ATLANTA — Sonet and Ethernet, two of the networking industry's most popular standards, are uniting in a way that might be inevitable given recession-era carrier trends. Both will be sharing the bill in a variety of access platforms slated for introduction at the Supercomm 2003 show here next week.
With advanced data-handling methods such as the Generic Framing Protocol (GFP) and virtual concatenation ready for Sonet, it was predictable that network equipment manufacturers would combine Layer 2 Ethernet framing with traditional Sonet access platforms. Larscom Inc., a longstanding provider of channel service unit systems for T1 and T3, is extending its Orion multiplexer architecture into mixed Sonet/Ethernet services. Meanwhile, Anda Networks Inc. is launching a family of EtherTone products with an edge-access system, EtherEdge, that will be augmented later with extended-reach and digital subscriber line (DSL) access multiplexer systems based on Ethernet.
Gurdip Jande, vice president of marketing at Larscom (Milpitas, Calif.), said the ubiquity of Ethernet made it inevitable that new generations of inverse and edge-access multiplexers would be centered on Ethernet framing. The ability to offer data-centric framing protocols in hardware for Sonet made it possible to embed more functions into a smaller platform, he said, as evidenced by Larscom's new Orion 7400.
Larscom explicitly positions Ethernet-framed Sonet access against passive optical networks and active optical Ethernet systems in the last mile. Optical access systems may be getting cheaper, Jande said, but they cannot handle the time-division-multiplexed services that are still prevalent in most corporate access systems. Ethernet carried over resilient packet rings might carry circuit-based traffic, but Jande said RPR still is not common enough to represent a direct threat to Ethernet over Sonet.
The Orion 7400 s not a full chassis, but includes Ethernet and TDM functions inside a 1RU system that can fit in a 19- or 23-inch rack. Interfaces for T1, T3, 10/100 Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet are included. Critical to the access system is chip-level support for GFP, virtual concatenation and the link capacity adjustment scheme, all methods of dynamically provisioning bandwidth for data traffic over Sonet.
The EtherTone product line designed at Anda Networks (San Jose, Calif.), meanwhile, includes the 24-subscriber EtherEdge 4000 for multitenant buildings; the EtherReach remote-building system for a single user who needs extended reach; the EtherEdge 3000 for international markets; and the EtherSlam to aggregate Ethernet-based DSL service in the central office. The EtherView element-management software package will manage all members of the family.
Anda CEO Charles Kenmore said that the surviving incumbent carriers are bullish on Ethernet but want to preserve the Sonet and TDM infrastructure. The EtherEdge 4000, when used in multitenant buildings, sits between a Sonet add-drop multiplexer on the carrier's Sonet ring, and the PBXes and corporate LANs within the enterprise. It can also aggregate service for the long-reach EtherReach 2000, allowing the 4000 to serve as a central aggregation point for distributed corporate sites.
EtherEdge is designed as a 6U chassis, with TDM interfaces for carrying traditional circuit traffic. It offers hardware support for Sonet data services such as GFP and LCAS. Both Anda and Larscom will show their systems at Supercomm, with delivery slated for later this year.
