Lumen, Google, Microsoft, create optical interconnection ecosystem

Technologies and Products

Lumen Technologies has announced a new network interconnection ecosystem called ExaSwitch™, created in collaboration with Google and Microsoft. The platform enables organisations with high bandwidth needs to route their traffic dynamically and quickly between networks, and without third-party intervention.

The ExaSwitch administrator installs optical hardware at the preferred location for each participant, who will choose their own fibre source for connecting into ExaSwitch. When two participants agree to connect, they can join quickly through self-provisioning, or an API portal driven and managed by the administrator. The real-time capacity deployment allows them to easily order, modify and delete services as needed. Lumen is acting as the administrator for the initial deployments.

The ExaSwitch project was created by the initial participants to route traffic between large internet and cloud networks. Early adopters include Lumen, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and an additional large cloud provider. Lumen says the ExaSwitch ecosystem will continue to strengthen as additional participants join, making it easier to automate, scale and manage capacity between the members.

Connections are set up in 400G increments and can be consumed on demand in 100G increments, with each site capable of up to 25.6 Tbps of optical cross connects. Participants use a self-service portal to configure and turn up connectivity with other participants much faster than they can at present and will have the ability to connect their edge sites, data centres and central offices in major markets to gain diversity and save costs on cross connects.

Lumen is currently operating the ExaSwitch platform in three of the largest US interconnection hubs in Chicago, Dallas and Virginia. with plans to expand to all major markets in North America with large internet hubs.

“The ExaSwitch optical switching platform is an innovative on-demand ecosystem for automating, scaling and managing high-value interconnect services,” said Courtney Monroe, VP of Telecommunications Research for IDC. “It is poised to disrupt legacy manual platforms, as well as the way enterprises, and the IT ecosystem interconnect, procure and manage interconnectivity.”

For more information, visit http://exaswitch.net