There’s a saying about the only constant in life being change. This dates all the way back to ancient Greece, but it still holds true today — and among the areas where it’s most evident is the ongoing evolution of the cloud.
Aniket Khosla of Spirent Communications agreed with this assessment recently when he noted that “the cloud’s meteoric growth requires its Ethernet backbone to be constantly reinvented, leaping forward in each release with double or even quadruple the speed and capacity of previous releases.” To meet what he refers to as “insatiable demands for performance and capacity,” Spirent’s part has been to develop Ethernet validation services.
Both the B1 800G Appliance, top, and B2 800G Appliance are forward-looking platforms for Ethernet validation. Source: Spirent CommunicationsThe company’s latest services are designed to enable providers to ensure their 400G infrastructure can handle current data growth needs, while also looking ahead to 800G as the “future workhorse of the cloud’s backbone.”
It’s a smart perspective to take: Testing next-generation solutions today builds assurance that they will be ready as they begin to take over. The eventual move to 800G, as Spirent notes, will accommodate the expansion of 5G, the growth of 4K and 8K video and other services that drive demanding performance requirements. Already, Spirent’s 800G product suite can address test and validation needs from 800G to 100M.
Here's a look at what’s currently available from Spirent:
- The A1 400G Appliance platform delivers what the company says is the industry’s highest port density to validate infrastructure and services dependent on high-speed Ethernet technologies, with traffic loads that emulate the real world. The A1 test platform enables large capacity testing of ultra-high-scale, next-generation-enabled multi-terabit cloud data center fabrics.
- The B1 800G Appliance platform was developed to meet the need for flexible, higher density test equipment in the field to help validate next generation routers and data center fabrics. The B2 800G Appliance platform, meanwhile, offers what Spirent says is an industry-leading two times density advantage for QSFP-DD from its nearest competitor. Both platforms were recently recognized by the 2022 Lightwave Innovation Reviews for their impact on the optical communications community.
