The path to opto-electrical convergence

At one level, it might be tempting to look for devices that perpetuate the independent management of optical and electrical paths because that would preserve the management connections into the current OSS/BSS elements. If you do that, however, you may limit your operations benefits.

 

Since virtual and physical device management is essentially the same, it is often better to think in terms of transport path management, where a transport path is a logical construct that can be mapped to an optical, electrical or combined route set.

 

 

This is almost certain to require some modifications to network management systems (NMS) and even to some elements of OSS/BSS, but the result should be simplified provisioning and problem determination.

 

Problem determination and resolution is also an issue to consider in your opto-electrical convergence plan. To the extent that a converged device presents isolated interfaces to accept electrical and optical connections, it is inevitable that it perpetuates the management of not only those interfaces but also the transport layer they connect with (Ethernet, for example).

 

While you have "Ethernet transport" in an independent sense, you'll need to be able to manage converged devices through their Ethernet role, and the same will hold for optical-layer services. This illustrates that opto-electrical convergence will tend to lose its value if it's done on a small scale where the elements remain buried in independent optical and electrical sub-networks.

 

Because of this, projects to converge the layers should probably be considered only if the scope of the project is large and the project will quickly achieve its full operating scale.

 

Operators have reported that their success in converging the optical and electrical layers is greatest where they have selected vendors in both layers that provide both capabilities, even if the capabilities are not currently converged.

 

Independent optical vendors or Ethernet vendors have less to gain by convergence, so they may either not support it fully or even attempt to discourage it. Vendors that offer independent optical- and electrical-layer products, as well as converged products, are the ones most likely to be able to provide useful guidance and support for your convergence project.