Going Optical with Movaz -Building and Maintaining BiSON

Scot Colburn - NCAR

WESTNET 2006

6/14/2006 WestNet 2006 2

Three lessons:• Layer 3 is math, Layer 1 is Physics.

– Layer 3 uses math, statistical tricks to share a pipe

– WDM uses physics tricks to share a fiber

• Movaz – Relatively young company, recently acquired by Adva, sells “Heathkit” WDM nodes

• BiSON – Bi-State Optical Network connecting Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming.– Phases: GBICs, CWDM, DWDM, 10G

– Motivation: BRIN, Lariat, TeraGrid, BPOP, FRGP.

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Networking moves down the stack

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

-Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

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Remember 10Base5?

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10Base5/2 begot Bridges, Routers• Broken or miscrimped connectors could break

network, failures very difficult to locate

• Had to put station taps precisely between nodes

• Then, bridges divided L1 domains, increased manageability. L3 divided bridges.

• 10BaseT fixed some of these multidrop issues by being point-to-point.

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WDM – “Physic”-al networking• Incredibly clear glass for optical fibers• Physical magic of EDFA (Erbium Doped Fiber

Amplifier) – But EDFA’s generate ASE noise (Amplified

Spontaneous Emission)

• Inexpensive, high quality lasers– But jitter, modulation prevent high bit-rates

• Single mode reduces dispersion– But bit-rates limited by CD and PMD

• All rather unrelated to layer 3 experience– All engineering tricks to cope with physical realities

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New physical concepts, new terminology. And Telco terms, too

• Electrical/Optical Engineering: – dBs, power, SNR, attenuation, EDFAs, ASE

• Telco:– Tribs, Grooming, PMs, Alarms, BITS– In service upgrade?

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Aren’t ROADMs kinda bridges?Are MEMs cross connects kinda routers?

• ROADMs (Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexers) will make optical simple, right?– Filter bands, equalize power, connect rings

• MEMS cross-connects will let GMPLS really work, provision waves/paths almost the way PNNI provisioned SVCs, right? – WSS – Wavelength Selectable Switch

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Movaz

10WestNet 20066/14/2006

Movaz OLD (Optical Line Driver)

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BLDR-MOVAZ-1> sh pm po 13-1 opt

Port <1-1-13-1> Optical PMs

Card Type: OLDUEV20 1310 Time: 1991/01/01 04:31:56 MDS

PM OOR Value Low Threshold High Threshold Unit

OPR OSC -33.7 -38.0 -6.0 dBm

OPT OSC 1.9 0.0 4.0 dBm

LBC OSC 7 - 60 mA

EDFA IP -22.8 -25.0 -2.0 dBm

EDFA GAIN 23.7 22.0 24.5 dB

EDFA OP 2.3 - - dBm

EDFA LPA 4 0 240 mW

EDFA LBCA 28 0 800 mA

EDFA LTA 25 20 30 degC

EDFA LPB 19 0 120 mW

EDFA LBCB 38 0 365 mA

EDFA LTB 25 20 30 degC

OPR -20.2 - - dBm

OPT 0.8 - - dBm

VOA ATTEN 1.7 - - dB

Movaz OLD PM (Performance Monitoring)

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MOVAZ XCVR (Transceiver)

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Movaz UDS SIM

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Movaz Shelf

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BiSON – Bi State Optical Network

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BiSON history

• Our Quest for fiber (chronological order)– Denver-Boulder from ICG for NCAR– Boulder-Fort Collins from ICG, PRPA for CSU– Laramie-Denver from Level3 for Uwyo – Laramie-Fort Collins to close Bison Ring

• Bought McCleod fiber outright, CSU repairs it

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BiSON just kinda grew up

• No WDM in first path– Cisco CWDM (powerful) GBIC

• Movaz CWDM in second path (Bldr-CSU)• Movaz DWDM in third path (UWyo-Dnvr)• In fourth path, Movaz DWDM but the OSC

doesn’t reach – No APE (Automatic Power Equalization)– VGA OLD or Raman OLD in our future?

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BiSON diagram

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BiSON ring design• UWyo proposed classic DWDM redundant wave

per site. Very expensive.– Remember that CWDM bit? Would need upgrade

• Instead, designed Layer 2 ring:– 2 GigEs connect each site to the next.– "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see

every problem as a nail.“ - Abraham Maslow

• In retrospect, UWyo’s design would’ve been nice– We have potential for L2 packet loops.– Bridged VLAN ring passes through four nodes with

three different network administrators.

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Bison L3/L2

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BiSON evolution

• Layer 2 instability– Observed ~5000 arps/sec – switch console was quite

sluggish. – FRGP’s connected M20 router was distressed– Ultimately, found unidirectional path on Movaz GigE

• Solutions considered:– Rate-limit broadcasts? Not a good Layer2 solution– Rapid spanning tree? Now on by default– MAC level filters? Looping packets likely allowed– Wait for NLR’s L2 network to figure it out?– Eliminate L2 loops

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Next BiSON steps?• Wyoming adding spur to Cheyenne• CU renting 1GE for NLR access• Probably put 10G around ring for something

– Must replace CWDM segment with DWDM– Bridged? No - Probably non-stop 10G waves

• Or deploy dedicated 2.5 G (2xGE) waves– Like 10BaseT is point-to-point, maybe L3 GE links

should also not be multi-drop?

• Keep existing shared bridged vlans as inter-BiSON links?

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FRGP

UWyo

CSU

BPOP

Everybody gets their own 2.5 Gbps wave

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To make a Lambda redundant network

• Must replace CWDM segment with DWDM– $107K estimated

• “Replacement” BiSON waves cost $51K – Assuming SIMS are reused at Level3

• New waves cost $61.6K (= $51K + $10.6K)– UDC SIMs cost $5.3K – need two per wave

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10G wave add

• Denver-Boulder next 10G is ~$40K cheap, because existing TeraGrid 10G blazed the trail

• Rest of ring? – Need $107K for CWDM conversion– ~$45K for VGA amps for Laramie-Fort Collins– Need to ask Movaz for quote?