Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-04 Thread Brandon Martin

On 8/4/19 3:27 AM, Mark Tinka wrote:

For shorter runs, I think it's cheaper to find dark fibre and do
something yourself.


This was a bit of an unusual situation.  One end it rather rural.  The 
only fiber within miles was one semi-independent operator, the area 
RBOC, and Comcast.  The semi-independent operator is on an old cable 
with very limited fiber count and apparently has basically every strand 
lit with DWDM at this point.  They had no dark fiber to give.

--
Brandon Martin


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-04 Thread Etienne-Victor Depasquale
A friend of mine whom I rely upon took it upon himself to put my question
to a reliable contact of his. In the hope of adding some value to this
thread, I'm reproducing this exchange with their names removed, in
descending chronological order (latest first, earliest last).

Academic in the US:It’s almost all packet over OTN. SONET has been on its
way out (at least in what I’ve seen) since the mid 2000’s. The last SONET I
touched was like 2008, and that was to tear it out and replace it with
Ethernet over OTN.

My contact: What you’re seeing pretty much matches what I’m seeing (from
the outside). What I think Etienne is wondering is “how is that magic sauce
delivered inside the SP network” - are they still using SONET/SDH, did they
move to OTN, or is it pure packet-switched technology.  The few networks I
saw from the inside recently were all using packet-based technology (mostly
MPLS) over lambdas. Would you have more data points?

Academic in the US: Almost everything I have seen in the US and parts of
western Europe are either spectrum sharing (rare, but definitely a thing),
wavelength as a managed service, or - more commonly - "managed ethernet"
where the product is basically a L2 managed path with a hard bandwidth cap.
This is far more common, especially in metro areas as it's basically part
of pretty much all of the MetroE platforms. In the US, MPLS is still pretty
heavy but MPLS-SR is likely going to take over that space. Carriers are
selling waves at a premium, they'd much rather oversell a frame service.



On Sun, Aug 4, 2019 at 9:28 AM Mark Tinka  wrote:

>
>
> On 4/Aug/19 02:16, Brandon Martin wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Those are definitely longer distances than I was inquiring about.  I
> > was asking for distances in the range of more like 100km.
>
> For shorter runs, I think it's cheaper to find dark fibre and do
> something yourself.
>
> Mark.
>


-- 
Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Assistant Lecturer
Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
University of Malta
Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-04 Thread Mark Tinka



On 4/Aug/19 02:16, Brandon Martin wrote:

>  
>
> Those are definitely longer distances than I was inquiring about.  I
> was asking for distances in the range of more like 100km.

For shorter runs, I think it's cheaper to find dark fibre and do
something yourself.

Mark.


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-03 Thread Brandon Martin

On 8/3/19 6:58 AM, Mark Tinka wrote:

We are seeing requests from as low as 600km, up to 1,600km, all the way
to 7,000km.


Those are definitely longer distances than I was inquiring about.  I was 
asking for distances in the range of more like 100km.


Those distances are firmly into the amplified territory and getting into 
territory were you're likely to need full RRR stops in at least a couple 
places.  Maybe not with coherent optics especially on NZDS fiber...maybe.


--
Brandon Martin


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-03 Thread Mark Tinka


On 3/Aug/19 17:04, Valdis Kl ē tnieks wrote:

> I'm having a hard time seeing any of those distances as being "metro" as
> opposed to long-haul.. or did they change the definitions again while I wasn't
> paying attention?

I was answering Brandon's query re: spectrum over distance.

The OP's question on Metro still stands.

Mark.



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Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-03 Thread Valdis Klētnieks
On Sat, 03 Aug 2019 12:58:01 +0200, Mark Tinka said:
> On 3/Aug/19 03:14, Brandon Martin wrote:
> > � I've inquired with a few metro operators in my area about something
> > like this, albeit a few years ago, and I got a pretty hard "no way
> > we'd ever do that" out of them presumably for the reasons above.
>
> We are seeing requests from as low as 600km, up to 1,600km, all the way
> to 7,000km.

