Cisco Cisco CRS-X Multishelf System White Paper
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 12 of 12
Mixed vendor deployments will remain standard for the majority of service providers. Consequently, Cisco is
working to standardize the GMPLS extensions that enable Cisco nLight functionality. Coherent DWDM
transponders implement standards-based protocols, including ITU G.709 OTN framing and alarms, so their
usefulness is assured even with non-Cisco DWDM implementations. (Until Cisco nLight is standardized, however,
some automation and recovery capabilities will be unavailable.)
Because Cisco Prime can integrate into existing OSS and BSS systems, allowing end-to-end and top-to-bottom
OAM&P, service providers can improve their operational efficiencies, even without deploying agile DWDM
ROADMs or CTRs.
The CTR, combined with agile DWDM, Cisco nLight, and Cisco Prime, provides the most comprehensive solution
and the greatest level of transport convergence through features, such as agnostic fabric and integrated OTN.
However, it is possible to evolve toward a converged transport architecture over time by implementing elements of
the architecture whenever and however possible.
Conclusion
To successfully address the challenges posed by dramatic growth and increasing unpredictability, service
providers must evolve their backbone networks while simultaneously eliminating costly inefficiencies.
These inefficiencies result primarily from the boundaries between the packet, optical TDM, and DWDM layers. The
boundaries slow service, impede flexibility, and complicate dimensioning, monitoring, and troubleshooting efforts.
Therefore, service providers must eliminate boundaries that affect hardware, control planes, management, and
other dimensions of a network. They must also address other factors, such as NPU complexity and the lack of
flexibility in the DWDM layer. The resulting converged transport architecture will allow service providers to reduce
the inefficiencies that are sapping profitability, and they can build a durable foundation for delivering modern
services efficiently and profitably.
For More Information
Visit
Printed in USA
C11-728242-00 06/13