...Transport Platform

Flexible, multi-terabit packet optical transport platform reduces OPEX/CAPEX and forms key building block for Coriant’s Dynamic Optical CloudTM solution

SAN FRANCISCO, California, March 11, 2014 – Coriant today announced the availability of the mTera Universal Transport Platform, a powerful new addition to Coriant’s end-to-end portfolio of software-defined switching and transport solutions that span access, metro, regional and long haul (LH) networks. The innovative universal transport solution delivers industry-leading flexibility, density, scalability and resiliency, and enables network operators to address a broad range of packet optical transport applications, including metro-to-LH gateway applications and on-demand data center connectivity. The Coriant mTera platform is the first product to come to market since the merging of Coriant and Tellabs and combines the strengths of both market leaders – compact, simplified and efficient traffic grooming from Tellabs and industry-leading photonic-layer technology and system performance from Coriant.  As an integral part of Coriant’s Dynamic Optical Cloud solution, the Coriant mTera platform provides enhanced service agility in an open network environment, while significantly reducing OPEX and CAPEX by enabling maximum utilization of each and every fiber, wavelength and router port in the network.

“Coriant has used its newly combined resources to build the mTera transport platform which is well defined with the right optical, OTN and Packet switching capabilities,” said Andrew Schmitt, Principal Analyst, Optical for Infonetics Research. “The platform is also designed with SDN in mind in order to meet the evolving requirements of an on-demand, elastic network.”

“Hypergrowth driven by mobility, video and cloud applications continues to drive the need for new and innovative infrastructure solutions,” said Pat DiPietro, Chief Executive Officer, Coriant. “We continue to make strategic investments in Coriant’s portfolio to ensure our customers have the tools necessary to adapt to these dynamic market changes. The addition of mTera to our product portfolio strengthens Coriant’s leadership in end-to-end packet optical networking while enabling service providers to cost-effectively meet the performance requirements of today’s demanding transport applications.”

Transport network flexibility and efficiency are critical requirements as new applications such as wide-area data center interconnect drive increased operational costs and complexity. The Coriant mTera platform has been specifically designed to address these and other dynamic, high-bandwidth applications with a compact and efficient architecture optimized for intra-metro or intra-regional traffic flows between metro/regional hubs or metro/regional data centers.

Key attributes of the mTera platform include:

- Density: Compact form factor which supports an extremely dense 7TB of switching capacity in half a rack; with two shelves supported per bay, this equates to 14TB of total switching capacity. It boasts 14 service slots and 6 switch fabric slots; the mTera will initially launch with 200G cards, with 500G cards scheduled for a future release.
- Flexibility and scalability: Innovative, multiservice switching architecture capable of supporting both OTN and L2 switching seamlessly across every card and every port on the platform. The full complement of ODUx switching including ODU-0 grooming with ODU-Flex, Carrier Ethernet and MPLS-TP ensures the most cost-effective and efficient grooming solution for packet and transparent services. All interface cards are designed using the latest in pluggable interface technology: SFP+ for 10G and CFP for 100G, including 100G coherent DWDM. All interfaces support a host of white light and DWDM options.
- Simplicity: Minimal set of highly flexible interface cards supported with unrestricted OTN and packet switching on every port. This simplifies ordering, sparing and deployment resulting in smoother, simpler and faster roll-outs for customers while minimizing the chances of error.
- Resiliency: High degree of restoration flexibility by providing restoration coordination across multiple layers. From a physical architecture perspective, this includes redundancy in the switching fabrics, interface modules, power supply and processors, and from the network perspective, the integration of ASON/GMPLS control plane and SDN functions for end-to-end, multilayer capabilities.

The mTera platform is currently available and in trials with customers.