You’re nearing completion of a big, shiny new government building. Maybe it’s a county administrative center, police department headquarters, or maybe even a city hall. This building is going to be the cornerstone of public and intra-governmental interaction for decades to come, and as such, it’s going to need to connect to your existing main data center. While it’s difficult to assess how much bandwidth capacity you’ll need far into the future, you’ll want to build in enough capacity to avoid a disruptive upgrade every few years. This article talks about one solution that will help you well into the future,
The Open Line System: A New Kind of Interconnect
8 Channel Open Line System
40 Channel Open Line System
While passive WDM solutions can send up to dozens of 1G or 10G signals over one pair of fibers, you may be ready to look for more bandwidth capacity as you plan for the future. Our Open Line Systems use DWDM technology and PAM4 modulation to send up to 8 or 40 channels of 100G transmission over the same single pair of fibers, up to 100km apart! This device contains all the functionality of a rack full of mux/demuxes, amplifiers, and dispersion compensation modules in a compact package. Lastly, it’s zero-touch provisioning makes it incredibly easy to turn up in under 5 minutes.
Why It Makes Sense Now (and Later)
A solution like this is ideal for new construction because it sets you up incredibly well for the future. Even if you only light up, say, 2 or 3 channels right now, the additional capacity on even the smaller 8 channel unit means you won’t have to add or swap out equipment for years to come.
Furthermore, this solution can make sense today as well. Because the Open Line System packs a whole rack full of functionality into one compact unit (1RU or 2RU), it’s considerably more affordable— from both a capital and operational expense standpoint— than most comparable active solutions. Therefore, you can maximize your budget today, with more left over for other projects as well.
Learn more about the OLS complements our Open Network Switches here.
