Overture upgrades 6500 Service Aggregation and Switching Platform

Overture has released enhanced capabilities for its flagship Overture 6500 service aggregation and switching platform. The new features include an eight-slot chassis and enhanced service assurance and service availability support.

The Overture 6500 supports Carrier Ethernet transmission via fiber, E-Access, copper, SONET, and TDM, with full resiliency. The system is part of Overture’s Ensemble Open Services Architecture (Ensemble OSA), an open platform for service automation and network virtualization. Via ensemble orchestration and control software, the Overture 6500 can link end customers and virtualized network functions, enabling connections among service end points and to virtual network functions to create an end-to-end service.

The new 6508 eight-slot chassis joins the three-slot 6504 released in 2013. Leveraging the same interface modules and processors as the 6504, the 6508 chassis can serve combinations of up to 192 Gigabit Ethernet and eighteen 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections over a fiber-optic network, 768 Ethernet over copper pairs, 32 Ethernet connections over SONET, or 2,688 Ethernet over DS1 connections from a single 19-inch chassis, Overture says.

The latest 6500 software release adds cross-card bonding capabilities for copper and TDM groups to the 6500’s existing cross-card link aggregation and cross-card G.8032v2 Ethernet ring capabilities. Cross-card bonding improves resiliency and eliminates the need to move pairs from one card to another when addressing pair growth. The 6500 cross-card bonding approach consumes no additional card slots and requires no dedicated switching cards, Overture adds.

The new software release also enables service providers to extend Y.1731 Service Assurance and Fault Management to over 3,000 services and implement high-speed ring protection signaling.

“The latest enhancements to the 6500, together with our Ensemble OSA, demonstrates how Overture is helping create a fundamentally new approach for service creation, activation and assurance,” said Brian van Voorhis, senior product manager at Overture. “As operators begin to realize the benefits of SDN and NFV integration, we are committed to providing a ubiquitous Carrier Ethernet foundation at the metro service edge so that our customers achieve unmatched service agility and operational efficiency today and for the future.”

For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.