Bandwidth-on-demand powered by optical transport network

As the only commercial silicon and software supplier supporting the Hitless Adjustment of ODUflex (HAO) specifications, Microchip Technology, via its Microsemi subsidiary, provided a benchmark solution based on its DIGI OTN processor family that was key in enabling China Mobile to complete multi-vendor interoperability tests. China Mobile is now able to launch the world’s first bandwidth-on-demand leased-line services offering, providing government and enterprise customers the flexibility to adjust their required network bandwidth in real-time as workloads continue to move to the cloud.

Microchip’s DIGI family of OTN processors enables carriers to extend OTN from their metro networks to the access layer for use in delivering leased-line and other high-availability and bandwidth-guaranteed services to government, enterprise and data centre customers. Each generation of DIGI OTN processors has also integrated HAO functionality so that carriers can provide customers the bandwidth they need when they need it.

Without HAO, the bandwidth of the end-to-end connections for delivering these services is fixed, and to change the bandwidth, the connections must be torn down, causing traffic disruption. China Mobile used the DIGI OTN processors to verify technology and software readiness to support roll out bandwidth-on-demand services at scale with the support of multiple system vendors whose OTN equipment demonstrated interoperability.

“China Mobile has deployed bandwidth-on-demand capabilities in our new Government/Enterprise OTN network to benefit from all the advantages of flexible bandwidth and services,” said Yunbo Li, project manager at China Mobile Research Institute. “We are the world’s first carrier to specify HAO product interoperability requirements and test specifications and now, working with Microchip and our ecosystem of equipment providers, we are pleased to have completed a major step toward large-scale deploying this technology and paving the way for it to become part of our new production network operations.”

Babak Samimi, Vice President for Microchip's Communications business unit, added: “We applaud China Mobile as the world’s first carrier to complete the necessary interoperability testing to begin a large-scale deployment of bandwidth-on-demand services enabled by flexible OTN switching networks. 

“We are proud that our DIGI OTN processors played a pivotal role in proving the readiness of the industry ecosystem, and we believe the momentum behind this technology will now accelerate both in China and around the world, opening a new chapter for carriers to provide an innovative new class of services and new revenue streams tied to their enterprise customers’ real-time business demands.”

Microchip helped create the HAO specifications, which are defined in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) G.7044 standard. The company supports this technology through a released Software Development Kit (SDK) for its DIGI-120G, DIGI-G4 and most recent DIGI-G5 OTN processors.