I'm having a hard time seeing any of those distances as being "metro" as
opposed to long-haul.. or did they change the definitions again while I wasn't
paying attention?


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Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-03 Thread Mark Tinka



On 3/Aug/19 03:14, Brandon Martin wrote:

>  
>
> How are they handling optical power balancing across amplifiers and
> such?  Do they just trust the customer to provide light at the power
> levels agreed upon?  Bulk attenuate the entire "spectrum"
> automatically?  Monitor and drop the whole lot if something is out of
> whack and causing saturation or gain balance problems for others?
>
> Or is this something you're only seeing at metro distances where
> separate amplifiers are superfluous?

The details about this are very vendor-specific, and each vendor has
some way in which they implement this. Spectrum would be a very
customized product between the vendor and operator, and also between the
operator and customer. So no BCP for this, as of yet, that I know of.


>   I've inquired with a few metro operators in my area about something
> like this, albeit a few years ago, and I got a pretty hard "no way
> we'd ever do that" out of them presumably for the reasons above.

We are seeing requests from as low as 600km, up to 1,600km, all the way
to 7,000km.

Mark.



Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-02 Thread Brandon Martin

On 8/2/19 4:10 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:

Now, the next step in all this that is starting to gain a bit of
traction is "spectrum", i.e., rather than take a normal grey service
from a Transport operator, have them deliver you a portion of the DWDM
spectrum so that you can run as much bandwidth as you want over their
network. Think of it as dark fibre, but lit...


How are they handling optical power balancing across amplifiers and 
such?  Do they just trust the customer to provide light at the power 
levels agreed upon?  Bulk attenuate the entire "spectrum" automatically? 
 Monitor and drop the whole lot if something is out of whack and 
causing saturation or gain balance problems for others?


Or is this something you're only seeing at metro distances where 
separate amplifiers are superfluous?  I've inquired with a few metro 
operators in my area about something like this, albeit a few years ago, 
and I got a pretty hard "no way we'd ever do that" out of them 
presumably for the reasons above.

--
Brandon Martin


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-02 Thread Mark Tinka



On 2/Aug/19 20:06, Etienne-Victor Depasquale wrote:
> Bear with me one more time as I drill down a little and spell things
> out. I've realized that there may be more than one interpretation of
> "EoDWDM". Are you referring to:
>
> (a) Ethernet packets in OTU frames - thereby implying an underlying OTN?
>
> (b) Ethernet optical SFP+ transceivers with a cable connection into a
> transponder plugging into a DWDM Mux or DWDM OADM? (no circuit transport)

Either one would count as EoDWDM, in my book.

The general use-case for OTN is to have SDH/SONET-like OAM
characteristics, but over the DWDM network.

In basic deployments, there was a time when folk argued about whether
they take LAN-PHY or WAN-PHY EoDWDM services from providers. The OTN vs.
DWDM discussion kind of falls around there, in my opinion. Considering
that almost all use-cases for EoDWDM are into router ports, where basic
day-to-day Ethernet is the cheapest and simplest option, I haven't heard
of any customers asking for WAN-PHY or OTN in the last 3 years. Not on
our network at least, anyway...

I think the costs of WAN-PHY/OTN re: OAM have been outweighed by making
the right choice in choosing an operator that is able to deliver an SLA,
back it up, and have a NOC that works well.

Now, the next step in all this that is starting to gain a bit of
traction is "spectrum", i.e., rather than take a normal grey service
from a Transport operator, have them deliver you a portion of the DWDM
spectrum so that you can run as much bandwidth as you want over their
network. Think of it as dark fibre, but lit...

Mark.



Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-02 Thread Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Bear with me one more time as I drill down a little and spell things out.
I've realized that there may be more than one interpretation of "EoDWDM".
Are you referring to:

(a) Ethernet packets in OTU frames - thereby implying an underlying OTN?

