PDF of this tutorialA DWDM infrastructure is designed to provide a graceful network evolution for service providers who seek to address their customers' ever-increasing capacity demands. Because a DWDM infrastructure can deliver the necessary capacity expansion, laying a foundation based on this technology is viewed as the best place to start. By taking incremental growth steps with DWDM, it is possible for service providers to reduce their initial costs significantly while deploying the network infrastructure that will serve them in the long run.
Some industry analysts have hailed DWDM as a perfect fit for networks that are trying to meet demands for more bandwidth. However, these experts have noted the conditions for this fit: a DWDM system simply must be scalable. Despite the fact that a system of OC–48 interfacing with 8 or 16 channels per fiber might seem like overkill now, such measures are necessary for the system to be efficient even two years from now.
Because OC–48 terminal technology and the related operations support systems (OSSs) match up with DWDM systems today, it is possible for service providers to begin evolving the capacity of the TDM systems already connected to their network. Mature OC–192 systems can be added later to the established DWDM infrastructure to expand capacity to 40 Gbps and beyond.
