GÉANT Lambda Product Description

High Level Description

The GÉANT Lambda service provides dedicated, transparent 10Gbps, or 100Gbps wavelengths between any two GÉANT PoPs on the dark fibre cloud. 40Gbps circuits may be available on application. The service is of benefit to those users having extreme networking demands, and offers the highest level of performance. The service is of benefit to those users with extreme networking demands, for example large-scale research projects that need to transfer huge amounts of data between sites via a dedicated (guaranteed capacity), highly resilient and secure connection.

GÉANT Lambda services can be provided protected or unprotected. Protected Lambdas are available on request, and will be granted based on the availability of protected bandwidth.

GÉANT Lambda services can be connected to non-GÉANT organisations, including transatlantic destinations. Requests for those connections can only be fulfilled if GÉANT infrastructure exists to deliver the circuit to the proposed interconnection point. Circuits may be established to non-GÉANT destinations upon request.

Technical Description of the Service

Infrastructure

The GÉANT Lambda service is delivered on the Infinera Intelligent Transport Network, featuring a DTN-X packet optical transport networking platform. The DTN-X platform provides transmission capacity using a 500Gbps super-channel based on FlexCoherent Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), built-in OTN (ITU G.709) which can be switched with granularity 1Gb/s, non-blocking OTN cross connect. This means that the 500Gbps line system is pre-provisioned to be 'always on' and available on demand to any client interfaces.

Service Options

The following options are available for the GÉANT Lambda service: Unprotected Lambda, SNCP Protection and Fully Protected (or 1+1)

• Unprotected Lambda: Provides no optical or route protection. The unprotected lambda services provide no optical protection of the signal. If a card/optics failure or a fibre cut should occur along the optical signal paths, the circuit cannot reroute.

• SNCP Protection: SNCP protection offers the added security of a second route without the hassle of a second circuit. This protection mode is implemented using the SNCP protection offered by the DTN-X. With this option enabled, GÉANT Lambda is able to reroute under 50ms in case a single circuit failure occurs. Protected lambdas can be provided with auto-recovery, meaning the service is automatically switched back to the original circuit when restored, or with manual switching back to the original circuit by GÉANT at an agreed time. 

•  Full Fibre and Optic Protection (1+1 protection): The 'fully protected' option offers a complete backup path, including the client interfaces. This option offers two GÉANT Lambdas routed over different paths, leaving it up to the user to select which one to use.

In full protection mode, path selection is left to the end user if two circuits are delivered. This offers complete control to the users.

Demarcation Points

The management demarcation point between DANTE and the NREN is a port on the rack Optical Distribution Frame (ODF).

The exact port will be specified at the time of the connection. The responsibility of the GÉANT Operations Centre (OC) ends at the declared demarcation point, patching beyond that point is the responsibility of NREN requesting the service.

Lambdas to Destinations Outside of Europe

Direct Lambda connection from a GÉANT location (see Annex) to non-GÉANT organisations or destinations is possible. Any bespoke requirements will be evaluated by the GÉANT technical teams on a case-by-case basis to offer the best available solution.

The Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlined in this document is valid only between GÉANT PoPs, any bespoke solution will have a specific SLA based on the offered solution.

Please contact GÉANT Partner Relations for further information on available destinations partner-relations@geant.net.

Service Description

Availability Target 

The unavailable time of GÉANT Lambda Service is calculated between any two GÉANT PoPs. The targets are calculated annually for complete loss of traffic on the GÉANT infrastructure (fibre cut).

For an unprotected lambda, the availability target is 99.5% up to 1000km and then reduced by 0.5% for every 1000km

Time to Restore Target

The Time to Restore (TTR) Target outlined for the three levels of service in the GÉANT Lambda offering are provided for a single fibre cut.