Cisco co-founder launches DWDM start-up

Cisco Systems co-founder Len Bosack is launching a new equipment start-up today aimed at bringing optical networking to people who are more comfortable with routers than optics.

Bosack’s latest venture, XKL, sells a dense wavelength division multiplexer (DWDM) system called the DXM. It’s a one-rack-unit box with a capacity of 10 channels, each of which can run 10-Gb/s Ethernet. Users can stack as many as four boxes to send 40 channels over a single fiber pair.

Unlike most DWDM gear, the DXM was designed for enterprise technicians who are more accustomed to routers than optics. It was designed to mimic the “look and feel” of a standard router, including command line interfaces instead of graphical user interfaces.

“Anyone who’s run a standard data network should have no problems working with this box, even if they’re not optical engineers,” said Mike O’Brien, XKL’s sales and marketing coordinator. “There are no specific line cards. It’s all [small form-factor pluggable (SFP)]-based.”

The product was also designed with plenty of margin for loss so that the network operators wouldn’t need to know very precisely how much loss is on any given fiber link. “The number we give [customers] is 20 [decibels] or less--plug it in and you’re good to go,” Bosack said.

XKL, which is based in Redmond, Wash., with a staff of about 40 people, was founded in 1991 with a focus on maximizing the input/output capacity of networked computers for customers such as MCI (now Verizon Business). During the telecom bubble, the company began researching ways to apply its technology elsewhere.

XKL is selling the DXM to Internet service providers and enterprises that want to run their own optical network rather than hire a service provider to do it. So is it a threat to the private optical networks built by telecom carriers for enterprises? “I don’t think so,” said Eve Griliches, IDC research manager. “It’s still a point-to-point system. It’s not necessarily going to be a box that one would build a mesh network out of and need to manage. The types of networks being built for enterprises by Verizon and AT&T are not that simple.”

“We don’t think we’ll displace anyone from Verizon or AT&T,” Bosack said. “They might system-integrate these, but we don’t expect they’ll make any changes to their prior [equipment] choices.”

Generally speaking, the gear has a recommended reach of about 80 kilometers, which could limit its usefulness in disaster recovery and data center backup applications. XKL may one day add amplifiers to boost it’s gear’s range, Bosack said. It may also add more routing functionality.

The DXM won’t be generally available until late this month or early next. But Optic Fusion, a collocation provider in Tacoma, Wash., has been using one in one of its colo centers for nearly a year now. Eric Stockwell, the company’s technology director, said he’s been pleased with its ease of use. “It was really quite simple to set up--relatively Cisco-like from a software point of view,” he said. “The only downtime we've had has been upgrading the software for feature requests and mostly cosmetic bug-fixes.”

“The density is staggering when you consider what they've fit into [one rack unit],” he added. “It’s also very nice that each wave is media-independent. If you want to change a channel from an OC-12 to GigE, it's just a single software command.”

As for other customers, Bosack said, XKL is currently in “serious discussions” with some “household names.”