NORDUnet and Swedish Sunet are building a new network for the Swedish research and education community. NORDUnet network architect Fredrik “Hugge” Korsbäck’s blog offers in-depth technical information.
When operational October 2016 the new Sunet network will be an all coherent optical network, and one of the most advanced networks in the world. Some of the keywords describing the 8000 kilometre long network are Gridless, IPoDWDM, ROADM, Raman and Triple Redundancy.
Gridless: The bandwidth required for each optical channel changes as optical transmission technologies evolve. Traditional grid spacing is on the ITU 50GHz grid, wasting bandwidth and lowering spectral efficiency. A gridless network enables newer and higher bandwidth channels, allowing more efficient spacing of today’s channels.
IPoDWDM (IP over DWDM) integrates IP routers in the optical transport domain, saving components such as interfaces cards, processors and shelves. Optical interface cards in routers tunes in the right wavelengths and re-routes traffic around problem areas such as fibercuts without manual intervention.
ROADM allows for remote configuration, reconfiguration and automatic power balancing. Bandwidth assignment doesn’t require planning during initial deployment – the configuration can be done whenever without affecting traffic.
50 fiber stretches in the new network use Raman amplifiers. Distributed amplification within the transmission fiber increases the Optical Signal-To-Noise Ratio, allowing for longer reaches without the need for regeneration. Together with the gridless aspect this effect will future-proof the network.
Through smart design the network has triple redundancy throughout the 8000 kilometre long transportation network, tying together one hundred connected organizations throughout the long wild country of Sweden.
Read the blog!
On his “Network Engineering Blog”, NORDUnet network architect Fredrik “Hugge” Korsbäck offers in-depth technical insights in the design and deployment of the network. For a first look into the new network, please read the blog post:
https://www.sunet.se/blogg/forsta-tekniklabben-for-nya-sunet/
The Post “Being evil with fibre in the lab” focuses on the extensive software and hardware testing, to see how the gear is performing and that all vendors are living up to said promises in the tenders:
https://www.sunet.se/blogg/video-vi-forstor-lite-fiber-i-labbet/
Visiting the Juniper WorldWide Proof-of-Concept lab in Sunnyvale California for a week to make a full-scale proof-of-concept with the exact gear the new network will consist off:
https://www.sunet.se/blogg/final-poc-and-acceptance-of-routers/
Tales from the Sunet roll out team, driving around Sweden and installing and testing equipment, meeting reindeer on their way:
https://www.sunet.se/blogg/sites-and-fibers-being-delivered/
Read even more: Fiberfeber!
Also, the Sunet blog “Fiberfeber!”, written by freelance journalist Jörgen Städje (in Swedish), tells you everything you ever needed to know about optical fibres, routers and switches. Highly entertaining and with great graphic illustrations, Städje even measures distances with megabytes: There is room for roughly 62,5 kilobyte per km fiber. Accordingly, the length of Sweden from North to South can be measured to 97,9 megabyte (1567 km):
https://www.sunet.se/bloggdel/fiberfeber/
