Xantaro develops medium-range solution for native 40Gb Ethernet

The service integrator, Xantaro, has successfully tested the transfer of data via 40Gb Ethernet for a distance up to 80 kilometres between data processing centres in Frankfurt am Main. Thus, data processing centre operators must no longer rely on the expensive long-range connections.

The Xantaro team was able to revolutionise the data transfer between data processing centres. A solution they developed themselves allows a data connection with data processing centres via 40Gb Ethernet and allows these to be up to 80 kilometres away from each other. The native Ethernet is especially suitable for High Frequency Trading in the finance branch. Also, in the research segment as with carriers and service providers, the use of the medium-range solution is meaningful thanks to less expenses. Due to the use of few standard components, the acquisition and operation costs are between 30 and 50 percent lower than conventional costs for long-range connections. 

Data transmission up until now, limited to 150 metres
40Gb Ethernet offers the opportunity for data processing centre operators to send data through only one interface with four times the speed of usual Ethernet transmissions. Up until now, large transmissions of data were only possible through bundling of 10Gb Ethernet interfaces, which resulted in high material and operative expenditures. Additionally, 40Gb Ethernet for the coupling of two data processing centres was usually not able to be realised because they only allowed maximum distances of 150 metres. Due to the different transmission times of individual bits, increasing distances distort the arrival time of the data and can also destroy it. The existing solutions up until now often consume an extremely high portion of the available project budget. 

Medium-range data transmission up to 80 kilometres possible
Xantaro developed and tested an alternative solution for the problem, which makes native 40Gb Ethernet by means of passive, optical transmission technology possible. Thus, data is transmitted with the help of a wavelength division multiplexing process at a distance of up to 80 kilometres, which Xantaro successfully tested in its XT³Lab. 

Green IT: The solution reduces the CO2 emission 
The solution developed by Xantaro offers a distinct bandwidth advantage in comparison to conventional 10Gb Ethernet. Whilst up until now, 10Gb bundled Ethernet routes with several physical interfaces were used, the Xantaro solution reduces the operative expenditure in terms of monitoring and cable management as well. Compared to available native 40Gb Ethernet longe-range solutions, the acquisition and operation costs of the Xantaro solution are up to 50 percent less. Ongoing costs, as well as the CO2 emission when coupling data processing centres are also kept low due to the passive, optical carrier. Thus, one 1 RU unit can be used so that per location, only three RUs are needed per distribution cabinet. These are the the most energy efficient devices in the world.