Optical Layer Pluggables: The End of Hard Choices in the Metro?

This white paper looks at a new approach to building the metro optical layer based on miniaturizing optical layer functions (e.g. amplification, monitoring, wavelength selective switching, and optical supervisory channel) into compact pluggables. In addition to exploring pluggable optical layer use cases, this white paper examines the benefits of pluggables and provides comparisons with traditional approaches, including individual modules and system-on-a-blade architectures as well as fixed WDM and ROADM.