CENIC & Juniper Networks Boost Performance with 800 Gbps Capacity for the AI era

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0:07 i'm Sterling Perrin I'm an analyst with

0:09 Heavy Reading now part of Omnia We're at

0:11 OFC 50th anniversary of OFC Uh talking

0:15 about 800 gig and the future of

0:17 networking and very happy to be joined

0:18 today by uh Robert Quan who is with

0:21 Scenic and uh Robert Damon who is with

0:24 Juniper Networks Hi guys welcome Hi

0:26 Thank you Great to be talking to you Um

0:29 I think everybody knows Juniper Let me

0:31 uh move right to to Scenic Uh Robert you

0:34 want to give us a little bit of an

0:35 overview of of uh who Scenic is and and

0:37 what what the organization does sure So

0:39 Scenic is a member um nonprofit that

0:41 supports the state of California and our

0:43 mission is to support the research and

0:45 education efforts of California by

0:47 providing a research and education

0:49 network We have 8,000 fiber miles of

0:51 fiber in the state of California that we

0:53 light up with our own DWDM system And we

0:57 we've been recently on on a journey

0:59 called NGI which is our next generation

1:01 infrastructure This infrastructure was

1:03 to modernize not just our protocol tech

1:05 stack but also our physical

1:08 infrastructure and what this has

1:10 culminated to is basically a 800 gig

1:12 deployment on the back on our backbone

1:15 as a production link between two of our

1:17 sites and now we're about to deploy 800

1:20 gig which we feel it's one of the first

1:22 campuses with San Diego State University

1:25 who is a R1 research institution Okay So

1:28 obviously research uh education networks

1:30 historically have been really leading

1:32 adopters of of new technologies uh fiber

1:35 optic based and and it sounds like you

1:37 guys fit kind of fit into that that

1:39 bucket for sure Uh you mentioned 800 gig

1:43 it's uh at OFC and just generally in

1:45 research we're seeing it's an important

1:46 year for for 800 gig Uh why don't we

1:48 kind of just talk about that component

1:50 of your network Um we're talking about

1:53 800 ZR is is the uh is the

1:55 implementation that you guys are doing

1:57 Yes we're using 800 gig ZR on our

1:59 network and it's been such a great

2:01 deployment It was such a quick

2:04 deployment from what used to take days

2:06 having a transponder shelf or a DCI

2:08 shelf is now just a pluggable in our

2:10 devices And we're seeing our

2:13 implementation time go from days of

2:15 procuring space and power in our racks

2:17 and our collocations to literally 15

2:20 minutes of just plugging in the optics

2:23 And it's been such a easy turnup that

2:27 it's it's changed the way that we look

2:28 at how to augment our backbone And it it

2:31 hasn't been what we thought would be as

2:33 as far as losing features The optics all

2:36 have you know fck and post spec And

2:39 we're able to see the right types of

2:40 details from the optics and from the

2:42 routers to make sure that these things

2:44 are performing the correct way And also

2:47 from a business perspective we're seeing

2:49 close to a 60% reduction in TCO which of

2:54 course makes it a lot more viable for us

2:56 to deploy these in a lot more places

2:58 than historically we would have to

3:00 budget and spread these budgets over a

3:02 couple cycles to be able to support

3:04 those high bandwidth needs that our

3:06 researchers and our education um

3:08 constituents need What What was So you

3:11 know the the the from to the two the two

3:14 you're you're going and doing 800 ZR

3:16 what what was the previous uh network

3:19 you know speed and and topology sure So

3:22 we were at a N by 100 So we were doing

3:25 three 4x100 and at some places 5x100 Um

3:29 we were in the middle of deploying the

3:31 400 gig uh ZR pluses or high powered ZR

3:35 but then 800 gig came a lot quicker than

3:37 what we expected it to come So we just

3:39 started moving towards 800 gig as

3:41 opposed to focusing on our 400 gig So of

3:44 course there's going to be 400 gig

3:45 deployments just because of the fiber

3:47 quality that we have Um our fiber is not

3:50 that great u as far as like the loss

3:52 that we have in certain spans due to the

3:54 fiber type and the issues that I've had

3:57 But these optics have performed great

3:59 even on our fiber and we're currently

4:02 running it across a 100 km span of eth

4:05 fiber and it's it's been really great So

4:09 basically uh you you did have some 400

4:12 ZR in your network Yes we did But you've

4:14 decided going forward for the most part

4:17 400 ZR won't really be used It's it's

4:19 really going right to to 800 ZR because

4:21 of all the benefits including the the

4:23 TCO Yes The only corner case would be

4:27 there's a the 800 gig optics can also do

4:29 400 gig very long distances by changing

4:32 the Yes the um the modulation right so

4:37 we're hoping to leverage those on the

4:38 spans that are very very far and have a

4:41 lot of loss so that we can get 400 gig

4:44 over those spans But wherever we can

