The Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) is injecting 100G optical networking into its core network, as it looks to double its network capacity while building a foundation for future customer needs.
While much of the early 100G trials and deployments have centered on long-haul networks, AMS-IX is deploying ADVA Optical Networking's (XETRA: ADV.DE) 100G Metro solution to meet its bandwidth goals.
Henk Steenman, CTO at AMS-IX, said in an interview with FierceTelecom the reason it decided to move to 100G was that it wanted a cleaner network infrastructure.
AMS-IX chose the ADVA solution following tests at the vendor's Meiningen, Germany, facility and in its own live testbed environment.
"We needed move away from 10G-based LAG-based infrastructure and offer Gigabit Ethernet to customers instead of 10 G LAGs and it gives us a more operational simplicity versus using LAG interfaces and connectors," he said. "There's also a price advantage."
The demand for 100 G is driven by two factors. First, AMS-IX wants to migrate its own network away from 10G LAG infrastructure to 100G. Likewise, it is seeing customers citing interest to move away from large-scale 10G LAG connections.
"We just made the first 160G connection to a customer based on 16 10G ports, which will pretty soon become less manageable than a single connection on 100G," Steenman said.
AMS-IX chose the ADVA solution following tests at the vendor's Meiningen, Germany, facility and in its own live testbed environment.
With all of the options in the market for 100G systems, Steenman found that ADVA was the best fit for its network which spans across 12 data centers in the Amsterdam area.
"Our data centers need to cross distances of 10-30 km, and the available 10 GigE optics in the market only go 10 km, so we needed to find a way to extend to the distances we needed to cover," he said. "Typical transport solutions that are on the market are made for much longer distances of 2,000 km and are very expensive, but ADVA's solution using Finisar's DWDM 100G optical had an interesting price point."
While the next logical step could be 40G, Steenman believes going directly from 10G to 100G is the right method.
"The equipment does not support 40G and we have not seen interest in 40G from our customers," he said. "It's just 10 G LAGs and now we want to move to 100G connections."
ADVA did not reinvent the wheel with its 100G metro solution. Based on direct detection 4x28G technology, the vendor incorporated the solution into its existing flagship FSP 3000 platform and claims it can provide data transport across distances of up to 500 km.
Naming the AMS-IX as a customer is a key development for ADVA as it gives it an established customer reference in a market segment where it's competing with the likes of other players such as Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN), which have been announcing numerous 100G customers.
For more:
- see the release
Special Report: In detail: Tracking the 100G path
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