FS OTN Private Line Solution Upgrades Network for Enterprises

Organizations have faced the increasing demand to run critical missions with premium network performance, as well as secure communication and low latency. The growing needs and requirements are the communication service providers' opportunities. The private line for enterprises is a new trend and become the top choice.

Understanding Private Line Network

Private Line Network is an isolated network confined within a singular business entity and tailored solely for internal operations and communications. Internet service providers serve a particular channel or bandwidth for users. Unlike public networks that are open to everyone, it remains inaccessible to the general public and is inherently secure with no data encryption needed, which is essential for handling sensitive data and proprietary information.

It facilitates dependable communication, collaboration, and data transfer across various organizational tiers and departments. In an era where information security and privacy are of utmost importance, an Enterprise Private Network ensures organizations achieve superior data protection, reduced cybersecurity risks, and enhanced operational efficiency. Ethernet private line and Optical private line are the main types in enterprise private network.

Figure 1: The Concept of Private Line

Expectations for High-Quality Private Line Network

Private line network carries the core data and applications of enterprises, which bear higher expectations.

• Bandwidth: Private optical networks are in demand for bandwidth from 1Gbps to 10Gbps or higher. And given the complex traffic planning, bandwidth flexibility is also important for enterprises to make their services more adaptable.

• Security: The threat to network security affects the income of enterprises. There is increased vigilance on security and data privacy. As a powerful shield, the private line ensures the physical isolation of dedicated resources with no comingled traffic.

• Low Latency: Clients are more sensitive to latency, especially for research and development, production, supply chain, and financial applications. Latency delays in the network would impact the performance of real-time traffic and potentially cause delivery delays. The faster data traffic may increase the profitability of trades.

• Real-time Visibility: Enterprises expect to monitor network performance in terms of availability, bandwidth usage, latency, and others in real-time, which helps self-service control of network performance.

Managing with FS OTN Private Line Solution

As the demand for private line is growing to minimize latency and improve performance, FS launched the OTN Private Line Solution for enterprises to meet their heightened desire for highly available, flexible and low latency networks.

Figure 2: FS OTN Private Line

Unified Access and Transmission

The OTN private line solution adopts the latest MS-OTN technology, centered around the MS8100 Series. Unified Transmission is the characteristic. It supports unified transmission for Ethernet, SDH, and OTN services, mapping various services over OTN, which means all the packets can be transmitted together in the same wavelength, allocating bandwidth for them as needed.

ETH over OTN

Ethernet over OTN (EoO) is one of the key technologies that enables the transport of Ethernet traffic over an OTN infrastructure. As the Ethernet network is widely used, how to aggregate these large data volumes is a problem. Now it's solved. In FS's solution, FE/GE services can be mapped into ODUk and transmitted in OTN Network, which can carry large volumes of Ethernet traffic and support flexible grooming of services, ensuring effective data transmission in private line.

SDH over OTN

The solution supports SDH over OTN as well, besides Ethernet over OTN, carrying SDH traffic over an OTN infrastructure. SDH signals, such as STM-1/STM-4/STM-16 can be transported over high-speed OTN networks, utilizing the capacity and characteristics of OTN, which makes SDH traffic more service-flexible and effective.

Figure 3. ETH/SDH over OTN

The FS OTN private line solution finally supports unified access and transmission for ETH, SDH, OTN with the technology mentioned above via matching with the MS8100 Series boards that support different services.

For many enterprises with dispersed office locations, GE and FE suffice for daily office requirements, while STM-1/STM-4 serves well for inter-enterprise remote connections and trans-regional data transmission. Now all the signals can unified access to an OTN network, which offers more flexible bandwidth configuration, higher adaptability, and increased transmission rates. This enhancement can significantly expand the networking possibilities for enterprise development.

Figure 4. Unified Transmission

High Level of Security and Reliability

The OTN private line is much more secure and reliable with OTN hard pipes and various protection features.

OTN Hard Pipe involves creating dedicated, isolated channels within an infrastructure. These isolated channels, or "hard pipes," are established to ensure strict segregation and prioritization of different types of traffic, such as Ethernet, SDH, or other data streams, which reduces the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access. It optimizes performance for each type of data, reducing latency and packet loss and has better QoS management. For finance, government and other industries with higher network security requirements, it really helps.

In this solution, the key units such as the controller and power supply support 1+1 protection. The devices support OMS/OCh 1+1 protection, ODUk SNCP protection, MPLS-TP ring wrapping protection, Ethernet Linear Protection and Ethernet Ring Protection Switching, which allows for rapid detection of failures in the network and enables quick switchover to the backup path in case of a fault, provides redundancy by establishing backup paths for data traffic, and minimizes downtime.

Moreover, the solution supports OLP protection to switch to standby link within 10ms once there is a link failure, which reduces the loss of service interruption. All these functions can meet the expectations of enterprises for the safety and reliability of private lines.

Low latency

In private line solution, the data bypasses the public network and connects directly among buildings/offices, which results in lower latency as data travels through a more direct and predictable route. It reduces latency spikes that can occur on shared networks. Moreover, a private line running over OTN network utilizes efficient protocols and technologies to optimize network resource utilization, reduce congestion, minimize processing delays, and ultimately decrease latency in network communications.

Online and Simple O&M

The solution supports FCP MS management, which realizes unified management and visual management of MS8100 Series. At the same time, it allows classified monitoring levels of private line services, making service management more convenient. The operation and maintenance can be achieved without the need for extensive professional expertise.

Figure 5: The Network Management

Cutting Expenses

When building or upgrading to OTN private line, with the ability of access and aggregation of MS8100 Series, there is no need to reconstruct the network or cost more fiber resources, but only purchase equipment to have a high-quality private line, which provides higher guarantee for the enterprise network.

During its operation, the MS8100 Series handles a mix of different service types or 100% VC or 100% PKT services onto a single line card and transmits them within a single wavelength, which eliminates the need for separate wavelengths for each service type. This consolidation reduces the complexity of the network and the cost per bit, leading to cost savings in equipment and maintenance.

Product List of FS OTN Private Line Solution

Conclusion

The FS OTN Private Line Solution stands as a good answer for the expectations of enterprieses' network. By leveraging MS-OTN technology, enterprises can embrace a private network with high levels of security, flexibility, efficiency for their various access needs.