100Gbit Ethernet demonstrated on 4000km live network

27 Nov 2006

Higher speed Ethernet is now required to support increasing demands of IP network.

The first demonstration of 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 GbE) technology was achieved this month by a team of optical communications industry players, showing that the technology is viable on existing optical networks based on multiple 10 Gbit/s wavelengths. The project team included companies Finisar, Infinera, Internet2, Level 3 Communications, and the University of California at Santa Cruz.

The achievement, say the developers, shows how next-generation technology can address the emerging bandwidth needs of both network providers and users, as advanced Internet-based applications continue to proliferate.

The system transmitted a 100 GbE signal from Tampa, Florida, to Houston, Texas, and back again, over ten 10 Gbit/s channels through the Level 3 network. This is the first time a 100 GbE signal has been transmitted through a live production network. The 100 GbE system was demonstrated between November 14-16 at the Infinera booth at the SC06 International Conference in Tampa. The system transmitted the 100 GbE signal to the Internet2 booth for the duration of the show.

"This demonstration shows that the concept of 100 GbE over 10x10 Gbit/s DWDM works and provides a near-future implementation path," said Daryl Inniss, VP 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 Drew Perkins, Infinera CTO. "Compared to other methods that have been demonstrated, this is a practical, economical solution that operates over the wide area using existing DWDM technologies," added Jack Waters, CTO of Level 3.

The largest IP backbones currently use multiple 10 Gbit/s links between core sites, and will soon demand 100 Gbit/s connections to keep up with fast-growing bandwidth demand. Many service providers prefer to support 100 GbE links using current transport network infrastructures. This demonstration also shows that today's 10 Gbit/s transport networks can support 100 GbE services.

The system relies on a single-chip 100 GbE network interface that bonds 10 parallel 10 Gbit/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 Gbit/s channels from Tampa to Houston, and UCSC designed and implemented the network interface including the packet resequencing scheme.