Advanced Computing in the Age of AI | Friday, March 29, 2024

Mellanox and RANOVUS Propose Wavelength Division Multiplexing Specifications to OCP 

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd., a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, and RANOVUS, today announced that the OpenOptics MSA is contributing the developed wavelength specifications to the Open Compute Project (OCP). The new specification enables data to be streamed at terabits per second over a single fiber. This contribution is part of Mellanox's mission to drive a faster pace of innovation that focuses on energy efficiency and bandwidth scalability in data center technologies.

On March 9, 2015, Dr. Mehdi Asghari, Mellanox Vice President of Silicon Photonics Research and Development, will present the specifications at the OCP U.S. Summit 2015. Leveraging the advantages of low-cost silicon photonics technologies, the MSA wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) specifications will eventually enable data centers to use up to 32 or more channels per fiber strand.

"Previously, there was no standard for anything beyond 100Gb/s," said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. "Now, the OCP will have an architecture standard that scales to a terabit and beyond on existing fiber, substantially reduces the cost of hyperscale data center networks."

"Our OpenOptics MSA collaboration with industry leaders has resulted in the definition of a cost effective and scalable solution for data center network connectivity," said Saeid Aramideh, chief marketing and sales officer for RANOVUS. "Our agreement on this specification is a major milestone for our industry which we believe will accelerate the adoption of silicon-photonics-based WDM solutions for the data center market."

"We are pleased to see Mellanox bringing their Open Optics submission to the OCP networking project," said Frank Frankovksy, chairman and president, Open Compute Project. "Standards efforts like these help further the Open Compute vision for openness and a faster pace of innovation in network technologies."

The founders and supporters for the OpenOptics MSA for Highly Scalable Interconnect Solutions include Mellanox Technologies, RANOVUS, Ciena, Oracle, Vertilas, and Ghiasi Quantum. The MSA combines 1550 nm WDM laser and silicon photonics for optical networking solutions enabling the lowest cost, highest density, and highest bandwidth single mode fiber (SMF) connectivity, significantly improving terabit-scale data center infrastructure ROI.

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