Intune Networks' Verisma optical burst switch/transport platform now available

Irish upstart Intune Networks says its Verisma platform, which combines optical packet switching with packet-optical transport, is now commercially available. The company also revealed its use in a second European networking project – and may have hinted at one Tier 1 carrier who may be evaluating the product for use as well.

As reported previously, Intune Networks’ Verisma platforms feature a highly distributed optical packet switching fabric – so distributed, in fact, that the fabric can perform both switching and transport functions simultaneously (see “Intune Networks readies carrier-class optical packet switching and transport”). The switching fabric comprises an optical ring network connecting multiple input/output nodes. The nodes can be 65 km apart. The nodes use lasers with extremely fast tuning capabilities to transmit packets among each other on various wavelengths. Meanwhile, a Web-based operating system offers simplified management.

The technology has been validated through use in the Irish Government’s Exemplar Network project. Intune now says the Verisma platforms will be part of a second European research project. The FP7 Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-wavelengths (MAINS) project, led by Telefonica I+D, will seek to define and develop new architectures for next-generation metropolitan networks. Intune’s technology will be part of a field trial in Cyprus in Q3-Q4 2011 within the project.

Meanwhile, Intune Networks CTO John Dunne told Lightwave earlier this year that the platforms also were in line for first office applications with a pair of Tier 1 carriers this summer. While the company has not provided further details on these applications, it may have dropped a hint by including a quote from Stu Elby, vice president, network and technology at Verizon, in the press release that trumpeted Verisma’s commercial availability.

“The ‘cloud’ promises to cost-effectively provide infrastructure, applications, and services wherever and whenever they are requested,” Elby says in the press release. “The ability to dynamically move virtual machines and/or data sets among data centers will allow us to address hot spot issues while potentially enabling new services. Current network constraints do not permit this capability to be exploited cost-effectively, so to this end virtualized, dynamic networking will accelerate the adoption and profitability of the cloud.“

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