The Edge-EDU is a blade that is inserted in any of Transmode’s TM-Series chassis where it can be collocated with other optical transport units. The CPE-EDU features two ports, one facing the customer and one facing the network. All through-put and Service Level Agreement parameters can be managed via in-band management, enabling complete remote management of the CPE-EDU.

In contrast, the Edge-EDU has 6 ports, four facing the customer and two facing the network, allowing additional aggregation of input signals into a single network interface and optional network interface protection. The customer can also connect any Ethernet signal type to these Edge-EDU client ports and remotely manage the unit if required.

“These two EDUs are the first of a series of launches of Layer 2 compatible products in Transmode’s TM-Series platform,” said Magnus Öberg, Chief Technical Officer.

“The great benefit is the tight integration of these products in the optical transport platform. Instead of having separate boxes from different vendors, our customers can now provide same or better services with the same management solution. The operator has the option to choose between a clean Layer 1 solution or a combined Layer 1+Layer 2 simply by inserting the relevant blades in the existing card cages.”

Both EDUs support business Ethernet applications where the customer traffic is handled as “Carrier Class Ethernet services” as defined by the Metro Ethernet Forum, where different service levels can be applied per port or per VLAN within a port.

Different services within the same Ethernet connection can thus be given different levels of priority and guaranteed bandwidth. Advanced performance monitoring is also provided where parameters such as latency, jitter and lost packets can be used to establish and validate different types of Service Level Agreements (SLAs).