News for and about the Internet2 community

["Jeff Ferry" <>]

Ground-Breaking 100 Gigabit Ethernet Demonstration Across 4,000 Km Live 
Network
Higher-Speed Ethernet Required to Support IP Network Growth
 
Sunnyvale, CA, November 13, 2006 - A first-ever demonstration of 100 Gigabit 
Ethernet (100GbE) technology by a team of industry leaders, including 
Finisar, Infinera, Internet2, Level 3 Communications, and University of 
California at Santa Cruz, shows that 100GbE technology is viable and capable 
of implementation in existing optical networks with 10 Gigabit/second (Gb/s) 
wavelengths. This breakthrough trial also highlights how next-generation 
technology can address the emerging bandwidth needs of network providers and 
their users as advanced Internet-based applications continue to proliferate.
 
The system successfully transmitted a 100GbE signal from Tampa, Florida to 
Houston, Texas, and back again, over ten 10 Gb/s channels through the Level 3 
network. This is the first time a 100GbE signal has been successfully 
transmitted through a live production network. The 100GbE system will be on 
display from November 14th to the 16th at the Infinera booth (Booth no. 1157) 
at the SC06 International Conference in Tampa. The system will be 
transmitting a 100GbE signal to the Internet2 booth (Booth no. 1451) during 
the show.
 
"This successful demonstration shows that this concept of 100GbE over 10x10 
Gb/s DWDM works and provides a near future implementation path," said Dr. 
Daryl Inniss, vice president of Ovum-RHK's Communication Components research. 
 
"100 Gigabit Ethernet will be a critical technology to accommodate bandwidth 
growth, and this demonstration shows that we have the capability to implement 
this as a super-lambda service over today's networks," said Infinera 
co-founder and CTO Drew Perkins. "The Infinera DTN, which is the only DWDM 
system that supports 100 Gb/s on a line card, is capable today of handling 
100GbE services simply and cost-effectively."
 
"The research and education community continues to be the key driver for the 
development of extreme bandwidth services like 100GbE," said Steve Cotter, 
Internet2's director of network services. "We are very interested in 
investigating this breakthrough technology, in collaboration with our network 
partners, to ensure that our network not only keeps pace but also anticipates 
the future demands of our members as they pursue increasingly 
bandwidth-intensive applications, from telemedicine to high-energy physics to 
high-performance grid computing, among many others." 
 
"This new approach to providing 100 Gig Ethernet service over long distances 
enables LAN Ethernet protocols in the WAN environment," said Jack Waters, CTO 
of Level 3. "Compared to other methods that have been demonstrated, this is a 
practical, economical solution that operates over the wide area using 
existing DWDM technologies. We're pleased to have been involved with 
developing and testing this solution, and will be watching closely as it is 
commercialized."
 
Super-Lambda Services
The largest IP backbones are currently using multiple 10 Gb/s links between 
core sites, and will soon demand 100 Gb/s connections to increase their 
capacity to keep up with fast-growing bandwidth demand.   Many service 
providers prefer to support 100 Gigabit Ethernet links using their current 
transport network infrastructures.  This demonstration shows that today's 10 
Gb/s transport networks can support 100GbE services. The system developed and 
displayed this week relies on a single-chip 100GbE network interface that 
implements a lane alignment and packet resequencing scheme to bond 10 
parallel 10 Gb/s channels into one logical flow while maintaining packet 
ordering at the receiver. This eliminates the performance issues that can 
arise with the use of the existing link aggregation techniques for combining 
multiple data channels. Services that combine multiple wavelengths to offer a 
single service are referred to as super-lambda services. 
 
Finisar provided the optical transceivers for this demonstration, Infinera 
provided the DWDM system and project management, Internet2 was involved in 
developing the methodology and supporting the demonstration, Level 3 
Communications provided the ten 10 Gb/s channels from Tampa to Houston, and 
UCSC designed and implemented the network interface including the packet 
resequencing scheme.
 
