Ethernet Alliance’s live 400GbE fiber infrastructure to link member companies’ booths at OFC 2022

BEAVERTON, OR, March 1, 2022 – The Ethernet Alliance, a global consortium dedicated to the continued success and advancement of Ethernet technologies, today announced details of its upcoming next-generation technology demonstration for the 2022 Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exhibition (OFC). The largest global conference and exhibition for optical communications and networking professionals, OFC 2022 is scheduled for March 8-10, 2022, at the San Diego (California) Convention Center.

The Ethernet Alliance’s interactive demo in Booth 5409 at OFC 2022 will highlight multivendor interoperability across 50 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), 100GbE, 200GbE, 400GbE and 800GbE technologies and solutions in a variety of form factors, media and reaches. The demo will connect equipment from 15 companies, including providers of switches and routers, interconnects, cables, optical modules and test and measurement solutions. The Ethernet Alliance also will showcase a live 400GbE fiber infrastructure linking multiple booths across the show floor.

“Ethernet is everywhere as it encompasses a singularly broad range of choices and options to serve a diversity of users, and constant innovation fans greater adoption of the technology as it’s applied across all types of companies and organizations to fuel business growth. The Ethernet Alliance demonstration at OFC 2022 will reflect these unique attributes,” said David J. Rodgers, events chair, Ethernet Alliance, and senior business development manager, EXFO. “Demonstrating interoperability across a wide range of legacy systems and emerging technologies reinforces Ethernet’s inherent flexibility and shows why it has established itself as the foundation of networking globally.”

Representing all facets of the Ethernet ecosystem, the Ethernet Alliance demonstration at OFC 2022 is scheduled to feature equipment and solutions from AMD (NASDAQ: AMD), Amphenol Corporation (NYSE: APH), Anritsu Company, Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE: ANET), EXFO Inc., Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR), Keysight Technologies Inc. (NYSE: KEYS), Linktel Technologies, Marvell Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL), Spectra7 Microsystems Inc. (TSX: SEV), Spirent Communications plc (LSE: SPT), TE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE: TEL), Tektronix, Teledyne LeCroy Inc. (NYSE: TDY) and Xena Networks Inc.

In addition, the Ethernet Alliance at OFC 2022 will host a panel discussion—“What Makes Ethernet, Ethernet”— scheduled to take place 10:30-11:30 a.m. Pacific March 9 in Exhibit Hall Theater II at the San Diego Convention Center. David J. Rodgers is scheduled to moderate the panel joined by Paul Brooks, optical transport technology and strategy, Viavi Solutions, Germany; Faisal Dada, director, strategic marketing, and principal architect, AMD; Jeff Maki, distinguished engineer II, Juniper Networks, USA, and Matt Traverso, distinguished engineer, Cisco Systems, USA. The panel will cover the defining aspects of Ethernet and how the industry seeks to preserve interoperation regardless of implementation.

To learn more about OFC 2022, please visit https://www.ofcconference.org/en-us/home/.

For more information about the Ethernet Alliance, please visit http://www.ethernetalliance.org, follow @EthernetAllianc on Twitter, visit its Facebook page, or follow its LinkedIn company page.

About the Ethernet Alliance

The Ethernet Alliance is a global consortium that includes system and component vendors, industry experts, and university and government professionals who are committed to the continued success and expansion of Ethernet technology. The Ethernet Alliance takes Ethernet standards to market by supporting activities that span from incubation of new Ethernet technologies to interoperability demonstrations and education. The organization’s plans may be found on the Events page of its website.

 

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Media Contact:

Vivian Kelly

Interprose for Ethernet Alliance

+1 703.509.5412

E: viviankelly@interprosepr.com

 

Ethernet Alliance OFC 2022 Technical Leads

“Ethernet Alliance is looking toward the future with a demonstration at OFC 2022 showcasing QSFP-DD and OSFP ports with 800-Gig capable optics, 800-Gig capable DACs, and products that are also 800-Gig capable, just as IEEE is drafting the 800GbE standard. At the same time, visitors will get to experience multivendor interoperability in action across proven solutions at speeds all the way up from 50GbE to 800GbE, bringing together the various Ethernet technologies making up the fabric of our diverse and evolving ecosystem.” – Dave Estes, senior staff hardware engineer, Spirent Communications

