But Opthos says its all-optical design, which eliminates the optical-electrical-optical (OEO) conversions those boxes perform, makes for a smaller device that consumes less power. Opthos also says it provides more flexibility and efficiency in wavelength switching. "Our system can assign a single wavelength on demand as needed," Lundy says.
Opthos says its IW1000 system will switch 64 wavelengths -- 32 with regular traffic, 32 in protection mode. It occupies a quarter of a telco rack and runs on 100 watts of power, Lundy says.
But the vision of SANs enabled by Opthos wavelengths has a way to go before becoming reality. Two prerequisites are necessary for the Opthos gear to provide fully functional dynamic wavelength switching in the metro core. First, edge devices need to support the C-band wavelength grid defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Most of the leading router and switch vendors with wavelength capabilities already do this; but not all.
Second, in order to achieve fully dynamic switching and assignment of wavelengths, Opthos's gear requires generalized multiprotocol label switching (GMPLS), a standard that's still in the works at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Other vendors need to support GMPLS too in order to work optimally with the Opthos kit.
Opthos intends to have its implementation of GMPLS ready by the second quarter of 2002, but that's no guarantee that makers of edge devices, for SAN use or otherwise, will be ready by then. In the meantime, customers will need to rely on SNMP to manipulate the wavelengths in the IW1000.
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