Barcelona, February 25, 2019 –
MWC –
Edgecore Networks, the leader in open networking, today announced the general availability of its Cassini open packet transponder, the industry's highest capacity and first modular whitebox packet transponder offering a flexible mix of 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) packet switching ports and 100/200 Gbps coherent optical interfaces for data center interconnect and service provider optical network use cases. Cassini is an open disaggregated product that reduces network operator costs and allows for choice of optical and software technology. Cassini supports coherent DSPs and optical transceivers from leading optical partners — Acacia Communications, Finisar Corporation, Fujitsu Optical Components Ltd., Lumentum, and NTT Electronics — and supports choice of commercial software from IP Infusion and open source software including SONiC and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) Open Disaggregated Transport Network (ODTN) platform.
“One of our first initiatives in the TIP OOPT group was work on open optical packet transponders to enable more flexible and lower cost solutions for service provider access and backhaul networks,” said Hans-Juergen Schmidtke, Co-Chair, Open Optical Packet Transport Project Group, Telecom Infra Project. “We were pleased with Edgecore’s earlier contribution of the Cassini hardware design to the TIP community and the cooperative development with optical and software vendors that it generated. We now welcome Edgecore’s release of Cassini as a commercial product.”
The ONF community has incorporated Cassini as an open packet transponder platform into the ONF’s ODTN reference design, providing a set of open source software options for deploying Cassini in an optical network. In an ODTN environment, Cassini can be managed from the ONOS controller and its applications which provide a scalable open SDN infrastructure for service provider use cases, such as connections to remote central offices, cable headends, POPs, or edge computing sites.
“The ONF is leading collaborative work by service providers and vendors on deployable open solutions for optical networks through the Open Disaggregated Transport Network (ODTN) reference design and open source project, with Edgecore as a significant contributor,” said Guru Parulkar, Executive Director, Open Networking Foundation and Stanford Platform Lab. “The OTDN project has integrated support for the Cassini open transponder hardware, and we welcome Edgecore’s release of Cassini as a commercial product as an important step toward deployments of open, disaggregated and software-controlled optical networks.”
Disaggregated Open Networking for Optical Systems
As an open network platform, Cassini also supports commercial software offerings including OcNOS
TM from IP Infusion, a leading whitebox switching NOS optimized for service provider and data center interconnect use cases.
“IP Infusion sees the benefits of long distance packet optical transport with webscale performance and lower TCO to our data center and service provider customers by extending the open network, disaggregated model to the integration of packet switching and optical transport technology,” said Atsushi Ogata, President and CEO, IP Infusion. “Our OcNOS network operating system already supports a rich set of switching and routing features. Now, the introduction of OcNOS on Edgecore’s Cassini packet optical transponder will help network operators easily extend and migrate existing metro and long-haul Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) networks to add new 100G capacities, and extend inter-DC L2 and L3 services.”
The Cassini packet transponder is a fully open source hardware design, as Edgecore has contributed the full design to TIP. Cassini is a 1.5RU form factor with system throughput of 3.2Tbps. Cassini has sixteen fixed 100 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP28 ports, plus eight line card slots to incorporate a flexible mix of additional 100GbE ports or ACO/DCO optical ports based on coherent DSP and optical transceivers from leading optical technology partners. The following line cards are available, providing the network operator with a scalable pay-as-you-grow platform.
“Edgecore continues to broaden our set of open network solutions to address more use cases for communication service providers, through our contributions to open communities, partnerships with leading software and optical vendors, and our strong development roadmap,“ said Jeff Catlin, VP Technology, Edgecore Networks. “We appreciate the contributions of the open network community that have enabled us to bring Cassini to market as an open network platform to integrate the packet switching and optical technology worlds, and reduce operational costs for our data center and service provider customers.”
Availability
The Cassini open packet transponder is available now from Edgecore resellers and integrators worldwide.
Edgecore is exhibiting Cassini at MWC 2019 in Barcelona on February 25-28 at the Edgecore stand in Hall 5, along with its complete line of open network products for data center, edge computing, broadband access, mobile networking, and WiFi infrastructures. At the Facebook meeting area at MWC, TIP is demonstrating Cassini as part of a disaggregated network demonstration showing open network solutions across mobile, optical and edge computing infrastructures.
The Open Network Foundation will demonstrate their ODTN reference design featuring Cassini as the hardware platform with open source management and provisioning software at OFC in San Diego on March 5-7. Edgecore will exhibit Cassini and its open network product line at OCP Summit in San Jose on March 14-15.
Supporting Quotes
“Acacia believes disaggregated network infrastructures will enable network operators to more rapidly adopt new technology and improve the efficiency of their networks. Leveraging the low power, high performance and pluggability of Acacia’s 100G/200G CFP2-DCO module, the open-source Edgecore Cassini packet transponder enables a high-density switch platform designed to support a flexible pay-as-you-grow commercial model.” —
Alan Gibbemeyer, Senior Director Business Development,
Acacia Communications
“Finisar continues to offer one of the broadest and most innovative optical module portfolio for our customers. We are very excited to collaborate with Edgecore Networks providing industry-leading 100G/200G CFP2-ACO Coherent Optical Transceivers for the ACO line cards in their Cassini whitebox packet transponder, enabling cost-effective metro and long-haul connections.” —
Christian Urricariet, Senior Director of Global Marketing,
Finisar Corporation
“Fujitsu Optical Components Ltd. (FOC) is pleased to see Edgecore’s contribution to the open network community with its general availability announcement of the Cassini platform. FOC is excited to be an active part of this ONF community and to participate in TIP activities with demonstrations of our widely-deployed CFP2-ACO Coherent Optical Transceiver on the Cassini ACO line card. With ever increasing bandwidth demands, the Cassini open disaggregated platform promises to provide flexibility, interoperability and varied optical technology choices for its customers.” —
Takashi Yamane, CMO,
Fujitsu Optical Components Ltd.
“Lumentum has consistently shown leadership and support of open networks, Lumentum has been at the forefront of interoperability with its CFP2 ACO/DCO 100/200 Gbps coherent optical interfaces for data center interconnect and service providers. The Edgecore Cassini open packet transponder platform is a great example of industry collaboration to deliver to customers the solutions they require to support demands for higher performance, higher density, and lower cost.” —
Scott Swail, VP Business Development, Telecom Transmission,
Lumentum
“NTT Electronics is excited to partner and support Cassini and the emerging packet optical ecosystem with our cutting-edge technology."
Osamu Ishida, EVP & GM of Broadband System & Device BG,
NTT Electronics
About Edgecore Networks
Edgecore Networks Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Accton Technology Corporation, the leading network ODM. Edgecore Networks delivers wired and wireless networking products and solutions through channel partners and system integrators worldwide for the Data Center, Service Provider, Enterprise and SMB customers. Edgecore Networks is the leader in open networking providing a full line of open WiFi access points, packet transponders, virtual PON OLTs, cell site gateways, and 1G, 10G, 25G, 40G, 100G and 400G OCP Accepted
TM switches that offer choice of commercial and open source NOS and SDN software. For more information, visit
www.edge-core.com.
Media Contacts
Mark Basham Edgecore Networks
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