To keep pace with the tremendous bandwidth growth in cloud networking, web-scale providers, such as Microsoft, have been quick to adopt elastic features of modern optical networks. In particular, colorless flexible-grid reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers, bandwidth-variable transceivers, and the ability to choose a variety of optical source types are integral for cloud network operators to improve network efficiency while supporting a variety of service types. We take an in-depth look at Microsoft’s deployed network infrastructure and discuss the impact of elasticity on network capacity and flexibility. As a proof-of-concept, a new elastic open line system (OLS), in which the line system components and the signal sources are disaggregated, was assembled in a laboratory environment, and 4000 km of propagation over primarily nonzero dispersion-shifted fiber using multiple source types is demonstrated. Finally, the long-term goal of unifying the control plane of the OLS, DWDM signal sources, routers, and Ethernet switches under a single software-defined network controller is briefly addressed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To keep pace with the tremendous bandwidth growth in cloud networking, web-scale providers, such as Microsoft, have been quick to adopt elastic features of modern optical networks. In particular, colorless flexible-grid reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers, bandwidth-variable transceivers, and the ability to choose a variety of optical source types are integral for cloud network operators to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13547],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-247793","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-systems-and-networking","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2016-07-02","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"A45-A54","msr_chapter":"6","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"Journal of Optical Communications and Networking","msr_volume":"8","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"247796","msr_publicationurl":"https:\/\/www.osapublishing.org\/jocn\/abstract.cfm?uri=jocn-8-7-A45","msr_doi":"10.1364\/JOCN.8.000A45","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","title":"JOCN_Microsoft_EONs_2016_published","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/JOCN_Microsoft_EONs_2016_published.pdf","id":247796,"label_id":0},{"type":"url","title":"https:\/\/www.osapublishing.org\/jocn\/abstract.cfm?uri=jocn-8-7-A45","viewUrl":false,"id":false,"label_id":0},{"type":"doi","title":"10.1364\/JOCN.8.000A45","viewUrl":false,"id":false,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/www.osapublishing.org\/jocn\/abstract.cfm?uri=jocn-8-7-A45"}],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Mark Filer","user_id":37715,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Mark Filer"},{"type":"text","value":"Jamie Gaudette","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Manya Ghobadi","user_id":32890,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Manya Ghobadi"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Ratul Mahajan","user_id":33351,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Ratul Mahajan"},{"type":"text","value":"Tom Issenhuth","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Buddy Klinkers","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Jeff Cox","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[144899],"msr_project":[247778,298370],"publication":[],"video":[],"download":[],"msr_publication_type":"article","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":247778,"post_title":"Wide-Area Optical Backbone Performance","post_name":"microsofts-wide-area-optical-backbone","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2016-07-02 22:27:22","post_modified":"2022-11-28 13:19:00","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/microsofts-wide-area-optical-backbone\/","post_excerpt":"Wide-area backbone networks (WAN) of Internet service providers and cloud providers are the workhorses of Internet traffic delivery. 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