Those photonic switches are getting cheaper because a ton of people make them now and the components aren't really very expensive. Of course the cost is relative, and I don't know what an electromechanical switch might cost. Glimmerglass, Calient, Polatis were some of the early ones but I've seen a bunch of vendors with 192/384 systems. Phil -----Original Message----- From: "Arnold Nipper" <arnold@nipper.de> Sent: 12/12/2014 6:33 PM To: "Phil Bedard" <bedard.phil@gmail.com>; "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Re: automatic / intelligent fiber optic patch panel (iow SDN @ layer0) On 11.12.2014 01:33, Phil Bedard wrote:
Curious what the use case is where a photonic or L1 switch wouldn't get the job done?
Just a matter of costs, Phil. Of course a photonic switch would also do th job. But I neither need the speed of switching over nor all the other features a photonic switch offers. Makes sense? Arnold -- Arnold Nipper / nIPper consulting, Sandhausen, Germany email: arnold@nipper.de phone: +49 6224 5593407 2 mobile: +49 172 2650958 fax: +49 6224 5593407 9