CANARIE, StarLight, Ciena successfully demonstrate 300-Gbps optical transmission
The partners made the announcement at the TNC16 Networking Conference in Prague.
In today's increasingly connected society, global research and education (R&E) networks like CANARIE and StarLight must continually evolve their networks to support bandwidth-hungry services and applications. Last year, CANARIE transmitted 172 Petabytes of data, continuing a trend that has seen annual data growth of 50 percent over the last several years. Programmable coherent optics inside Ciena's platforms will support these surging bandwidth needs by optimising capacity for any distance to help improve the way researchers around the globe work together.
The 150 Gb/s per wavelength 8QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) trial was conducted on a live research network that connects Ciena's labs in Ottawa with StarLight's Chicago-based R&E communication services exchange facility, at a distance of more than 1,440 km. A network operator's power to choose 8QAM modulation means more flexibility in applications Waveserver can enable, providing higher capacity than QPSK, and greater optical reach than 16QAM. All three programmable modulations will be generally available on Ciena's Waveserver this summer, allowing it to support any-haul Data Center Interconnect (DCI) applications efficiently and cost-effectively.
Another key benefit of the 150 Gb/s 8QAM technology is the ability to provide high-capacity DCI, which is instrumental in connecting today's app-centric, on-demand society. With Ciena's unique multi-dimensional coding implementation of 8QAM, Waveserver gives data center operators more capacity at farther distances and lower operating costs.
Traffic on our network continues to surge as we enable Canadian researchers, educators and innovators to leverage advanced digital tools and massive data resources. This trial demonstrated that Ciena's Waveserver is capable of enabling us to scale our network in order to help keep Canada at the forefront of digital research and innovation. said Mark Wolff, CTO at CANARIE