4:46 we're going to be doing 800 gig as much

4:48 as possible You've got the capacity

4:50 needs for that today or was this more

4:52 like you know far future planning to to

4:54 get to 800 gig so I we have the capacity

4:57 needs just from our our users using the

5:00 internet Yeah But then but also we also

5:02 see the need for these larger bandwidths

5:05 just because and the flows are getting

5:07 bigger We support a lot of research and

5:09 education efforts It's primarily

5:11 research which requires high bandwidth

5:13 or high data transfers to be able to

5:15 move their data sets from one place to

5:17 another So one of the things that Scenic

5:20 has been helping out was with the AI

5:22 efforts and AI has a lot of data sets

5:24 that have moved around but also um we

5:27 connect our members to the large hon

5:29 collider So to be able to get those data

5:31 sets and they produce a large amount of

5:33 data right yeah Your your uh customers

5:36 are users for people not familiar with

5:38 how the research and education networks

5:40 are Your your end customers are are the

5:43 universities themselves right the these

5:45 are who's feeding into your network

5:47 correct yes So we support more than the

5:49 universities So we support the

5:51 universities of course the higher eds

5:53 but we also support the K12s the

5:55 libraries and cultural institutions like

5:57 the Getty and SFJS So there's also

6:00 tangenial benefits to places like the

6:02 Getty that have a lot of data store of

6:04 of images and video that having this

6:07 larger bandwidth across the backbone

6:09 helps a lot of people to be able to get

6:10 to that That's great That's Yeah So let

6:12 me uh bring in Robert Damon from Juniper

6:14 Obviously Juniper um had some role in in

6:17 the scenic network um and actually I

6:20 don't know historically but certainly

6:21 future Maybe talk a little bit about

6:23 your role in in Juniper's role in Scenic

6:26 um you know ongoing and and and with the

6:28 800 ZR stuff Oh thank you Sterling Yeah

6:31 and Juniper's been a proud SP uh partner

6:33 with Scenic for many years now and as

6:35 they moved from 100 gig to 400 gig and

6:38 now 800 gig we've been along with them

6:41 You know as Robert was describing Scenic

6:43 serves not only the most you know elite

6:46 research units around here but they also

6:48 serve over 8,000 K through20

6:51 institutions some of which are in remote

6:54 locations And u they've leveraged our MX

6:57 our ACX and now our PTX platforms to be

6:59 able to serve them and make their needs

7:01 And we're really excited that they chose

7:03 our PTX 100002 platform to be able to

7:07 grow their 800 gig network You know the

7:09 PTX 100002 has been a really powerful

7:13 platform architected with the Express 5

7:16 ASIG with a single chip 28.8 TB platform

7:19 uh advanced power delivery to be able to

7:21 support 36 ports of uh 800 gig ZR and as

7:24 you know the power delivery requirements

7:26 and the thermal management required for

7:28 800 gig ZR is really critical in these

7:31 networks So we really feel that we're

7:33 going to be able to support the needs

7:34 today and tomorrow for the scenic

7:36 network Yeah Excellent um 800 ZR

7:39 obviously um you know it's it's well

7:41 it's one of the big topics at this show

7:44 um we weren't sure how quickly it would

7:46 come but it's here so that's been

7:48 interesting um organizations like uh

7:51 Scenic are really pioneering that um

7:53 what you know I mean it's a lot it's

7:55 almost like maybe we don't need to go

7:57 into what's future because it kind of is

7:59 but really what what's next for for

8:01 Scenic is 800 ZR kind of the endg game

8:03 or or where do you go from here no so

8:05 it's definitely like the end game I mean

8:06 we're looking forward to the next

8:08 generation which I believe is 1.6

8:09 terabytes per second So we're we're

8:12 trying to get ready for those things but

8:13 as you everyone knows right now is AI is

8:16 the hot topic and the buzzword for

8:18 everything So we want to be able to

8:20 support the AI workflows that our

8:22 members need and also help um

8:26 democratize access to kind of the AI

8:28 resources So we've done things like

8:30 scenic air where now education and

8:33 research are able to use compute GPUs

8:36 that are that are donated across the

8:37 scenic network But you know then also we

8:41 want to be able to make sure that they

8:42 have the network they need not just in

8:44 speed but also in the features and the

8:47 technology to make it as easy as is for

8:50 them to adopt it and for the researchers

8:52 to focus on doing research and the

8:54 educators to focus on educating the next

8:56 generation on topics like AI as opposed

8:59 to figuring out how to get the bandwidth

9:02 to be able to do AI Yeah Excellent Well

9:05 congratulations on the deployment and

9:06 and for your involvement as well We'll

9:08 look look forward to catching up in the

9:10 future All right Thank you Thank you

9:11 Thank you Sterling

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