Cisco aggregates SAN traffic over DWDM

Cisco Systems Inc. wants businesses to aggregate storage network traffic and other services over the same wide-area fiber connections, and sees itself moving increasingly into the video post-processing market, a vast consumer of bandwidth.

The company announced two enhancements to its ONS 15530 Multiservice Aggregation Platform here at the CeBIT trade show Wednesday, with the aim of combining SAN (storage area network) traffic with other services such as Gigabit Ethernet over a single optical fiber link using DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing). DWDM systems transmit multiple signals simultaneously down a single optical fiber by transmitting each one on a different wavelength, or colour, of light.

“With a DWDM platform like this, we are able to put storage and other applications across a single fiber ring,” said Geraint Anderson, vice-president of optical and PTT marketing for Cisco in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, at a news conference here.

The Eight-port Fibre Channel/Gigabit Ethernet Aggregation Card can be used to combine up to eight Fibre Channel, FICON (fiber connectivity) or Gigabit Ethernet signals on a single 10G-bps (bits per second) wavelength in a DWDM system, while the 2.5G bps ITU Trunk Card can be used to combine multiple ESCON (enterprise system connection), Fibre Channel, FICON or Gigabit Ethernet services over a single ITU (International Telecommunication Union) wavelength, the company said in a statement.

Where such services are carried between sites over a MAN (metropolitan area network) fiber ring, the 2.5G-bps ITU Trunk Card can be used to add or drop a few services on the fiber at each site, the statement said.

The trunk card is available now through Cisco’s reseller channels worldwide, while the eight-port card will be available for ordering later this month, and deliverable in April, according to Cisco spokesman Marc Musgrove. Pricing is set by the resellers, he said.

Cisco also named two companies that have used its equipment to aggregate storage networking and other services over a single fiber connection.

German utility company Mainova AG, in Frankfurt am Main, is using the ONS 15540 Extended Services Platform to multiplex several Fibre Channel storage connections with LAN traffic over a single fiber, linking different campus sites to remote data centers, providing back-up and simplifying the task of data recovery in the event of a disaster, Cisco said.

Another Cisco customer, the Flemish public broadcasting company Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep (VRT) in Brussels, is using Cisco’s MDS family of SAN switches to integrate storage network traffic with an existing IP (Internet Protocol) data network over fiber, Cisco said.

VRT’s move is a sign of changing times in the broadcasting industry. Although many video processing companies in the broadcasting industry have been pushing digital video around high-speed data networks for some years now, they have not always used IP — but that could change.

“We think most (video) post-production will go IP-based,” said Mark de Simone, vice president of technology solutions and corporate marketing for Cisco in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Digital video will play a greater part in Cisco’s future too, de Simone predicted. “We see video as a major driver for our company,” he said.

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Featured Articles

Cybersecurity in 2024: Priorities and challenges for Canadian organizations 

By Derek Manky As predictions for 2024 point to the continued expansion...

Survey shows generative AI is a top priority for Canadian corporate leaders.

Leaders are devoting significant budget to generative AI for 2024 Canadian corporate...

Related Tech News

Tech Jobs

Our experienced team of journalists and bloggers bring you engaging in-depth interviews, videos and content targeted to IT professionals and line-of-business executives.

Tech Companies Hiring Right Now