Equinix is working with Facebook and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) to deploy and test the Facebook-designed packet-optical switches, known as Voyager, inside two of its International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers.
As part of the TIP “Open Optical Packet Transport” project group, Equinix worked closely with Facebook to field-test this next-generation packet-optical networking technology.
Voyager is the first step in Facebook and Equinix’s journey of developing the next-generation network ecosystem for hardware and software. Today’s news builds on a previous announcement to provide cloud service providers (CSPs), network service providers (NSPs) and enterprises with an optimal environment to push technology boundaries and develop next-generation interconnection solutions.
Equinix will continue to work with Facebook and other vendors to include TIP-based hardware and software in their architectures as they deploy inside Equinix and develop the TIP ecosystem.
By working as part of TIP, Equinix is helping to define the deployment, operational and support models for the new disaggregated and virtual networking infrastructure. Equinix will actively work with hardware and software networking vendors to create the ecosystem for this new, emerging networking model at Equinix.
Initial testing of the Voyager open packet-optical switch took place in Equinix’s SV3 and SV8 IBX data centers in Silicon Valley. Voyager is a combination of compute, switch, router and DWDM transport technologies. Preliminary results showed zero packet loss and significant overall cost savings due to this disaggregated hardware and software networking model.
“This emerging world of disaggregated optical networking will need a physical aggregation point where all the hardware and software can come together,” said Ihab Tarazi, CTO of Equinix.
Hans-Juergen Schmidtke, director of engineering at Facebook, said the Voyager ecosystem will serve as a first ever white box for switching, routing and DWDM in the wide area networks to exemplify a new way of open collaboration and innovation and has been contributed to the TIP community.