed into OTU frame format at full rate. This actually involves multiple levels of processing. For SONET/SDH traffic (including VCAT/LCAS) the frames are groomed on the MXP2 internal cross-connect and then passed on for OTN mapping at the ODU-1 (2.5 Gbit/s) level before being up-muxed into a full 10 Gbit/s ODU-2 frame. If your application does not require dealing with SONET/SDH service, the configurable chip can bypass the EoS mapping stage and directly encapsulate your packet traffic in GFP (which adds a linear extension header containing the frame multiplexing ID #number) which is then mapped into an ODU container.
 The MXP2 OTU-2 termination block handles encapsulation/de-encapsulation of data packets as well as processing of the SONET DCC and OTN GCC overhead traffic. It also includes header processing logic that can extract or insert 802.3ah OA&M frames and exchange them with an external control plane processor.
Galazar has equipped the MXP2’s system-side trunking interface with a pair of SFI-4.1 ports that can be configured to connect directly to a 300-pin MSA standard optical module. Besides being useful in a stand-alone muxponder box , it can enable an MSTP to support an OTN connection without having to connect it to an external ROADM chassis. This is analogous to Ethernet switch/router access boxes that also support EOS/SONET ADM connections.
The two system-side ports can also be configured as OC-192/STM-64 TDM-based backplane connections, allowing them to connect to the redundant switch fabric blades frequently used in traditional Multiservice Transport Platforms (MSTPs) and Multiservice Provisioning Platforms. While the MXP2 SONET/SDH mapping circuitry only supports 10G worth of traffic, ODU termination and switching from the dual 10G system-side interfaces is done at 20 Gbit/s so the device can be connected directly to 10 Gbit/s rings.
Since the MXP2 is still in the development stage Galazar was only willing to say that early estimates put its power consumption between 8 W to 10 W and that they will have a more precise number after early silicon starts sampling in Q1 2009. I was rather surprised at the extremely long lead time between this announcement and the delivery date (and the lack of any pricing information), especially since Galazar typically does not announce a product until they have working silicon. Apparently, this shift in the company’s normally conservative strategy is a mix of having to accommodate the long design cycles of carrier equipment manufacturers and to out-maneuver several other companies who are trying to field products (like the TPACK P-OTN family reviewed this week in programmablelogicZONE) for one of the few markets that has perceived to have unusually good growth potential in the next few years.
Even if you discount most of the recent irrational enthusiasm for OTNs as the industry’s desperate search for a new bubble to feed on, the technology does make a tremendous amount of sense and will probably end up as a dominant metro networking technology over the next decade. And given the solid engineering behind Galazar devices, it’s a pretty good bet that they will be one of the dominant players. Despite the uncomfortably far-off delivery date, the fact that so much of the device is composed of proven IP and that Galazar has a good track record of delivering what it promises, the MXP2 earns a respectably low Saltshaker Rating.
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