OFC 2018 Theme: 400 Gbps

Cisco Live Event Features Observability, Network-as-a-Service, SASE

3/30/2021

Cisco's customer event, Cisco Live (virtual), is underway, and the company made many announcements. We are emphasizing what we think are the most relevant, which include Observability capabilities, Network as a Service (NaaS), and SASE. Here is a rundown of what we learned about today.

Core portfolio (includes Campus Ethernet Switches, Wireless LAN).

Observability. DNA Advantage and Premier customers will now be able to run the ThousandEyes agent natively on their Catalyst 9300/9400 switches and will receive access to ThousandEyes Internet and cloud intelligence at no additional cost. ThousandEyes Internet and cloud intelligence data is being incorporated into AppDynamics Dash Studio, AppDynamics’ next-gen dashboarding experience.. Cisco executive, Todd Nightingale, elaborated that the Thousand Eyes acquisition has been integrated into the Cisco portfolio very rapidly, and in fact, more rapidly than the Meraki acquisition. We think that the merging of Observability into Cisco's core products could drive partnerships between Cisco's competitors in networking, security, and Observability.
Cisco Plus. Cisco Plus offering includes Hybrid Cloud and SASE offerings initially.
- SASE. Cisco's first Network as a Service (NaaS) focuses on its SASE offering. Nightingale emphasized that its SASE focus does not mean it is de-emphasizing SD-WAN, but includes SD-WAN, cloud security gateway, and other security functions. We see that the cloud security gateway (a cloud-based subscription offering) is a significant services capability for Cisco in that it is not a hardware function that Cisco is offering to customers to then resell to others, instead, it is a cloud-based service that Cisco is offering directly to customers. Cisco views SASE as the combination of networking, security and analytics. Executives from two different business units introduced SASE: Todd Nightingale (Core Networks) and Jeetu Patel (Security). Similar to our comments about Observability, we expect that Cisco's SASE offering will drive Cisco's competitors in networking and security into partnerships or other corporate combinations.
- Hybrid Cloud. The company will also offer private cloud capabilities such as its UCS server, SAN, DC networking (Nexus) and Intersight (orchestrator) as private cloud capabilities; the company has not yet announced names of 3rd partners. The company's entry to the private cloud as a service market has some similarities to HPE's Greenlake offering.
Intersight. The company emphasized its digital networking building capabilities by incorporating technology from Hashicorp with its in-house Intersight capability. We published our views on this Hashicorp / Cisco deal just a few days ago.

Security (includes Firewall, Content Security, Identity).

Password-less. The company announced its Duo portfolio now includes the unveiling of its Duo password-less authentication; the company says this capability will be available in July 2021 as a "public preview." The company indicated that it will also bring Duo and Umbrella capabilities "down market" and will also continue to be available to Cisco's traditional large enterprise. The company announced that it sees 900 million Duo-based authentications per month across its installed base.

Mass Scale portfolio (includes Data Center Switches, Optical Transport, Routing).

Silicon One. The company reiterated that it has 10 Silicon One chips since its initial announcements ranging from 3.2 Tbps to 25.6 Tbps speeds. The company claims that it has a dozen companies focusing on Routed Optical networks based on the architecture that leverages advancements relating to Silicon One and its just-closed Acacia optical technology. Executive Jonathan Davidson highlighted the Acacia ZR and ZR+ transponder module capabilities. Routed Optical networking offers capex, opex, and energy savings. The company suggests that existing customers who use Routers and optical transport today can take a first step that means plugging transponder modules directly into routers, meaning the need for optical shelves can be eliminated over time. Cisco featured spokespersons from Microsoft Azure and Lumen (Century Link) to discuss general thoughts on the Routed Optical concept.
Open RAN. The company has made investments, both disclosed and undisclosed. The company has engaged third parties' services to integrate and test its orchestration and transport technology with other 5G systems in the marketplace.
Subscriber Management. The company introduced Cisco Cloud Native Broadband Network Gateway, which supports the integration of wireless packet core and wireline subscriber management.

Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco Systems at Cisco Live on March 30, 2021

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Our take On Ciena's Pluggables Strategy

7/20/2020

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We attended two separate presentations made by Ciena last week and have reflected on the comments made by the company. In summary, Ciena advocated using both pluggables like ZR and ZR+ as well as high-performance optical transport systems (its main business) together to construct cost-effective networks. The mix and match recommendation serves Ciena well, in that, substantially all of its revenues are high-performance systems, and coherent pluggables are a substitute threat to its business. If its customer base wanted to adopt pluggables but continued buying systems from Ciena, it would be logical for the customers to consider both systems and pluggables. Ciena argued that its pluggables would be superior to competitors, as well, highlighting its unique DSP, PIC and packaging as best in class. We find the pitch could be compelling if Ciena’s pluggables are better, and would play to Ciena’s advantages.

Much of Ciena’s recent growth has come from cloud hyperscalers. Hyperscalers currently use Ciena’s systems equipment for the Data Center Interconnect (DCI) use-case - to connect one data center to another. We have forecasted that hyperscaler DCI networks will move rapidly towards coherent pluggables, once available, substituting for high-performance systems. In Ciena’s presentation, it agreed with our assessment that short-haul DCI is the first place where pluggables will be put to work, displacing optical transport systems. Our view is that, at the market level, the metro optical transport systems' revenue path in 2021 and beyond will decline based on the transition to pluggables-use by DCI networks. Ciena is wisely hedging its bets by offering both pluggables and systems. But, we don’t think pluggables-related revenues will offset the potential loss of systems revenue, especially if the move towards pluggables is fast. One thing that Ciena has in its favor during this transition is it took first revenues on its 800 G class of systems equipment in its April 2020 fiscal quarter; its early 2020 launch could put Ciena back in the driver's seat again with customers who demand very high-performance optical links. With the inclusion of 800 G systems, Ciena’s systems offerings will be more competitive than it was entering 2020, and more competitive than 400 G class of pluggables that are the primary topic of this article. At present, only Ciena’s competitor, Infinera, has planned a 2020 launch of 800 G class of equipment.

Here are some specifics from Ciena’s two presentations (alternative link) last week. Ciena’s view is that single Span Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and High Capacity Access (Metro) are the most likely markets to adopt 400 Gbps ZR or ZR+ optical modules. It says that multi-span metro may have some use for ZR/ZR+, and long-haul and subsea won’t leverage these pluggables in the near to medium term. We agree with this assessment. Ciena will be offering coherent pluggables in two ways, as part of its packet networking and optical systems portfolio, as well as offering them through its Microsystems business for use in 3rd party equipment.

Ciena shared its assessment of its capacity versus reach comparison of its pluggables (56 GBd) and its high-performance systems (95 GBd). In the capacity graph the company shared during its presentations, you can see that Ciena’s tests show that coherent pluggables generally have half the reach or half the speed. The company advocates for “mixing bauds,” which means that for networks that are more complex than simple point to point DCI networks – for instance, ones that have lots of ROADMs, it makes sense to use high-performance metro DWDM systems as well as switches/routers with coherent pluggables. By “mixing bauds,” Ciena says it expects to 100% coverage of complex metro/regional networks (typical of telcos).

The company explained that it uses four major components in making 400 G coherent pluggables:

CMOS Technology node. 7nm finFET (35% the size of 28nm planar CMOS)
SiPhot PIC.
Advanced Packaging Technology. Multi-die packaging.
DSP. Multiple FEC options. Embedded CPU. Client framing

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650 Group Blog

Cisco Live Event Features Observability, Network-as-a-Service, SASE

Our take On Ciena's Pluggables Strategy

CHRIS DePUY
&
Alan weckel

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Categories

650 Group Blog

Cisco Live Event Features Observability, Network-as-a-Service, SASE

Our take On Ciena's Pluggables Strategy

CHRIS DePUY&Alan weckel

Archives

Categories

CHRIS DePUY
&
Alan weckel