Optical transport vendor ADVA Optical Networking has completed a trial of its 400Gb/s coherent data centre interconnect (DCI) technology with Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) in Poland.
The trial was conducted over 385km of fibre between two academic centres in Poznań and Warsaw, which form part of the PIONIER research and education network operated by PSNC.
Using a 400Gb/s line card, the trial showcased the capabilities of ADVA’s latest DCI technology, the ADVA FSP 3000 CloudConnect – announced in June (see ADVA unveils ‘all new’ CloudConnect platform for DCI).
ADVA reported that the FSP 3000 CloudConnect transported data continuously for 14 hours without any block errors - something that the company claims has not been achieved in a field trial to date - and an impressive optical signal-to-noise ratio of about 20dB.
The message behind this statement is that the system ran under stable conditions over a prolonged period of time, unlike some record trials which are operating close to the FEC limit and may exhibit occasional error due to temporal fluctuations.
Christoph Glingener, chief technology officer, ADVA Optical Networking said: “Transporting 400Gb/s over 385km at 16-QAM and with no errors is a clear indication of how robust and reliable our technology is. In many respects, this is what stands our DCI solution apart. It’s true plug and play.”
For the purpose of the trial, the ADVA FSP 3000 CloudConnect was configured with two 200Gb/s wavelengths operating at 16-QAM within an optical super-channel.
The system exploits software-defined optics to deliver flexible data rates and modulation schemes. One of several software-selectable modulation schemes, 16-QAM is available on the commercial release of the platform, in addition to QPSK and 8-QAM.
The trial also featured reconfigurable add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and hybrid amplifiers.
A long-standing customer of ADVA Optical Networking, the PSNC was very enthusiastic about the results.
Artur Binczewski, director, network division, PSNC said: “The ADVA FSP 3000 CloudConnect is the team’s greatest technical achievement to date. This technology opens so many new possibilities for Poland’s research and education communities. We’ll be able to collaborate and share data on a whole new scale.”
He added: “We are involved in many data-intense projects. Our work with CERN is, perhaps, the most well-known of these. With the ADVA FSP 3000 CloudConnect we have many new horizons to explore.”
