A Foundation for Tomorrow’s Cores

Scientific research network trials Juniper’s Converged Packet-Optical Supercore

For years the industry has kicked around the idea of true packet-optical convergence. Well, the future has just arrived. 

As you might already know, the Juniper Networks PTX series packet-optical platforms combine the intelligence of a carrier-grade core router with the performance, low-latency and resiliency of an optical solution.

Now, I can sit here and type novels about how well our solutions work. But don’t take my word for it.

Juniper ran a number of trials earlier this year with the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) high performance national 100G network. The trials with our newest upgrade to the PTX family, a two-port 100G coherent DWDM physical interface card (PIC), have shown that we’re ready for production shipments.

ESnet, which connects institutions that conduct research on some of the world's most important scientific challenges in energy, climate science, and the origins of the universe, ran a nearly 900-mile test between two sites – error free – using the PTX5000 with Juniper’s new two-port 100G coherent dense wavelength division multiplexer (DWDM) physical interface card. 

The addition of this wavelength in the existing fiber went seamlessly. The entire process was extremely simple and easy to complete without any adverse effects on the network or existing lambdas in service. 

And make no mistake – ESnet isn’t just pushing around 20-kilobyte emails on their network. They’re sending things like petabyte sized data sets of experimental output from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to supercomputers at DOE labs. And through these trials with us, ESnet was able to verify this architecture capable of carrying the research network’s 20+ petabytes of scientific research data they transport per month.

ESnet has been working closely with scientists and their applications, to determine the right architecture and scaling needed in their network to deal with the era of extreme data science and exponential traffic growth. The ability to leverage optical transport for carrying large science flows reliably, in a cost-efficient manner, is very important to them. 

This type of integration shows an immediate cost benefit by eliminating four-client CFP optical modules in favor of two 100G ports integrated within the PTX routers.

Juniper is able to offer a dense platform for 100G coherent ports, avoiding the costly slot capacity trade off – traditionally one of the barriers to this type of deployment – with up to 32 100G coherent DWDM ports per chassis.

It also yields a simpler design, with fewer potential points of failure.  For research networks, the PTX advantages run deep. It has a wire-rate performance for packet sizes down to 64 bytes, latency that can go as low as five microseconds, a laser-focused feature set that is easy to qualify/deploy and presents them with extremely high reliability, and dense 100G coherent DWDM capabilities.  

It’s been a long road, but it appears the promise of true packet-optical converge is beginning to come of age – at least for Juniper Networks PTX customers.

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