Cisco’s 15454 goes ROADM

CHICAGO--

Cisco Systems joined a chorus of equipment vendors that are using the Supercomm 2004 trade show this week to unveil new reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexing (ROADM) capabilities in their products.

Release 4.7 of Cisco’s ONS 15454 multiservice transport platform, available in this year’s third quarter, will include two 32-channel cards--a multiplexer and a demultiplexer--that allow carriers to provision and reconfigure wavelengths remotely via software from a network operations center.

The move to add ROADM echoes similar moves made by Movaz Networks, Tellabs and Meriton Networks this week as well as by Mahi Networks, which recently acquired ROADM equipment vendor Photuris.

In conjunction with the release of 4.7, Cisco is adding dense wavelength-division multiplexing interface on its service-generating gear, such as the 7609 router, so that service providers can move the expensive optical-electrical-optical conversions from the 15454s to products such as the 7609. “They’re able to push the cost, the expensive part, more toward the service-generating layer, which is more apt to have a sooner ROI,” a Cisco spokesman said.

The vendor is also promoting a network design tool that lets carriers estimate the costs of planned networks before they’re built and send those specifications to the 15454s in the network to provision the necessary circuits. “It speeds up the process of receiving the RFP, winning the RFP and turning up service to the customer,” said the Cisco spokesman.

Another new card for the 15454 multiplexes IP, gigabit Ethernet and storage area networking traffic (such as FI-CON or Fibre Channel) onto wavelengths. Cisco is still seeking certification from storage vendors such as IBM and EMC for the interfaces and expects them some time in the second half of this year. Release 4.7 also includes a 10-Gb/s Fibre Channel interface.