25 April 2023
Mattias Fridström, VP and chief evangelist, Arelion
Today the networks that make up the public internet, including Arelion’s, enable more traffic than ever before to traverse the globe to its final destination. The low latency, high bandwidth, and reliable networks make it easy for companies to create the connections they need to reach customers and service providers, such as the hyperscaler cloud service providers.
Deep under those IP layers, these networks are built on fibre optic infrastructure which offers huge data density and speeds. Using the long-established Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) fibre optic technology, each fibre can support somewhere between 15-20Tbps (depending on the DWDM system).
For a long time, wavelengths were seen as only relevant to network operators and the likes of AWS or Microsoft, or specialist applications, such as low-latency trading in financial services. But they can bring real benefit to enterprises and play an important role in the network infrastructure, alongside protocols operating at the public internet layer.
Haute couture networking?
With the digitalisation of society and our increasing reliance on real-time data, wavelength networks have become an important part of the data architecture mix. They can be a great choice for organisations that need to shift large data volumes between data centres, perhaps to a mirror or back-up site, or ingest data from millions of IoT devices.
Where an IP-based network can be thought of as buying a network infrastructure ‘off the shelf,’ a wavelength network is designed by a customer, with every node and route prescribed by them – a bespoke design to meet their exacting needs. Whether 10Gbps, 100Gbps, or more, the channels they lease in one or more fibres is theirs alone. An enterprise using a dedicated wavelength network can also benefit from the ability to easily upgrade for greater bandwidth by leasing additional optical channels in the same fibre.
As data becomes an ever-increasing challenge, we are now seeing a wider range of industries is making wavelengths part of their network infrastructure including those in automotive, healthcare and retail.
Another key benefit of a wavelength network is the level of security that it offers. While an IP network shares the traffic paths with other types of traffic, a wavelengths solution is 100% dedicated to the organisation that leases it. Compared to older, electrical-based signals, in a wavelength circuit all traffic has been converted to light, consuming a specific part (channel) of the light spectrum available, which makes it far harder to ‘tap’ data from the fibre cables. These elements combined take the protection of data traffic in a wavelength network to a whole different level.
A wavelength mindset
If these benefits are resonating as a way to resolve networking challenges that you are facing, then getting a wavelength circuit up and running is not as hard as you might think, and the networking partner you choose to lease from will certainly be able to assist with the planning process. The important thing to remember is that adopting a wavelengths solution requires a different mindset and new skills to be learnt or bought into the networking team.
With wavelengths, you are designing your own network to support specific goals whether that be mirroring, high-speed data transfer, additional security, or to build additional resilience into your WAN. Decisions need to be made on how many nodes and fibres are needed, the routes they should be on, and how they interact with other elements of your network infrastructure, and how they will be monitored and maintained.
The quid pro quo
A wavelength network gives you absolute control over your traffic, but also demands a different level of responsibility from your teams to reap the benefits. Public internet IP networks have a level of resilience built in through their ability to automatically re-route traffic in the event of a failed piece of hardware, or damaged cable, that relieves internal IT teams of most of the worry and responsibility for making that work. The quid pro quo of getting the benefits of a wavelength network, is that your team assumes a large amount of that responsibility.
Depending on your networking needs, it might be an easy decision to decide whether to include wavelengths as part of your networking infrastructure. They can play a vital role, providing unparalleled performance and security, as well as network resilience. That trinity is music for any networking manager, and with DWDM easier than ever before to deploy and manage, has to be a serious contender when updating or expanding a network.
