Infinera reveals industry-first suite of pluggable solutions
Infinera has announced availability dates for its ICE-XR, an industry-first suite of intelligent, coherent, optical, pluggable solutions.
Infinera says its ICE-XR pluggables allow for significant network simplification and are designed to support a broad range of network applications.
The company adds that the pluggables can support both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint applications.
Additionally, the pluggables can reduce network costs by up to 70%.
Infinera's ICE-XR pluggables will include 400G, 200G, and 100G options in industry-standard CFP2 and QSFP-DD form factors to allow for easy establishment on a wide variety of networking devices.
Infinera says with 0 dBm launch power and low out-of-band noise, ICE-XR pluggables are optimised to be seamlessly established across a wide variety of network infrastructures, including colourless/directionless fixed and flexible-grid ROADM networks.
The ICE-XR also integrates system-level functionality onto a pluggable, which Infinera says introduces a new level of intelligence into a pluggable solution.
It adds that the combination allows for end-to-end visibility, accelerated service activation, and traditional optical system-level control even when established on non-traditional optical networking equipment.
ICE-XR pluggables are also designed to support various network applications from regional to metro, DCI, and access, including single-fibre bidirectional and PON overlays.
The company also announced the introduction of its Open Optical Toolkit, a new suite of open optical automation solutions designed to enable network operators to establish the power of coherent optical technology on any platform across any optical infrastructure.
Infinera says this affords network operators automation solutions to maintain a seamless operational experience as optical networks become increasingly open and diverse in scope, with coherent optical engines from numerous suppliers established in a wider variety of network platforms such as routers, switches, compute platforms, and mobile radios.
Included in the Open Optical Toolkit is Open Wave Manager (OWM), a modular software application designed to enable network operators to seamlessly establish and operate coherent optical engines from any supplier over any optical line system.
Infinera says OWM will expand the choices for network operators, ensuring that they can choose from the most up-to-date coherent optical technology to meet their specific application needs.
The Toolkit also includes Infinera's Intelligent Pluggables Manager (IPM), which is part of an open and collaborative approach defined by the Open XR Forum, involving managing coherent pluggable optics.
This approach allows the management of optical engines to take place independently of the host platform, ensuring a seamless operational experience with any optical engine established on any host platform.
This approach also makes it easier for independent innovation cycles between the host platform and the optical engine to take place.
"Infinera's suite of vertically integrated ICE-XR intelligent coherent pluggables and Open Optical Toolkit offer network operators both unique networking capabilities and innovative software applications to dramatically simplify their network and enable seamless operation," Infinera general manager of Optical Modules and Coherent Solutions group, Tom Burns, says.
"This type of holistic approach to coherent optical networking will play a critical role in enabling our customers to efficiently roll out next-generation services including 5G, enhanced broadband, and cloud-based services," Burns adds.
Infinera will begin ICE-XR trials in the second half of 2022, with general availability expected by the end of the year and an increased volume available in the first half of 2023.
