- Ciena introduced a hyper-rail photonics system to boost amplifier capacity between data centers
- The new product can fit up to 128 fiber pairs per rack in both older and newer in-line amplifier huts
- Cisco and Nokia also launched multi-rail line systems ahead of the OFC conference
Optical vendors are striving to address exorbitant data center fiber demand with products that can squeeze more fiber strands into tighter spaces. Ciena’s answer is what it calls “hyper-rail” photonics, amplifier configurations that can fit up to 128 rails (i.e., fiber pairs) in a single rack.
Helen Xenos, senior director of Portfolio Marketing at Ciena, told Fierce the idea was to develop a technology that can light up new fiber pairs quickly without the need for additional in-line amplifier huts. Huts are facilities that house optical equipment to boost fiber optic signals over long distances.
The problem with existing amplifiers, she said, is that a single hut can’t house all the equipment operators require for distributed AI training and workloads. Xenos referred to one “extreme” customer example where “we would need to build 22 huts” to support AI traffic if not for hyper-rail photonics.
She added Ciena hyper-rail photonics are designed for both traditional and modern hut designs and that the platform can fit up to 16 fiber pairs per chassis.
“There are older buildings which were designed to fit very compact type of equipment. So we are building multiple versions of hyper-rail products to be able to fit in both the existing, older hut designs as well as the newer hut designs,” Xenos said.
Ciena is showcasing hyper-rail photonics as well as its new co-packaged optics (CPO) engine – Vesta 200 6.4T CPX – at OFC this week. While hyper-rail photonics were made for scale-across applications, the Vesta product is for optical connectivity inside the data center.
Unlike the hyper-rail system, Vesta does not use coherent optical technology, Xenos said. The Vesta CPO engine supports up to 10 meters within a data center, whereas with coherent optics “we talk about hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of kilometers,” she added.
Multi-rail optical systems take off
Multi-rail line systems are all the rage in the optical world, with Cisco and Nokia recently announcing their own versions that support increased data center fiber density. The pressure is on for fiber operators, as RVA estimated they need to construct 92,000 new route miles in the next five years to keep up with data center connectivity.
According to Dell’Oro VP Jimmy Yu, Ciena, Cisco and Nokia have a combined 90% market share for optical transport sales to cloud providers, so it’s a safe bet that we will soon see more hyperscalers and cloud players gravitate toward multi-rail technology.