Cisco Bolsters IPoDWDM Story, Targets 40G WAN Links and Increases ROADM Flexibility
| Jul 16, 2008 | Optical Infrastructure | Competitive Update
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Analyst: Jason Marcheck
Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: Moderate
Event Summary
July 15, 2008 – Cisco announced new enhancements to its IPoDWDM technology which are designed to help enable service providers to extend the reach of 40G IPoDWDM wavelengths to the long-haul domain, while also making the IPoDWDM solution more practical for metro edge network deployments. In addition, Cisco announced enhancements to its ONS 15454 ROADM platform that promise to increase optical network flexibility in the metro core and decrease wavelength service provisioning times.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Positive on the news that Cisco is unveiling IPoDWDM enhancements aimed at extending the reach of 40G wavelengths, pushing the IPoDWDM concept to the edge routing domain, and increasing wavelength management flexibility in the optical domain because the moves not only broaden the scope of Cisco’s IPoDWDM solution, but also help to address practical issues such as service provisioning and network management. Going further, a separate joint announcement with Sprint and Ciena helps to demonstrate carrier interest in the new features, and shows that the IPoDWDM concept can work with third party optical transport platforms.
• Vendor Importance: High to Cisco because IPoDWDM is the fundamental underpinning of the IP vendor’s approach to melding the optical and data layers in pursuit of TDM-to-packet network migration. Unveiling a list of features that makes the IPoDWDM more capable from both network performance and network management points of view undoubtedly enhances Cisco’s value proposition aimed at optical carriers. However, the moves also make it clearer than ever that Cisco intends on accelerating the migration from TDM to packet, which, while in line with the ultimate vision of network evolution, could drive operators looking for a higher level of TDM network investment protection to competing packet optical solutions.
• Market Impact: Moderate on the optical infrastructure market because Cisco’s latest round of enhancements makes the IP vendor’s approach to supporting packet over optical a more robust, well-rounded solution. At the same time, the market is well aware of Cisco’s approach to packet optical, meaning many of the previous arguments against Cisco’s approach still hold true.
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