I'm looking at long-haul gigabit ethernet as a possible solution versus
traditional SONET and I'm a little bit wary as promises made on web pages
and white papers aren't *always* completely accurate. I'd appreciate it if
you all would share your experiences with it. By long-haul I mean in the
hundreds or thousands of miles. I need to know:
a. Does it work properly?
b. Who offers it in the continental US?
Please contact me off-list. Any information is greatly appreciated.
Forget it with today's technology. All long haul systems use SONET framing.
But with the 10Gbe standard WAN PHY you can directly connect into a SONET
transponder and your ethernet will be carried transparently.
Finisar has GBICs that has ~30 dB budget, MRV used to have them as well,
but discontinued production and their newer ones only has 24 dB budget.
30 dB at .25 dB per kilometer means 120km which is approx 75 miles. That's
the longest unrepeated gige optics I have found so far.
The above is only for dark fibre (or CWDM solutions).
b. Who offers it in the continental US?
I'd recommend you to buy a 2*GigE to OC48 converter/multiplexor and get
someone to provide you an 2.5 gig wavelength in their DWDM system, that
should be easy enough to find.
I'm going to take a stab and assume that you're actually more interested
in finding a longhaul line with GigE on the ends, and not so much how many
miles you can get with whatever optics...
Rumor has it AT&T was offering a long-haul gige service, though I havn't
actually seen it with my own eyes. I'm certain others are as well, though
it takes a while to overcome the well-engranded traditions and beliefs
about "LAN vs WAN technology" and all that nonsense... Short of that,
Cogent offers a layer 3 transport service with gige on both ends as an
option...
I'm looking at long-haul gigabit ethernet as a possible solution versus
traditional SONET and I'm a little bit wary as promises made on web pages
and white papers aren't *always* completely accurate. I'd appreciate it
if
you all would share your experiences with it. By long-haul I mean in the
hundreds or thousands of miles. I need to know:
a. Does it work properly?
b. Who offers it in the continental US?
I'm going to take a stab and assume that you're actually more interested
in finding a longhaul line with GigE on the ends, and not so much how many
miles you can get with whatever optics...
Absolutely right, I don't care what's in between as long as I have GigE at
the end. Other options include using wave (too expensive), or ethernet over
MPLS (worth considering although latency may be too high for longer that
1000 miles).
Why would latency be too high? Just talk to one of the carriers who do
everything over MPLS, I'm sure they're more then interested in selling
some kind of "VPN services" (well someone in the company is at any rate,
most sales people would be flatly stumped and are more concerned with
trying to keep their jobs than finding you cheap longhaul anyways).
You might want to try isp-bandwidth, it's a list more suited for finding
specific services you can buy and specific sales weenies who will try and
sell it to you. I know I've seen the GigE long-haul transport subject come
up a couple time there...
Sorry if this is a naive question, but why would you want to do layer 2 over WAN distances anyways? Whats wrong with good old SONET, IP and routing? Do you have non-IP protocols to haul?
there are solutions of this type. SURFNet line, currently used for test
and network research is an example.
It is from Amsterdam to Chicago. It is presented as GigE at the ends.
So fairly long distance, RTT is 93 msec.Actually it terminate as
SONET OC48 that goes too TDM Switch which has GigE interfaces.
So there is SONET encapsulation in the middle. In theory we can get
upto 2.5Gbps.
Line is provided by Teleglobe. End equipements are
CISCO, ONS 15454. This don't do any routing.
One thing to consider here is that you have to buy and OC-192 service
for 10GbE WAN phy. That is prohibitively expensive for many.
Also, be sure to ask Ethernet vendors about their time frames for WAN
PHY support. While there is a spec for WAN PHY, there has been a
disconnect between the telco and ethernet oriented industries about
which PHY will make money for them the fastest. Ethernet vendors in
the 10G space typically provide LAN PHY now with vauge plans for WAN
phy over the next 18 months. There are exceptions already and this
will resolve over time. However, if you are seriously looking at
10GigE today, this is worth spending some time on.
For GbE, another direction to look at is the DWDM products that can
feed two gig ethernets into an OC-48 channel.
The Cerent 454 (now cisco 15454) has 2 port Gig-E cards that cost a little
more than a PA-GE card. The pair of ports shares OC-12 available to that
slot (I'm assuming this is NOT an OC-192 equipped shelf) and the bandwidth
can be split in certain multiples of STSes (OC-1), or used totally for one
port. You only need as many STSes between boxes as you want to use.
You can play some nice games with 802.1Q VLANs and multiple sites, too.
There is a newer 4 port Cerent gig-E card I have not seen, but that probably
can do a FULL gig-E on at least 2 of the ports (i.e. use a full OC-48 if the
box has the OC-192 cross connect matrix installed). This newer card I think
is only for point to point and does not "understand" VLANS, though probably
can carry them.
Some DWDM boxes have their own gig-E ports. We have Sycamore ones that give
us several Boston, NYC, and Reston routers on the same ethernet.
Consider also that many switches support what cisco calls ether-channel. If
one gig-E isn't enough, add more in parallel. Any router on this "ethernet"
can freely talk to any other.
You are not stuck with just one router talking to one at the other end.
* I'm looking at long-haul gigabit ethernet as a possible solution versus
traditional SONET and I'm a little bit wary as promises made on web pages
and white papers aren't *always* completely accurate. I'd appreciate it
if
you all would share your experiences with it. By long-haul I mean in the
hundreds or thousands of miles. I need to know:
Part of the MRV group you can find Optical Access and Charlotte's Web
Networks solutions.
We installed the solution for few Giga to OC48 in several places as backhaul
connectivity and it works just find.
It includes VLANS and MPLS on top of few Giga, OC48
Best Regard
Chen Genossar
VP Business Development
phone: 972-4-9936290
fax: 972-4-9892743
mobile: 972-54-936290
cgenossar@opticalaccess.com
www.OpticalAccess.com
That's exactly what Cogent put in at our office. They actually have two
OC-48s (DWDM, so they're over the same fiber) that go into a Cisco/Cerex
15454 ONI. Two Gig-Es come out.
Forget it with today's technology. All long haul systems use SONET
framing. But with the 10Gbe standard WAN PHY you can directly connect
into a SONET transponder and your ethernet will be carried transparently.
