1 March 2017
One of the hot topics at this year’s OFC conference is the current state of the optical transceiver industry. Over the past decade or so, the cost of high speed optical transceivers has fallen significantly, reaching under $1 per Gigabit. Despite this, optics has not yet displaced copper cables within the data center, and many servers continue to prefer copper to optical interconnects (despite the fact that most data center switches have migrated to fiber-based interconnects). The state of optics for server interconnects, and the push for under $0.25 per Gigabit solutions, is the subject of the always lively rump session at this year’s OFC conference.
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By Christine Young, Blogger, Maxim Integrated | Posted: 24 February 2017
Content-focused companies like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are now running hyperscale data centers that require massive amounts of bandwidth. Optical networking technologies that are the foundation of these data centers are advancing at a more rapid pace today than in the past, when a generation typically spanned 10 years. These days, we’re seeing data rates double every few years. The 25Gbps per lane that’s being rolled out now will grow to 50Gbps per lane next time around, explained Andrew Sharratt, executive director of the Cloud & Data Business Unit at Maxim Integrated.
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By Professor Mischa Dohler, King’s College London | Posted: 23 February 2017
Each Internet generation was believed to be the last, with designs pushed to near perfection. The first and original Internet, a virtually infinite network of computers, was a paradigm changer and went on to define the global economies of the late 20<sup>th</sup> century. After that Internet, came the Mobile Internet, connecting billions of smart phones and laptops, and yet again redefining entire segments of the economy in the first decade of the 21<sup>st</sup> century. Today, we witness the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT), soon to connect billions of objects and starting to redefine yet again various economies of this decade.
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By Roy Rubenstein, Editor Gazettabyte | Posted: 17 February 2017
The adoption of open-source practices is helping telecom operators become software-driven companies. The open approach is also impacting hardware, with uncertain ramifications for vendors.
Telcos are undergoing a period of unprecedented change, with the Internet content providers acting as both a competitive spur and a role model. But transitioning to a software-driven network model not only requires the adoption of new technologies and practices but identifying business cases and implementing organisational change - a significant set of challenges.
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By Casimer deCusatis | Posted: 1 February 2017
As we get ready for OFC 2017 this coming March, it’s easy to be just a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of things to do during the convention. With technical papers, plenaries and keynotes, Market Watch, Short Courses, rump session, and so much more, a bit of advance planning will help you get the most out of your OFC experience. A great place to start is the OFC attendee program , which provides a convenient overview of the week. But in this month’s blog, I’d like to focus on the exhibit hall show floor programming .
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By Casimer DeCusatis | Posted: 8 December 2016
While there’s been a lot written about the potential benefits of software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV), recent use cases and production deployments have demonstrated the real world value of these technologies. These topics have also been discussed at OFC for many years, and the March 2017 OFC conference marks a bold new initiative in this area, with the first SDN/NFV Demo Zone <
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By Casimer DeCusatis | Posted: 8 June 2016
One of the main topics of discussion at OFC this past year was the state of the optical components industry. While optical networks continue to grow, both in conventional telecom markets and emerging enterprise data center applications, high volumes alone aren’t enough to insure the future of the optical transceiver market. Just as many other technologies are becoming commodities (differentiated only by price) due to disruptions in their supply chains, optical transceiver vendors are coping with a variety of market forces which requires them to re-engineer their approach to delivering the components which form the backbone of our optical infrastructure.
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By OFC Staff | Posted: 25 March 2016
With its final day of programming and exhibits over, OFC proved to be a great success.
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By Lisa Huff, Discerning Analytics | Posted: 25 March 2016
Last night, Mary Lou Jepsen, Executive Director of Engineering at Facebook and Head of Display Technologies at Oculus, gave us a lot to think about in her speech at the OSA 100-year anniversary Light the Future event. She carried us through history, describing seemingly insurmountable obstacles that scientists have had to endure to give us, the optical communications community, as well as the general public, devices that not only enrich our lives, but also sometimes save it.
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By Vladimir Kozlov, LightCounting Market Research | Posted: 25 March 2016
Investments by cloud companies in mega datacenters and supporting networking infrastructure have created a new and very dynamic segment in the optical components and modules market. Customer expectations and supply concerns were the subject of a panel discussion at OFC on Thursday morning.
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