(b) Ethernet optical SFP+ transceivers with a cable connection into a
transponder plugging into a DWDM Mux or DWDM OADM? (no circuit transport)



On Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 10:32 AM Mark Tinka  wrote:

>
>
> On 2/Aug/19 10:17, Etienne-Victor Depasquale wrote:
>
> > Mark, when you write "There is a healthy sharing of the pie between
> > DWDM and packet to drive these Ethernet Metro's ", can you elaborate a
> > little? Are you referring specifically to EoDWDM, or do you have
> > something else in mind?
>
> EoDWDM.
>
> Ethernet is very widely used, regardless of the Transport technology.
>
> In other markets, you will find SDH Transports delivering Ethernet as
> well (EoSDH), although that is dying in favour of EoDWDM or just
> Ethernet over (dark) fibre.
>
> Mark.
>


-- 
Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Assistant Lecturer
Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
University of Malta
Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-02 Thread Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Mark, when you write "There is a healthy sharing of the pie between DWDM
and packet to drive these Ethernet Metro's ", can you elaborate a little?
Are you referring specifically to EoDWDM, or do you have something else in
mind?

Etienne

On Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 10:10 AM Mark Tinka  wrote:

> And just to add that I think that as part of the future, 5G is likely to
> play a big part as well, somewhere between the Metro and the Access.
>
> Mark.
>


-- 
Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Assistant Lecturer
Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
University of Malta
Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-02 Thread Mark Tinka



On 2/Aug/19 10:17, Etienne-Victor Depasquale wrote:

> Mark, when you write "There is a healthy sharing of the pie between
> DWDM and packet to drive these Ethernet Metro's ", can you elaborate a
> little? Are you referring specifically to EoDWDM, or do you have
> something else in mind?

EoDWDM.

Ethernet is very widely used, regardless of the Transport technology.

In other markets, you will find SDH Transports delivering Ethernet as
well (EoSDH), although that is dying in favour of EoDWDM or just
Ethernet over (dark) fibre.

Mark.


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-02 Thread Mark Tinka
And just to add that I think that as part of the future, 5G is likely to
play a big part as well, somewhere between the Metro and the Access.

Mark.


Re: The future of transport in the metro area

2019-08-02 Thread Mark Tinka


On 31/Jul/19 16:48, Etienne-Victor Depasquale wrote:

>
> "I'm trying to identify trends in adoption of transport technology in
> the metro-area. If legacy is SDH/SONET and its successor in circuit
> transport is OTN, what are network providers implementing and planning
> to implement as transport technology in the metro area? For example,
> are packet transport technologies being considered as a replacement?
> As a complementary technology? By packet transport technologies, I am
> thinking of PBB-TE and MPLS-TP but ultimately, the problem regards how
> network providers are balancing circuit-transport and packet-transport
> technologies in current and planned deployments."

Ethernet has been ruling the Metro for some time now. The control and
forwarding planes that drive that are a decision left to the operator.

There is a healthy sharing of the pie between DWDM and packet to drive
these Ethernet Metro's, depending on use-case, the operators' business
model, whether it's an ISP or a content network, e.t.c.

In all, SDH/SONET Metro networks, while not completely gone, are
certainly on the decline.

As far as OTN goes, I've always heard more talk than actual biting by
customers. In our market, every time a customer has shown interest in
OTN, they end up going for EoDWDM, all the time.

Mark.


The future of transport in the metro area

2019-07-31 Thread Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Hello,

I'm new to this mailing list. I hope I've understood the scope correctly!

I've posted this question to ResearchGate but I haven't had any response.
I'm hoping for some guidance from here.

The question is:

"I'm trying to identify trends in adoption of transport technology in the
metro-area. If legacy is SDH/SONET and its successor in circuit transport
is OTN, what are network providers implementing and planning to implement
as transport technology in the metro area? For example, are packet
transport technologies being considered as a replacement? As a
complementary technology? By packet transport technologies, I am thinking
of PBB-TE and MPLS-TP but ultimately, the problem regards how network
providers are balancing circuit-transport and packet-transport technologies
in current and planned deployments."


-- 
Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale
Assistant Lecturer
Department of Communications & Computer Engineering
Faculty of Information & Communication Technology
University of Malta
Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale