Cisco Network Convergence System 1001 Data Sheet

Rapid capacity growth in the data center and between data centers has driven the need for cloud-scale networking solutions that allow for quick and simple turn-up with enhanced monitoring, deliver performance optimization for capacity scale through modulation and baud-rate innovations, and effectively support multiple vendors’ transponder solutions. The Cisco^® Network Convergence System 1001 (NCS 1001) delivers all this and more. The Cisco NCS 1001 is a dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) line system that is mechanically optimized for data center environments; is performance optimized for maximum capacity; and provides complete automation of installation and configuration with real-time and fine-grained monitoring.

Product Features and Benefits

The Cisco NCS 1001 (Figure 1) is a 1RU system that is capable of supporting up to three pluggable modules. The modules can be amplifiers or protection switch modules. The system reuses controller cards and power supplied from the NCS 1002. A 96-channel unprotected point-to-point or a protected point-to-DWDM line system can be implemented with one NCS 1001.

The system operates on a Linux kernel with the carrier-class 64-bit Cisco IOS^® XR Software in a Linux container (LxC) and XR system admin plane in a separate LxC. It encompasses a wide variety of features as well as a range of machine-to-machine APIs based on YANG models for ease of configuration and a telemetry agent for a pub-sub model of device monitoring and also provides an infrastructure for third-party applications.

The Cisco NCS 1001 system provides the following hardware benefits (also see Figure 2):

●    Up to 23dBm output power to allow for +3dBm per channel fiber launch power and maximum optical performance for high–baud rate and higher order modulation format transponders

●    Switchable gain preamplifier up to 34db

●    Embedded optical channel monitoring (OCM) module to monitor per channel power at all the input and output ports

●    Integrated pluggable optics–based OSC and OTDR support

●    OSC support for user data channel transport as well as remote node management

●    Unmatched scale and density: line system for 96 channels of C-band in 1RU

●    Flex-grid support on OCM module

Amplifier Module

The amplifier module provides the following ports:

●    OSC SFP slot

●    OTDR XFP slot

●    LINE-TX and RX ports

●    COM-TX and RX ports

●    COM-TX check port

Figure 3 is a functional block diagram of the amplifier module.

The NCS 1K-EDFA module provides the following functionality:

●    Preamplifier (LINE-RX to COM-TX)

◦    Single preamplifier variant, with switchable gain ranges, according to link loss:

◦     Range 1: 0 to 24dB gain, with tilt control; 24 to 27dB gain, with tilt uncontrolled

◦     Range 2: 20 to 34dB gain, with tilt control; 34 to 37dB gain, with tilt uncontrolled

◦    Total 23dBm output power at COM-TX port

●    Booster (COM-RX to LINE-TX)

◦    A true variable gain booster amplifier

◦        Gain range: 1 to 20; 20 to 25 uncontrolled tilt.

◦    Total 23dBm output power at LINE-TX port

●    Add/drop OSC channel support both 1510nm and 1610nm +/–10nm

●    OCM assesses channel presence and gain regulation and per channel power monitoring

Various Amplifier Modes Supported

Users can configure the amplifiers in the following manner.

The amplifier module can be set to manual or autoconfiguration mode. The default mode is manual. The amplifier gain range can also be configured as 25dB (default) or 34dB.

In manual mode, the user sets gain and tilt on the amplifier. The OCM data is not reported on the CLI, but the raw data can be exported. If the user selects auto mode, the user needs to configure the grid (50Ghz/100Ghz/flex) and the per channel power (default +1dBm). OCM data will be reported on the CLI as per grid definition.

Auto mode allows a user with a basic understanding of the optical performance of the link to set up the DWDM system with minimum clicks/effort.

Protection Switch Module

The NCS1K-PSM module (Figure 4) provides the following ports:

●    COM-TX and RX ports

●    W-TX and RX ports

●    P-TX and RX ports

Figure 5 is a functional block diagram of a protection switch module.

The PSM module provides the following features:

●    In TX section:

◦    Splits input optical channels to both working and protection lines.

◦    Forces the switch in the remote site by opening one of the two line paths (by putting the related VOA in AVS).

●    In RX section:

◦    Selects the signals from working or protection line. Each line is monitored through a Photo Diode.

◦    Balance the two line losses by changing the VOA attenuation value at the same time as the switch change of state.

●    The PSM can be operated in bidirectional switching mode or unidirectional switching mode. In unidirectional switching mode, the following behavior is to be expected:

◦    Splitter on the PSM is bypassed.

◦    Selector on receiver decides what signal to use. If switchover is initiated, PSM does not signal to remote end.

Solution

A typical 96-channel 50Ghz spaced point-to-point DWDM system would include 12x NCS 1002 units, 1x MD48-ODDE filter, 1x MD48-EVENE filter, 1x MD48-CME coupler, and 1x NCS 1001. The 24Tbps of capacity would consume only 29RU of rack space. (See Figure 6.)

The two primary configurations supported with the NCS 1001 are the unprotected point-to-point system and the protected point-to-point system. As illustrated in Figure 7, the unprotected configuration requires one amplifier module (NCS1K-EDFA) plugged into the NCS1001-K9 box. OSC add-drop and bidirectional amplification is performed by this module.

In a protected system, one protection switch module (NCS1K-PSM) and two amplifier modules (NCS1K-EDFA) need to be plugged into an NCS1001-K9 box. The PSM module splits the traffic onto fiber paths, and the far end selects better signal based on optical receive power, thereby providing optical power-based section protection. (See Figure 8.)

Management

The Cisco NCS 1001 provides comprehensive management capabilities to support operations, administration, maintenance, and provisioning (OAM&P) capabilities through Cisco IOS XR Software CLI, SNMP, Syslog, and XML. In addition, iPXE for automated software download and zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) for automated configuration download are available for simplified installation. For machine-to-machine configuration and management of NCS 1000, different YANG based transport options are available - NETCONF, RESTCONF and gRPC. These can be used over JSON, XML or GPB encoding. The NCS 1000 provides a set of native YANG models as well as the ability to map into any industry-standard or customer-defined YANG models. For monitoring, NCS 1000 provides a streaming telemetry feature that relies on a push mechanism to disseminate user-selected Performance Monitoring and status information at user-specified frequencies at granular 30-second intervals. This improves monitoring speed and scale compared to traditional pull-based mechanisms such as SNMP. Evolved programmable network management (EPN-M) provides a GUI element management system for NCS 1001. (See Figure 9.)

Performance Monitoring

The Cisco NCS 1001 supports both transparent and nontransparent signal transport performance monitoring. Performance monitoring of optical parameters on the client and DWDM line interface includes loss of signal (LOS) and transmit and receive optical power, both aggregate and per channel. Calculation and accumulation of the performance-monitoring data are supported in 15-minute and 24-hour intervals as per G.7710.

Each port incorporates LEDs to provide a quick visual check of the operational status of the card.

Headless Operation

The headless operation allows for the NCS 1001 data plane to operate errorless during software upgrades and when the controller card is either physically absent or in a failed state. All line card statistics will be accumulated and will be available to the user after the controller is up.

Feature Summary

Table 1 summarizes the features of the NCS 1001.

Table 1.         Feature Summary

Regulatory Compliance

Table 2 lists regulatory compliance information for the trunk card. Note that all compliance documentation might not be completed at the time of product release. Check with your Cisco sales representative for countries other than Canada, the United States, and the European Union.

Table 2.         Regulatory Compliance

Table 3 provides NCS 1001 specifications, and Table 4 provides ordering information.

Table 3.         NCS 1001 Specifications

Table 4.         Ordering Information

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