INTEROPERABILITY
TEAM EFFORT
Interoperability is recognised as the linchpin of open networking, something increasingly important to network providers. Here, three experts offer their view as to why this can only be achieved via industry collaboration.
Dave Brown OIF Director of Communications, Nokia, and
Nathan Tracy OIF Market Awareness & Education
Commitee Co-Chair – Physical & Link Layer, TE Connectivity
Network operators are deploying, or planning to deploy, open optical networks to accelerate innovation and lower capex. Tey need enhanced and innovative new services delivered and managed with streamlined, automated operations. However, operators are faced with technical and operational challenges. On the technical side, the features and capabilities of new open and disaggregated products may fall short of those offered in traditional, ‘closed’ products. In terms of operations, open network deployment depends on integrating and managing solutions from multiple vendors. Tis is no easy task. OIF can help on both fronts.
Interoperability is key Open networking depends on interoperability, and interoperability relies on collaborative, standardised implementation approaches. Te mission of OIF is to bring industry players
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together to develop interoperable solutions that grow the industry ecosystem and facilitate global interconnectivity in an open network world. Te main work products of OIF are implementation agreements or IAs that help enable interoperability. Over nearly 25 years, the proven operating
model of the OIF has produced over 80 IAs that have been ‘specified’ and widely adopted. OIF IAs to date cover a broad range, including coherent optical specs, such as 400ZR coherent optical, 100G DWDM framework, IC-TROSA transmiter/ receivers, CFP2 coherent modules, SERDES, and Common Electrical I/O (CEI) electrical interfaces, tunable lasers and transport SDN control. OIF’s DNA and footprint are found in nearly every transport network component interface. Te OIF 400ZR coherent optical IA is a notable
successful example of this mission. Member companies rallied to develop a ‘spec’ to meet the cost, power and performance requirements of a specific application. Tat work lowered vendor investment risks, accelerated product development and helped develop a broad ecosystem of interoperable 400ZR solutions. In 2022, OIF evolved critical optical, electrical,
protocol, management, packaging and network control IAs and adopted new projects related to management. Te progress and success of this
work were showcased in a global multi-vendor interoperability demo at the 2022 iteration of ECOC. Nearly 30 member companies participated in demonstrations in four critical areas: 400ZR optics, co-packaging architectures, CEI architectures and Common Management Interface Specification (CMIS) implementations.
400ZR is here. 800G is on the way OIF’s 400ZR project is proving successful in facilitating new and simplified architectures for high bandwidth inter-data centre interconnects and promoting interoperability among coherent optical module manufacturers. Te 400ZR interop demo at ECOC showed a full implementation across an 80km DWDM ecosystem using multiple form-factor pluggable modules, 400GbE routers, a 75 GHz C-band open line system, and test equipment solutions from multiple vendors. Te demo provided evidence of widescale 400ZR deployment readiness, based on a broad ecosystem of interoperable solutions. As the adoption of OIF’s 400ZR IA takes off,
the new 800G coherent project is well under way. Te goal of this new project, spurred by member webscale and cloud companies, is to define interoperable 800G coherent line specifications for campus and DCI applications. Te resulting IAs will define single-lambda 800G coherent
Fibre Yearbook 2023
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