Lynx launches LightLEADER 'plug-n-play' optical switch
10 July Calabasas Hills, Ca, Lightwave Europe--Lynx Photonic Networks (www.LynxPN.com), has launched the LightLEADER family of plug-n-play photonic switches.
The switches have already been running in a live U.S. government-sponsored experimental transparent optical network known as ATDNet, which interconnects several government networking research testbeds and has nodes located in the Washington, D.C., area, including the Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences and the Naval Research Laboratory.
In ATDNet, LightLEADER is currently multicasting 720 progressive scan uncompressed HDTV and ATM/SONET signals transmitted from the NRL to various network elements at the LTS. ATDNet is a transparent all-optical test network that has many research activities and interests designed to evaluate general areas of research in a live networking environment.
LightLEADER is a small optical communications system built around Lynx's patented intelligent optical switch fabrics. It minimizes the risk and cost associated with both testbed and live production optical applications. It can switch any optical path or fibre to any other; is data-rate and format independent and can be configured as strictly non-blocking; and can dynamically tap optical lines for monitoring or security intrusion.
LightLEADER comes with an intuitive GUI that is hosted on a PC locally, or remotely via an Ethernet connection. It can be tailored to manage most port-to-port connectivity requirements, including broadcasting, distance-tuned multicasting, dynamic wavelength switching and tapping. The built-in attenuation management is useful for applications that require equalization in amplified networks.
LightLEADER offers broad applications capability, including:
- Advanced fiber management
- Wavelength management
- Optical test access
- Revertive intelligent protection switching
- Network restoration management
- Dynamic multicast and broadcast for video applications
- Optical SAN protection and mirroring
- Dynamic reconfigurability for static OADMs
- "Intrusion" tapping for security applications.
LightLEADER's switching and path management technology is solid state, which means it contains no moving parts. It has survived reliability tests, performed by an independent test laboratory under live operation, that included heating past 130 degrees centigrade, freezing to ¿90degC, and vibration testing to 26gRMS - exceeding that of a fighter jet at maximum G-force.
"PLC-based photonic switching enables reliable, affordable, efficient, point-to-multipoint and multipoint-to-multipoint optical networks," said Michael Leigh, president and co-founder of Lynx Photonic Networks. "These networks permit data rate, format and protocol independence and allow for rapid upgrade and deployment of new equipment and services."