Coriant, Facebook, Telecom Infra Project Team Up on Coriant's Voyager

Sometimes the biggest news about a new technological development is who all came together to make it happen. When Facebook's involved, that ratchets the intrigue up a few notches by itself, but add Coriant and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), and it's edge-of-the-seat time. So seeing these three together on a new development, the Voyager, is a point to pay attention to.

The Voyager, reports note, is the first combined transponder and Internet protocol (IP) / multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) white box solution ever made. Coriant will be adding its own networking solution to the system, which will offer routing options along with dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) transmission, which should be particularly useful to its target market.

With high-scale DWDM and packet switching on an open platform available, there should be several benefits available almost immediately to users. Reduced power use, greater flexibility, simpler operations, and reduced costs—most of the three preceding values would contribute to reduce costs—are all on the table with this system. Plus, there's even some future-proofing involved here, as the resulting system is especially useful in next-generation operations.

Coriant's Voyager will focus not only on network elements but also on software-defined networking (SDN) operations, taking currently-available application programming interfaces (APIs) like RESTCONF, as well as available compliance tools, and adding these to frameworks like OpenDaylight, available as open source options, to achieve the best results in the end.

With Facebook and the TIP—founded by Facebook as well as Deutsche Telekom, Intel, and other names in the field—backing things up, there's even more value afoot as the TIP is an organization devoted to changing the way people think about both building and deploying infrastructure for telecom network operations. That should help make people more receptive to the open-source-heavy Coriant project.

Essentially, the Voyager system will have not only a lot of technological prowess going into its development, but also what looks to be a bit of mind-changing afoot as well. While open source is fairly routinely used these days, in this particular segment it might not be quite so familiar. Bringing in the TIP might be just the thing to help bring some users around and make the Coriant system that much more palatable to those who wouldn't have considered an open source option going forward. With the nature of connectivity changing fairly rapidly—we've got 5G coming up in about three years, with several developments poised to take place in the meantime—the end result could be a real powerhouse, if everyone's ready for it.

There's a very real potential for Voyager to shake up the market, but first it has to be accepted and brought into wide use. That means a few changes afoot, and while Voyager has enough going for it to make a change worthwhile, it may not be enough by itself.

Edited by Maurice Nagle