What Gear do i need to enable WDM (DWDM) on a Dark Fiber?

[junos2ios]

We have Dark Fiber between 2 DCs and would like to enable WDM on it. What Cisco Optical Gear do i need for this? We would also link to enable Encryption on this link as well. TIA

[Leo Laohoo]

Ok, DWDM ... First and foremost, you need to decide what SPEED?  1-, 10-, 40- or 100 Gbps. 

Next, what form factor?  SFP, X2, Xenpak?

Cisco 1Gbps DWDM SFP

Cisco 10 Gbps DWDM SFP+

Another thing, what platform are you planning to terminate the links to?  Not all appliances support DWDM.

Cisco Gigabit Ethernet Transceiver Modules Compatibility Matrix

[junos2ios]

Thanks. I should've been more clear..we're looking to connect multiple devices on different channels so i think some kind of MUX/DEMUX device (ONS 15???)  will be needed. Something that can support encryption would be a plus

 Speed wise it'll be 10gig

SFP+

Some end hosts are Vendor J and Nexus 9500

[Marvin Rhoads]

You can do "simple" CWDM with the Cisco WDM series of CWDM Passive devices. Those can support 4 or 8 channels.

They depend on you "feeding" them signals from special transceiver models that modulate the light on a wavelength compliant with the ITU-50GHz channels listed in the DWDM SFP+ data sheet Leo mentioned and linked to.

The compatibility matrix tells you what Cisco gear is compatible with those transceivers. If you're using other 3rd party gear, they have equivalent support matrices. The bottom line is you need to match wavelengths to what the mux is expecting.

If you move up to the ONS 15454 line you have more flexibility - transponder cards etc that will transform standard SFP+ (1550 nm 10 Gbps signalling on fiber) to the ITU channels etc. You're talking serious money there though - hundreds of thousands of US$. Cisco will be happy to send a sales engineer over and build a nice detailed bill of materials if that's in your budget. 

[junos2ios]

Thanks Marvin- Would this also work if we needed more than 8 channels

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/optical-networking/ons-15200-series-dwdm-systems/data_sheet_c78-554191.html

Also what are the options for Encryption? i doubt any passive boxes can do encryption 

[Marvin Rhoads]

Yes, the ones you linked are the next step up.

Encryption with Cisco solutions would require something like MACsec (only supported in certain hardware). I'm not aware of any products doing encryption directly on the fiber PHY layer.

Of course you could do a VPN but you won't get anything near line rate.

Most people with dark fiber don't encrypt it. (Outside of government agencies protecting classified information)

[junos2ios]

i saw this encryption card for ONS

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/optical-networking/ons-15454-series-multiservice-transport-platforms/datasheet-c78-729795.html

[Leo Laohoo]

You're talking serious money there though - hundreds of thousands of US$. Cisco will be happy to send a sales engineer over and build a nice detailed bill of materials if that's in your budget. 

I agree with Marvin.  CWDM & DWDM is a very, very serious investment.  If you are going to engage Cisco engineers, make sure you make them WORK for their money.  I've heard of one organization that scored some free equipment (Telepresence gears) because of this. 

[Marvin Rhoads]

Cool - that's a new card that just came out in 2014. I hadn't seen that one before. It is currently on new product hold for ordering purposes.

FYI the list price for ONE of those card bundle SKUs (15454-ARE-K9-SK) is US$81,000. That's not including the ONS 15454 chassis, TCC (supervisor card), DWDM optics, DWDM shelf etc. You would be easily looking at $250,000 per site (or more) to deploy such a system operationally.