Data Center Interconnect

With the widespread adoption of AI and cloud services, data traffic volumes are increasing dramatically. Therefore, operators need to increase the speed and capacity of their Data Center (DC) networks. Furthermore, more and more distributed data centers are coming online, where multiple geographically dispersed data centers are linked together to enhance service quality and improve fault tolerance. Taken together, this gives rise to a need for large-volume, high-speed data synchronization, backup, and load balancing between DCs. Meanwhile, for Data Center Interconnects (DCIs), there is a strong demand for a means of reducing operational costs while also expanding communication capacity to accommodate future traffic increases. In response to these requirements, DCI is increasingly introducing pluggable coherent technologies such as 100ZR/400ZR/ZR+, which enable flexible network construction according to the transmission distance and required transmission signal bandwidth.

Challenge 1: Establishment of a system whereby DC operators can guarantee the performance of 100ZR/400ZR/ZR+

Since 100ZR/400ZR/ZR+ pluggable coherent is based on open technical specifications such as OIF, operators need to verify the performance to ensure interoperability between different vendors. The transceivers and network devices provided by multiple vendors must work together seamlessly to ensure the desired level of communication quality. Furthermore, DC operators must guarantee the signal quality of the optical transceivers and related equipment they incorporate into their networks. Network requirements and the quality of services offered vary depending on the operator, while it is necessary to consider future increases in traffic and responses to new services. This calls for a testing solution that can flexibly accommodate these needs. It is also necessary to evaluate the communication quality, such as Bit Error Rate (BER), latency, and Ethernet frame loss.

Challenge 2: Efficiency and simplification of network verification

When introducing the 100ZR, 400ZR and ZR+, it is essential for DC operators to provide practical training to engineers unfamiliar with the measuring equipment and to establish standard test procedures that ensure highly reproducible evaluations, regardless of the operator. Operators need an educational program that not only promotes a thorough understanding of the measurement items and methods for quantitatively evaluating communication quality, but also covers equipment configuration and connection methods, as well as the correct interpretation of the measurement results.