PowerMax and VMAX All Flash Solutions Design (Optical Networks)

Question 1

What is DWDM?

Answer 1

dense wavelength division multiplexing

technology that puts data from different sources together on an optical fiber w/ each signal carried on its own separate light wavelength

Question 2

What is the max channels that can be supported on DWDM?

Answer 2

up to 160 separate channels on a single fiber

Question 3

What topologies are supported w/ DWDM?

Answer 3

supports point to point and ring topologies w/ protected and unprotected schemas

Question 4

What data formats can be simultaneously going through DWDM?

Answer 4

IP
ESCON
FC
SONET
ATM

Question 5

What is a key benefit of DWDM?

Answer 5

protocol transparency

since DWDM is an optical transmission technique the same interface type can be used to transport any bit rate or protocol

Question 6

What is another benefit of DWDM?

Answer 6

can be used to tie two or more metro area data centers together as one virtual data center

Question 7

What is CWDM?

Answer 7

coarse wave division multiplexing

uses similar multiplexing and de-multiplexing methods as DWDM by assigning different wavelengths to each channel

Question 8

How many channels are supported in DWDM vs CWDM?

Answer 8

CWDM = 16

DWDM = 160

Question 9

What is the hardware cost between DWDM vs CWDM?

Answer 9

CDWM = cheap

DWDM = expensive

Question 10

What is the distance covered by DWDM vs CWDM?

Answer 10

CDWM = less than 100km

DWDM = over 100km

Question 11

What are the wavelength differences in DWDM vs CWDM?

Answer 11

CDWM = far apart (why you need specific optics)

DWDM = relatively closer

Question 12

What is the manageability difference between DWDM vs CWDM?

Answer 12

CWDM = weak

DWDM = robust

Question 13

What are SONET/SDH?

Answer 13

Synchronous Optical Network and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy

set of related standards for synchronous data transmission over fiber optic networks

SONET/SDH is core backbone of all major ISPs

Question 14

What is the role of SONET/SDH?

Answer 14

not a communication protocol

generic all purpose container to move voice and data

supports ATM/Packet over SONET

Question 15

What is Generic Framing Procedure (GFP)?

Answer 15

encapsulates packet oriented data (IP or block) into SONET/SDH payload envelopes w/ very low overhead

Question 16

What is STS-1?

Answer 16

Synchronous Transport Signal Level 1

base signal for SONET/SDH networking

operates at 51.84MBps

Question 17

What is the recommendation related to STS-1 when it comes to FC replication?

Answer 17

for each FC port it is recommended that the number of associated STS-1s or STS-3s be less than the maximum required to achieve maximum throughput for the specific latency

Question 18

What is the base signal of SDH?

Answer 18

Synchronous Transport Module Level 1 (STM-1)

has a rate of 155.2 MBps

Question 19

What is VCAT?

Answer 19

virtual concatenation

enables multiple low capacity SONET/SDH circuits to be grouped together by inverse multiplexing into a higher capacity link