Keysight Technologies announced that Ixia, a Keysight Business, organized the world’s first public open demonstration of the 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) ecosystem for hyperscale data centers including Ixia’s AresONE-400GE at Interop Tokyo, June 12-14, at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan in booth 5K14.
The evolution to 400GE is making real progress. Companies working in the 400GE ecosystem are making the transition from the trial phase to deployment with advances in optical and copper cable technology. In contrast to the ramp up to 100GE, the move to 400GE is projected to be 20 times faster according to market research firm LightCounting.
Ixia, along with 10 leading companies focused on the rollout of high-speed Ethernet (HSE) services for hyperscale data centers, will showcase the first public open demonstration of an entire 400GE ecosystem as specified by the IEEE 802.3bs, IEEE 802.3cd, Quad Small Form Factor Pluggable Double Density (QSFP-DD) and Octal Small Form Factor Pluggable (OSFP) multi-source agreements (MSAs).
“Cisco is pleased to participate in this Interop Tokyo 400GE event with Ixia and is encouraged by the demonstrated maturity of the technology, ” said Mark Nowell, Cisco Fellow. “Under Cisco’s leadership, Nexus 9000 data center switches are already being tested in customer trials, for rapid adoption of 400GE in hyperscale data centers. “
“This demonstration illustrates the functionality, interoperability and maturity of all aspects of the high-speed Ethernet ecosystem for hyperscale data centers, ” said Thananya Baldwin, vice president of strategic programs at Keysight’s Ixia Solutions Group. “We’re proud to organize this live demonstration with 10 partners to show 400GE deployment readiness. “
The demonstration will feature live full line-rate Ethernet traffic running between (32) 400GE ports from state-of-the-art high-density data center 400GE Cisco Nexus 3000 switch and (32) 400GE ports on Ixia’s industry-proven AresONE QSFP-DD and OSFP interfaces, using different optical physical medium dependents (PMDs) from Cambridge Industries Group (CIG), Finisar, Foxconn Optical Interconnect Technologies and InnoLight Technology (Suzhou) Ltd and different direct attached cables (DACs) from Amphenol, Foxconn Interconnect Technolgy (FIT), Leoni, Molex and TE Connectivity. The demonstration will include a wide range of optical PMDs including LR8, FR4, DR4, and SR8 running total of 12.8 Terabits of line-rate Ethernet traffic.
“400GE optical interfaces and their underlying technologies provide data centers and service providers with the bandwidth required to support a large variety of existing and emerging applications, ” said Mark Ives, product line management director at Finisar. “Finisar is very excited to be a leader in this ecosystem and to collaborate with Ixia on enabling its implementation through their next-generation test platforms. ”
The demonstration also highlights the copper DACs that bridge the physical interface gap between QSFP-DD and OSFP using a QSFP-DD-to-OSFP copper cable that allows these different interfaces to interoperate.
“Amphenol is excited to be exhibiting our latest 400Gb Direct Attach cabling solutions with Ixia at this year’s Interop Tokyo, ” said Greg McSorley, technical business development manager, Amphenol Corporation. “Working with our technology partners at an exhibition such as Interop Tokyo, is a great way for our customers to see Amphenol’s full breadth of capabilities. “
400GE FEC-aware Electrical and Optical Stress Testing Seminar at Interop Tokyo
Ixia will hold a seminar, 400GE FEC-aware Electrical and Optical Stress Testing, on Wednesday, June 12 at 1:00 PM in Room C. During the session, Thananya Baldwin will discuss the need to stress test in the presence of Forward Error Correction (FEC).
Ixia AresONE-400GE Test System
The award-winning AresONE-400GE test system is designed to meet the high-port-count test needs of chip and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) manufacturers, network equipment manufacturers (NEMs), and hyperscale data center operators and carriers. The AresONE-400GE test system with the OSFP pluggable interface has been named a Best of Show finalist at Interop Tokyo 2019.
Scalable Visibility for the Next-Generation Data Center
Ixia also announced the Vision X network packet broker, a high-density, modular platform that provides enterprises scalable visibility for their next-generation data centers. Ixia’s Vision X network packet broker is designed with a modular approach which enables customers to select different functions, capabilities and speeds as their data center evolves. Network operations teams can upgrade speeds and bandwidth of their visibility solution along with their monitoring and security tool capabilities. Vision X has been named a Best of Show finalist at Interop Tokyo 2019.