Video: A High-Speed Application
The research and education community is a leader in creating very large flows 
on the Internet, with some research institutions planning on flows in 
multiple hundreds of Gigabits/second or even Terabits/second. In a related 
demonstration at the Internet2 booth on the SC06 showfloor, Internet2 and 
Infinera will also showcase an advanced two-way videoconferencing 
application. Reliable, two-way video technology is quickly becoming a 
critical and necessary component of many important research and education 
initiatives including those in telemedicine, seismology and astronomy. 100GbE 
technology would enable more than 3000 DVTS (Digital Video Transport System) 
or more than 60 uncompressed High-definition TV (HDTV) video applications to 
operate simultaneously on a single interface.
 
Industry Standard is a Priority
The IEEE Higher Speed Study Group (HSSG) recently began working on 
specifications for higher speed Ethernet. The partners in this demonstration 
are actively supporting these efforts. The pre-standard specification used in 
this demonstration was jointly developed by Infinera and a UCSC team 
including Professor of Computer Engineering Anujan Varma and his Ph.D. 
student Arvinderpal S. Wander. 
 
The annual SC06 International Conference on High-Performance Computing, 
Networking, Storage, and Analysis will be held at the Tampa Convention Center 
in Tampa, Florida. For more show information, visit 
http://sc06.supercomputing.org/.
 
 
About the Technical Demonstration
The demonstration encodes a 100GbE signal into ten 10 Gb/s streams using an 
Infinera-proposed specification for 100GbE across multiple links. A single 
Xilinx FPGA implements this packet  numbering scheme and electrically 
transmits all ten signals to ten of Finisar's 10 Gb/s XFP optical 
transceivers which in turn convert the signals to optics. These signals are 
then transmitted to an Infinera DTN DWDM system. For the long-distance 
demonstration,  conducted last week, the 100GbE signal was then handed off to 
Infinera systems within the Level 3 network where it was transmitted across 
the Level 3 network to Houston and back. This pre-standard specification for 
100GbE guarantees the ordering of the packets and quality of the signal 
across 10 Gb/s wavelengths and demonstrates that it is possible for carriers 
to offer 100GbE services across today's 10 Gb/s infrastructure. 
 
 
For further information:
For Finisar:
Victoria McDonald
Tel. +1 (408) 542-4261

 
For Infinera:
Jeff Ferry
Tel. +1 (650) 273-2100

 
 
For Internet2:
Lauren Rotman 

Tel. +1-202-331-5345
 
 
 
About Finisar
Finisar Corporation (NASDAQ: FNSR) is a technology leader for fiber optic 
components and subsystems and network test and monitoring systems. These 
products enable high-speed data communications for networking and storage 
applications over Gigabit Ethernet Local Area Networks (LANs), Fibre Channel 
Storage Area Networks (SANs), and Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) using 
Fibre Channel, IP, SAS, SATA and SONET/SDH protocols. The Company's 
headquarters is in Sunnyvale, California, USA. www.finisar.com. 
 
About Infinera
Infinera provides Digital Optical Networking systems to telecommunications 
carriers worldwide. Infinera's systems are unique in their use of a 
breakthrough semiconductor technology: the Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC). 
Infinera's systems and PIC technology are designed to provide optical 
networks with simpler engineering and operations, faster time-to-service, and 
more flexible networking. For more information, please visit 
www.infinera.com. 
 
About Internet2 
Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium. Led by the 
research and education community since 1996, Internet2 promotes the missions 
of its members by providing both leading-edge network capabilities and unique 
partnership opportunities that together facilitate the development, 
deployment and use of revolutionary Internet technologies. Internet2 brings 
the U.S. research and academic community together with technology leaders 
from industry, government and the international community to undertake 
collaborative efforts that have a fundamental impact on tomorrow's Internet.
 
 
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on 
current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and 
uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to 
Infinera as of the date hereof; and actual results could differ materially 
from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking 
statements include statements regarding Infinera's expectations, beliefs, 
intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by 
forward-looking words such as "anticipated," "believed," "could," "estimate," 
"expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. 
Infinera assumes no obligation to update the information included in this 
press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or 
otherwise.   
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_____________________________
Jeff Ferry
Sr. Director, Communications
Infinera Corporation
1322 Bordeaux Drive
Sunnyvale, CA  94089
 
Direct:    408-572-5213
Mobile:   650-273-2100
Fax:         408-572-5454

http://www.infinera.com
www.infinera.com/blog
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