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Cisco Systems Inc. today announced that it expanded its optical line with an offering that allows enterprises to aggregate as many as 40 data connections over a single wavelength.
The Cisco ONS 15530, set to be available in early July, is a DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) solution targeted for large enterprises managing metropolitan area networks. The aggregation feature allows enterprises to consolidate multiple information streams over the same wavelength so they can use more of the available bandwidth. It is particularly suited for applications such as data replication and other business continuity applications, Cisco officials said.
The first version allows an ONS 15530 to aggregate up to 40 channels using the ESCON (Enterprise Systems Connection) fiber optics-bases storage protocol over one 10Gbps wavelength. Typically, without the aggregation feature, enterprises would need to dedicate a separate wavelength for each ESCON channel.
In future releases, Cisco plans to add the ability for the ONS 15530 to aggregate multiple higher-speed networking and storage services such as Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel over single wavelengths, officials said. It also can support other storage and networking protocols, such as SONET/SDH (Synchronous Optical Network/Synchronous Digital Hierarchy), ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and FICON (Fiber Optic Connection).
The ONS 15530 is part of Ciscos COMET (Complete Optical Multiservice Edge & Transport) portfolio and joins its metro DWDM product family that includes the ONC 15540 and ONS 15200.
Using as many as 32 individual wavelengths multiplexed across a single pair of fiber optic cables, the ONS 15530 can carry a mixture of voice, data, storage and video traffic. It has a maximum capacity of 320Gbps, with each wavelength capable of carrying between 2.5 Gbps and 10 Gbps. The ONS 15530s list price is $54,000.
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