“It’s not like it’s only one company showing off 800 GbE; almost all of the Ethernet Alliance participants at OFC 2022 are included in these demonstrations. That’s a large ecosystem of different devices operating at this brand-new speed. Plus, there are 800-Gig devices talking to 400-Gig devices talking to 100-Gig devices. It’s both the cutting edge and the legacy support with these new devices that will be on display.” – Michael Klempa, R&D electrical engineer, Amphenol Corporation

“One of the highlights of the Ethernet Alliance’s demonstration will be the switch fabric with coherent signaling, in which top switch vendors will be interconnecting and allowing different test equipment to send traffic from end-to-end among multiple booths. The OFC 2022 audience will see for themselves how Ethernet’s legacy and next-generation solutions successfully work together to optimize innovative networks of every type and size.” – Jean-Marie Vilain, product manager, EXFO Transport & Datacom Business Unit

 

Ethernet Alliance Participant Members

“We are excited to be an integral part of the Ethernet Alliance switchable 100G, 200G, and 400G Ethernet interoperability technology demonstration with our 7nm Xilinx Versal ACAP device. This demonstration highlights the maturity of our solutions that use integrated hardened Ethernet IP for next-generation data center networks with an ultrahigh density 400G interface on a single chip.” – Dan Mansur, Vice President, Adaptable and Embedded Computing Group, AMD

“Amphenol is again partnering with the Ethernet Alliance at this year’s OFC live conference in San Diego. As one of the largest interconnect companies in the world partnering with Ethernet Alliance is an effective way to highlight our latest advances in Ethernet to the world. Exhibiting in the EA booth showcases our products well interoperating in a multivendor environment. We will be demonstrating some of our latest 100Gb, 400Gb and 800Gb products in a live demo with other industry leaders. As a member of the EA, we are proud to participate in this face to face event.” – Chris Lyon, Amphenol business development manager – Americas

“400G ZR pluggable optics are integral for data center interconnect applications, as they are a simple and economical solution for transmitting 400G Ethernet. As we will demonstrate, Anritsu is supporting this data center evolution by showing the Network Master™ Pro MT1040A’s ability to test 400G ZR digital coherent tunable optics.” – Daniel Gonzalez, field applications engineer, Anritsu Company  

“Arista is pleased to be part of the Ethernet Alliance multi-vendor interoperability demonstrations with our high-density 100G, 400G and 800G / port systems, and a wide range of optical and copper media in QSFP, OSFP and QSFP-DD form factors. We are demonstrating a range of innovations that will help enable widespread adoption of 400GE in cloud, service provider and enterprise networks.” – Martin Hull, vice president, systems engineering and platforms, Arista Networks

“EXFO is pleased to participate at OFC 2022 with the Ethernet Alliance membership. Our participation highlights the accessibility of future-proof, specification-compliant test and measurement solutions supporting R&D lab, production, and field applications, and ensuring seamless integration into critical network environments for fast, accurate, and automated results. The interoperability demonstration shows the viability of PAM4 and coherent signaling high-speed interconnect technologies, leveraging the EXFO Open Transceiver System which enables traffic generation and electrical testing for 400GbE speeds—including new 400G-ZR solutions for QSFP-DD and OSFP pluggable optics, and breakout cable interconnections using single lambda transceivers in QSFP28 DR1, FR1, and LR1 variants. The suite of EXFO Ethernet test tools demonstrated include the BA4000 Bit Error Rate (BER) test platform with our Module Compliance Board (MCB) enabled with the 800G transceiver coupled with the FTBx-88460 400Gb Ethernet traffic generation test platform.” – Stéphane Chabot, vice-president field business development, EXFO

“Juniper Networks is a proud and active member of Ethernet Alliance. As an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure network and data center solutions, we prioritize collaboration and interoperability in community-led, standards-based activities to drive meaningful and lasting innovation. We are honored to work alongside fellow industry experts to advance Ethernet technologies and IP solutions.” – Julius Francis, senior director service provider & cloud portfolio marketing, Juniper Networks

