My experience is primarily with the traditional carrier-grade folks like Ciena, Infinera, etc. but over the last decade all of those vendors have focused on improving how they scale down without sacrificing (most of the) quality and functionality - to varying degrees of success. There are also some more recent entrants that built their products to target the DCI market but rather than focusing on bandwidth density have focused on cost per bit for a mid-range solution. There are almost definitely multiple quality options out there without having to buy the full 88 channel n-degree ROADM Ciena 6500 that takes up a full rack - although given the stated requirements, there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution that's ideal for all of the OP's projects.
On Fri, Oct 6, 2023 at 9:43 AM Mark Tinka <mark@tinka.africa> wrote:
On 10/6/23 15:07, Mike Hammett wrote:
> I've been using various forms of passive WDM for years. I have a couple different projects on my plate that require me to look at the next level of platform.
>
> In some projects, I'll be looking for needing to have someone long distances of glass without any electronics. Some spans could be over 60 miles.
>
> In some projects, I'll need to transport multiple 100-gig waves.
>
> What is the landscape like between basic passive and something like a 30 terabit Ciena? I know of multiple vendors in that space, but I like to learn more about what features I need and what features I don't need from somewhere other than the vendor's mouth. Obviously, the most reliability at the least cost as well.
400G-ZR pluggables will get you 400Gbps on a p2p dark fibre over 80km -
100km. So your main cost there will be routers that will support.
The smallest DCI solution from the leading DWDM vendors is likely to be
your cheapest option. Alternatively, if you are willing to look at the
open market, you can find gear based on older CMOS (40nm, for example),
which will now be EoL for any large scale optical network, but cost next
to nothing for a start-up with considerable capacity value.
There is a DWDM vendor that showed up on the scene back in 2008 or
thereabouts. They were selling a very cheap, 1U box that had a different
approach to DWDM from other vendors at the time. I, for the life of me,
cannot remember their name - but I do know that Randy introduced them to
me back then. Maybe he can remember :-). Not sure if they are still in
business.
Mark.
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