• A Hybrid Conference – In-Person and Virtual Presentations
  • Technical Conference:  24 – 28 March 2024
  • Exhibition: 26 – 28 March 2024
  • San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA

Day 4: Wednesday, March 12 - OFC Show Floor Programming in Full Swing

PRESS RELEASE

13 March 2014

Day 4: Wednesday, March 12 - OFC Show Floor Programming in Full Swing

After an evening of networking at the exhibitor reception, conference reception and lively Rump Session last night, attendees were back bright and early this morning for one of the flagship show floor programs at OFC – the Service Provider Summit.

Randy Nicklas, executive vice president of engineering and CTO at Windstream, spoke on his company’s use of packet optical technologies and optical transport networks. He touted the role of IP, “everything on IP and IP on everything.” He noted technology combinations such as Ethernet+MPLS boost IP, referring to MPLS as “the Swiss army knife” of service providers.  After Nicklas, panelists from Sprint, XO Communcations, Verizon, BT and others presented on packet optical convergence and what’s next for OTN switch, 400G and CDC ROADM.

Forget SDN – We’re Discussing SDN 2.0!

SDN 2.0 Panel.Across the Moscone Center in Expo Theater II, representatives from Citigroup, Cisco, BTI, Juniper Networks and others discussed SDN 2.0. Jeff Cox of Juniper explained how the networking giant is integrating SDN into their operations. “It’s time for us to start looking at networks more holistically again,” he said.  He noted Juniper is taking a global view of the network and looking to employ the benefits of software for improving routers.  “With SDN 2.0, we need to move beyond what looks good on a slide presentation and go with what will generate enough revenue to continue developing the network.” Cox was followed by Daniel Tardent of Calient – a small company, especially in comparison to Juniper, who is coming up with big solutions for networking in the data center. Tardent touted Calient’s hybrid packet optical data center solution that adds capacity with a scalable optical circuit switch fabric that he says reduces data center costs by 85 percent.

Data Centers and Content Delivery

Eve Griliches speaks at a panel at OFC 2014.Market Watch continued today with a panel on Data Center Architecture and Content Delivery Strategies. Experts from Arista Networks, Google, IBM and others covered market transition in strategy, architecture, and solutions to enhance cloud computing, including internal data center architecture. Siddharth Sheth of Inphi Corp spoke of future mega scale cloud data centers and the need for a low-cost 100G data center interconnect. According to Sheth, pulse amplitude modulation is one promising solution.  Eve Griliches of BTI Systems covered the “pain points” of the transition to the cloud, including  a massive increase in metro traffic, greater complexity, and performance bottlenecks.  Solutions such as better datacenter interconnects, new architectures with collapsed layers and the addition of analytics were proposed to improve the situation.

What’s That Buzz?

The panel at 'The Buzz' at OFC 2014.Later in the afternoon, industry analysts from Ovum, Infonetics and Dell Oro Group played informant by discussing the “behind closed doors” insights of the latest news and announcements from OFC exhibitors, in the panel “The Buzz – A Real-Time Look at the News and Trends Happening at OFC.”  The panelists observed that companies were beginning to deliver on their promises of the last few years. “100G is here. 200G is happening and 400G is around the corner,” said moderator Julie Kunstler of Ovum. “Everything that was promised is here or on its way.”

OFC in 140 Characters or Less

Beyond the programming, the show floorbuzz continued in exhibitor booths, with plenty additional traffic and networking opportunities.  “As always, OFC is a highlight of the year for Finisar,” said company spokeswoman Victoria McDonald. “It is the place to be in the industry and we look forward to meeting with customers and partners to continue to build relationships this year.”  Exhibitors and attendees alike took to Twitter to document the highlights of the week:

@schottusa
We're having a great time at the @ofcconference! http://ow.ly/i/4Ss3z  #OFC2014

@craigmatsumoto
Glenn Wellbrock, Verizon, explaining his idea of having existing EMS be a crucial part of SDN for the optical network. #OFC2014

@pingpan
Many miss the point in arguing packet vs. TDM. It's all about big & cheap bandwidth, baby! Where control comes from is secondary. #OFC2014

@Digi_Lightwave
Our booth is really filling up on Day 2 of #OFC2014! Come see what all the buzz is about at booth 711! @ofcconference pic.twitter.com/ilIBV2jdSn

@AMETEK_ELEC_PKG
Busy day on day 2 of #OFC2014. Stop by booth 2120 to find out how we can help you. pic.twitter.com/XlAYJCsL3o

@DanaCooperson
Ron gets a t-shirt at the #ciena truck at #ofc2014 pic.twitter.com/NOhzmRDVpT

Be sure to join the conversation on Twitter by using hashtag #OFC2014. Tomorrow the event wraps up – one more day to attend the top show in the optical networking industry!