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System innovations in open WDM DCI networks

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Abstract

We review the most important WDM system innovations motivated by the evolution of DCI transport. State-of-the-art coherent transmission has already exceeded 6 b/s/Hz in transatlantic deployments. Moreover, the adoption of software innovations in automation and programmability, which DCI pioneered in transport networks, has also simplified operations and enables the emergence of open transport architectures. Combining these advances with emerging network analytic frameworks allows exciting innovations in network design and management optimization.

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Notes

  1. The amount of per-device configuration changes for DC devices (DC routers) is significantly more than that of backbone devices (peering routers, WDM devices). Reference [47] states that 90% of backbone device samples have less than 500 updated lines per week, while only 50% of POP/DC samples are of the same size. Compared to > 700 lines of configuration changes for DC devices, backbone devices see about 150 updated lines per change.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge insightful interactions related to this work with colleagues in the industry and academia, and especially Anders Lindgren and Stefan Melin at Telia Company, and Robert Maher and Steve Sanders at Infinera.

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Correspondence to Abhinava Shivakumar Sadasivarao.

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Jeff Rahn and Biao Lu were at Infinera at the time of this work and are currently at Facebook.

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Paraschis, L., Bock, H., Sadasivarao, A. et al. System innovations in open WDM DCI networks. Photon Netw Commun 40, 269–280 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11107-020-00888-7

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