Optical alliance aims to cut network costs - Industry Trend or Event

CommunicationsWeek International, August 14, 2000 by Roy Rubenstein

The OIF is promising a signalling interface that will enable intelligent network functionality, and work is underway to bring this to fruition.

Reduced operational costs for networks, and rapid reuse of bandwidth should result from a new industy alliance. The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) is to co-ordinate its work with the Optical Domain Service Interconnect (ODSI) coalition and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). A signalling interface standard linking the data and optical layers of a network will then be developed.

"We [the OIF, IETF and ODSI] sat-down in Washington [last month] and discussed the synergy and synchronization of all these specifications," said Dr. Krishna Bala, chair of the OIF signalling working group and chief technology officer at optical switch company Tellium Inc., of Oceanport, New Jersey.

Beyond point-to-point

The initiative hopes to expand the optical networking layer beyond a simple point-to-point scheme and, through the signalling interface, enable the optical layer to offer services to the IP layer. IP routers could then request a wavelength from the optical layer whenever traffic congestion is detected, without requiring human intervention.

"Service providers will not just offer slices of bandwidth which are always on," said Andrew Mccormick, an optical communications senior analyst at Aberdeen Group in Boston, Massachusetts. "It [bandwidth provisioning] will go more to a usage-based model."

To help define the requirements of such a scheme, the OIF has been working with 12 carriers, including NTT, UUNet, cable & Wireless, Level 3 and Sprint.

Another of the carriers is Williams communications Inc. "The bottom line is having an intelligent network," said Andy Wright, Williams' chief technologist for optical networking.

For Wright, the initiative promises several benefits. "It's like an optical dial tone -- you can make connections on an as-needed basis." It will also impact Williams' activities in the bandwidth trading market. "It really becomes a dynamic method of selling and provisioning bandwidth," said Wright.

Introducing the technology at the optical layer promises an immediate benefit long before lightpaths on-the-fly are possible. "We have a multi-network with multi-vendors," said Wright. An interface that negotiates and establishes a connection between networks could simplify the lives of network engineers. "A network-to-network interface, that's the initial thrust for us," said Wright.

Global TeleSystems Group (GTS) is one carrier working with the OIF. Paolo Casaschi of GTS' R&D access and development group says current optical networks are point-to-point. "There is no true networking layer in optical," he said. "It [the signalling scheme] will allow a path to be established automatically with only the end points needing to be instructed."

Both Williams and GTS have no fixed dates by which they expect to introduce the signalling technology into their networks. "We have a number of vendors in our labs involved in ODSI," said Wright. However, he believes that the technology will not be trialed before Q3 2001. GTS would also not be drawn on timescales except to say that its plans match the timescales of Williams.

"A couple of [unnamed] carriers are planning for this now and everyone will do it sooner or later," said Aberdeen's Mccormick. "Once there is a consensus, all will move before the standard is completed."

Who's who?

IETF The Internet Engineering Task Force develops Internet standards specifications.

OIF The Fremont, California-based OIF is an industry organization comprising over 190 manufacturers, telecoms service providers and end users.

The ODSI coalition The coalition is neither a standards body like the IETF, nor an industry forum like the OIF. It sees itself as adopting a start-up's approach to standards development.