TENET, a research and education network based in South Africa, has purchased XKL DarkStar transponder and mux/demux systems, providing a protected connection between two of their strategic data center locations in London.
The interconnection is a critical component of a subsea cable network linking London to Cape Town.
The transponder systems grow to 36x10G in a 1RU package; establish the connection between multi-tenant data centers, which connect to subsea fiber managed by the West African Cable System (WACS).
The inclusion of an amplified mux/demux with optical switch protection, was driven by TENET’s desire to easily scale its transport capacity as demand increases as well as provide optical path protection between locations in the event of a fiber break.
“TENET was looking for a comprehensive data center interconnect solution that facilitates success-based expansion,” comments Dr. Chad Lamb , Chief Systems Architect for XKL. “Linking strategic data center locations is an increasing trend and XKL has a portfolio of products to support this use case. It’s hard to predict the growth level of traffic that will be needed between sites. The XKL solution provides future expansion capability without the costs typically seen with optical transport solutions.”