OIF to Demonstrate Ethernet over OTN Interoperability

Exhibitor News

PRESS RELEASE

29 February 2012

Contact:
Deborah Porchivinia deborah@papr.com

OIF to Demonstrate Ethernet over OTN Interoperability

Data and Control Plane Features Tested in OIF’s 5th Worldwide Event

FREMONT, CALIFORNIA, Feb. 29 - Twelve OIF member companies are conducting a global interoperability test of Ethernet services over OTN transport, including data and control plane technology. OIF Interoperability 2012 – Enabling High-Speed Dynamic Services is hosted by telecom carriers Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom/Orange, KDDI and Verizon.

Equipment vendors participating in the interoperability test include ADVA, Alcatel-Lucent, Ciena, EXFO, Huawei, Marben Products, Metaswitch, and Tellabs. Additional carriers consulting on the interoperability test include AT&T, China Telecom and NTT.

“Carriers around the world are migrating their networks from Sonet/SDH to Ethernet and OTN. This combination enables operators to scale their networks for the rapid growth and volume of packet traffic while also accommodating the continued existence of TDM,” said Sterling Perrin, industry analyst for Heavy Reading. “The OIF has an important role to play in helping converge these two different but complementary technologies.”

Testing among multiple vendors in the different labs allows carriers to evaluate the technologies firsthand and determine how to integrate equipment into their networks. The testing is proving out updates to the existing OIF ENN-I 2.0 and UNI 2.0 Implementation Agreements under development, with extensions for both multi-layer and OTN. The goal of the interoperability testing is to marry Ethernet as the predominant access and client interconnect technology, and OTN as the dominant transport technology.

“The combination of Ethernet services and OTN transport is compelling and there is momentum in the industry to converge these technologies,” said Jim Jones of Alcatel Lucent and the OIF’s president and Networking Interoperability Working Group chair. “The OIF continues to bridge those worlds, making them dynamic and synergistic.”

About the OIF
Launched in 1998, the OIF is the first industry group to unite representatives from data and optical networking disciplines, including many of the world's leading carriers, component manufacturers and system vendors. The OIF promotes the development and deployment of interoperable networking solutions and services through the creation of Implementation Agreements (IAs) for optical, interconnect, network processing, component and networking systems technologies. The OIF actively supports and extends the work of standards bodies and industry forums with the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products. Information on the OIF can be found at http://www.oiforum.com.

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