The DarkStar DQM100-2, which is part of a family of 96-wave tunable DWDM optical networking systems that XKL plans to announce in 2015, offers up to forty-eight10GbE ports and 2x100GbE line ports in 1RU. Bandwidth can be expanded to 96x100GbE ports using XKL DBC or DMD external filters.
While a single 100G interface can cost about the same as four 10G interfaces, a customer with five or more 10G line ports can connect them directly to the 100G interface using the DQM100-2. If a customer expects to have 10x10G ports, network charges are cut in half, XKL says.
At 10G, 40G, and above, user data throughput can become limited by packet processing speed, and routers can make inefficient use of a client 40G connection. However, working at L1, the DQM100-2 schedules L2 and L3 packet streams so that efficiency is maximized on the 100G line. L2 and L3 user data packet streams are not over-subscribed, and L1 scheduling is transparent to Ethernet and IP protocols. Additionally, the DQM100-2 allows disaster recovery for a data center using a single switchable 100G channel.
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