OFC Daily Wrap - Friday

You Made it Happen

OFC, the largest global conference and exhibition in optical communications and networking, wrapped up an impressive and stimulating week in San Diego, California, showcasing the latest innovations in the field, with more than 15,500 attendees, 700+ exhibitors from 65 countries and over 850 peer-reviewed technical sessions.

The only global event where attendees witness the innovation behind the technology that powers communications today, OFC has been on a steep growth trajectory over the last three years, increasing in overall exhibition square footage by 44% and experiencing a 21% growth in exhibitors and attendees.

“Optical advancements in 5G, next-gen optical transport, multi-layer optical internetworking, open transport hardware/software and disaggregation led many discussions this week during OFC–in ground-breaking research presented, technical workshops, product launches and in the plenary addresses from industry visionaries,” said Martin Birk, Lead Member of Technical Staff, AT&T Labs, USA, and an OFC General Co-chair this year. “OFC is the industry’s stage to present, debate, launch and demonstrate the innovations driving applications including AI and connected vehicles that are on the cusp of changing the world in which we live.” [more]

Dispatches from the OFC Blog

Optical Data Center Interconnect: More Capacity, Lower Power and Easier Operations

By Tim Doiron, ACG Research

Back in February 2018, I wrote a pre-conference blog about the highly competitive nature of the Optical Data Center Interconnect (DCI) market and especially the optical DCI small form factor (SFF) appliance category. As the 2018 OFC Conference and Exhibition wraps up, I thought it would helpful to those trying to follow this market or make purchasing decisions to review the evolutions and advancements that were announced immediately before or during the conference.

Since my last blog, we at ACG Research completed our full-year 2017 Optical Networking and Optical DCI quantitative analysis. Total optical DCI revenue grew a robust 25.1% y-y and represents about 17% of the high-speed optical spending in metro and long-haul markets. Although relatively modest at $550 million in 2017, the SFF appliance category grew a red-hot 94.4% y-y. North America remains the dominant market, but APAC and EMEA are growing at faster rates. [more]

Cloud Data Center Evolution — From 0 to 400G

Cloud services and consumer products that rely on Cloud Data Centers have created a rapid evolution in Data Center capabilities. As services like the Internet of Things (IoT), audio/video content delivery, big data processing and social media continue to demand greater speeds, the Cloud Data Center industry is making strides to create solutions that are energy efficient and easily expandable. As a result, the need for low cost 100G is creating a shift in how the industry approaches the backbone hardware that enables Cloud Data Centers to respond and expand for both commercial and consumer needs. As Cloud Data Center providers work to find energy efficient low-cost solutions, the industry is looking toward future requirements that meet these needs as well. The evolution from 0 to 100G is just the beginning. [more]

Use what you've learned. See you next year.

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