CENIC Completes Major Optical Upgrade, Provides Increased Flexibility and Performance to CENIC Associates

Coming on the heels of the completion of the DC Network Router Refresh, CENIC is pleased to announce the completion of the Optical Refresh for what is termed the CalREN Northern Route, consisting of the Sunnyvale, Oakland, and Sacramento backbone nodes. With the optical capacity of this section of CalREN upgraded, Associates can look forward to significant improvements of performance and ease of provisioning circuits.

With the replacement of older transport platforms that had reached manufacturer's end-of-life with newer and more flexible such platforms, the number of channels possible between any two points along the network has increased uniformly and dramatically. Previously, the number of channels possible between two network points was variable, in some cases as few as eight channels. Now, with the completion of the Northern Route Optical Refresh, 32 channels are possible between all network points along this route, with the potential for 64 channels in the future.

More flexibility and convenience in the provisioning of circuits ranging from 1 Gigabit/second to 10 Gb/s has also been made possible along the CalREN Northern Route on the completion of this refresh. For the institutions using the bleeding-edge CalREN-XD network along this backbone route, this new capability will make the provisioning of their circuits easier.

In the future, other subsections of the CalREN backbone are scheduled for similar Optical Refresh projects. Stay up to date on the new developments in future issues of CENIC Today!