CALIENT introduces Edge|640 optical circuit switch for increased connectivity demand from network virtualization

Privately held optical switch vendor CALIENT Technologies, Inc. said its new optical circuit switch (OCS) with 640 fiber-optic cross connections, the Edge|640 switch, is now available to address the demand for increased connectivity resulting from network virtualization.

The Edge|640 OCS was designed for data center, telecommunication, and test lab applications. Telecommunications network edge to network edge, and wireless network radio-to-baseband units are major applications for the Edge|640, says CALIENT. In fact, the lead customer Edge|640 is a communications services provider looking to use the switch for just such a wireless application, CALIENT sources told Lightwave at OFC. High-performance cloud computing requirements also are expected to drive demand for the new switch, the sources added.

As the Edge|640 is organized into two switching groups of 320 ports each, devices that connect to a switch port on one of the switch groups can be connected to devices on any of the ports in the other switch group. CALIENT says this connectivity is well-suited for testing applications where devices under test require access to an array of test systems, or for "wire-once" network applications.

In 2014, CALIENT began to package microelectrical machine (MEMS)-based optical switch technology in subsystem form and offer it to the market (see "CALIENT moves into optical switching subsystems"). The Edge|640 uses CALIENT's 3D MEMS optical mirror technology, making it transparent to data speed and protocol agnostic to enable the switch to support any speed optical connection up to 400 Gbps. The switches all-optical attributes lead to low latency connections. Featuring consumption of 90 W, the switch also has a built-in optical signal power monitoring on each link.

"Network virtualization and software-defined networking (SDN) are driving demand for fully automated networks on a massive scale, and the Edge|640 supports this trend through its high port density and very low latency connectivity," said David Altstaetter, CALIENT vice president of product line management. "Some of the largest networks in the world trust CALIENT Optical Circuit Switch technology. The proven nature of technology sets the stage for the Edge|640 to be used in very high-density mission-critical applications."

CALIENT has asserted that the growing popularity of its 3D MEMS-based S-Series Optical Circuit Switches for data center, compute cluster, and communication service provider applications has continued to lead to the demand for expanded manufacturing capabilities (see "CALIENT touts SDN-enabled optical circuit switching")

For related articles, visit the Network Design Topic Center.

For more information on optical switches and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer's Guide.