“Keysight is proud to participate in the Ethernet Alliance’s OFC 2022 interoperability demonstrations. This year’s demos showcase our breadth of test capabilities for 400GE and 800GE components, along with network equipment ecosystems. Successful interoperability of network equipment with 112G electrical lane interfaces that support high bandwidth 800GE applications and emerging 400GE Digital Coherent Optical (DCO) transceivers are critically important to data center operators. The Ethernet Alliance’s multi-vendor interoperability events accelerate the adoption of these new, cost effective, high bandwidth data center interconnect solutions.” – Ram Periakaruppan, vice president and general manager of Keysight’s Network Test and Security Solutions group

“Linktel is a new Ethernet Alliance member, and we are excited to showcase our 800G OSFP 2xFR4 transceiver interoperability demonstration with other transceivers from multiple companies in a market leading Arista 800G Switch.” – Gavin Wu, vice president of research and development, Linktel Technologies

“Marvell has been a long-standing member of the Ethernet Alliance and supports the continued advancement of Ethernet technologies through collaboration with the ecosystem and open standards. We are pleased to be a part of this year’s OFC multi-vendor demo to showcase our COLORZ^® II 400ZR solution, the industry’s first QSFP-DD pluggable coherent transceiver for cloud data center interconnects, and its interoperability across the ecosystem.” – Josef Berger, associate vice president marketing, Marvell

“Spectra7 is proud to be showcasing our Active Copper Cable (ACC) technology in the Ethernet Alliance Interop Demo at OFC 2022. As the industry leader in ACCs, we will be demonstrating broad interoperability and robust performance in both QSFP56 and QSFP-DD form factors at 56Gbps PAM4 data rates. Hyperscalers and Switch OEMs are now deploying 56Gbps PAM4 ACCs enabled by Spectra7 in large production networks and see them playing a critical role in 2022 and beyond as data rates and interface densities increasingly shorten the lengths that passive copper cables can service.” – John Mitchell, chief marketing officer, Spectra7

“Spirent is proud to contribute to Ethernet Alliance’s multivendor interoperability demonstrations at OFC 2022. This year’s innovative showcase will cover the latest technological advances in high-speed Ethernet, enabling flexibility, reliability, and new services required to support next generation network evolution. Spirent will demonstrate its industry-leading test and validation solutions for 800G and 400G, for confirming the reliability and high performance, and viability of next generation high-speed Ethernet solutions across the entire ecosystem.” – Aniket Khosla, vice president of product management, cloud & IP business unit, Spirent Communications

“As a founding principal member of the Ethernet Alliance, TE Connectivity™ (TE™) is proud to participate in the Ethernet Alliance physical interoperability demonstrations at the OFC show in 2022. In this year’s demonstrations, we are showing our SFP56, QSFP56, OSFP400 and 800, QSFP-DD400 and 800 and OSFP to QSFP-DD cable assemblies operating at 400 Gbps, and our 112Gbps per pair STRADA Whisper Absolute cabled backplane interconnect. These performance levels can be essential as Ethernet connectivity evolves to support the applications of the future, and TE innovations can pave the way.” – Nathan Tracy, technologist and manager of industry standards, TE Connectivity

“Tektronix is proud to present our solutions for validating 100G per lane physical layer performance and standard compliance at the Ethernet Alliance Workshop (Booth #5409) during OFC 2022. We demonstrate the interoperability of Tek’s measurement solutions with signals from other Ethernet Alliance members using our high-bandwidth oscilloscopes capable of optical and electrical (802.3db, 802.3ck, similar) measurements including TDECQ on patterns or on live traffic signals. See more at Tektronix booth #3425.” – Pavel Zivny, high speed serial data domain expert, wide band oscilloscopes group, Tektronix

“As Ethernet advances to 100 Gigabits per lane and 800 Gigabits per port, the task of assuring interoperability and integrity in the network is both exciting and challenging. This year’s Ethernet Alliance demonstration at OFC brings together an abundance of products and testing solutions that showcases interoperability from 25GbE up to 800GbE.” – Nick Kriczky, vice president of network test, Teledyne LeCroy

“Xena is excited to help bring 800Gbps Ethernet to market with Freya, our award-winning 800Gbps Traffic Generation and Analysis (TGA) solution for testing 112Gbps SerDes. 800Gig-E will accelerate the arrival of ground-breaking innovations like the metaverse and IoT by enabling NEMs, service providers and chip manufacturers to cost-effectively improve the performance of hyperscale data centers and network backbone technology.” – Jacob V. Nielsen, chief executive officer, Xena Networks