Ethernet VS PON Network Who is more suitable for enterprise-level campuses?

Behind the retreat of light and copper, it reflects the changes of the times and the progress of technology. Since 2009, optical fiber technology has imperceptibly penetrated into every corner of people's work and life, and all-optical networks have the certainty of the future.

In the process of doing a project, the most important thing to choose a solution is to start from the application scenario.

I have had in-depth exchanges with many owners about whether the PON solution can meet their needs. The PON solution is characterized by different uplink and downlink bandwidths, and the transmission modes of downlink broadcast and uplink TDMA (time division multiplexing) will time-share the data streams of different users to achieve bandwidth sharing. The advantage of the PON solution is that it solves the communication problem by splitting the light, and the problem is that all traffic must be forwarded through the OLT, which is suitable for the application scenario of vertical traffic characteristics, and is not suitable for the application scenario of horizontal traffic.

For example, when I was working on a hospital project covering an area of more than 200,000 square meters, the local government proposed the direction of optical network, and the owner was first recommended to the PON solution, but also expressed concerns. The owner said, "If I use the PON solution, I will build a private network to meet the needs of the remote video teaching scene in the hospital operating room." "Because the camera image of the operating room should be projected on the display screen of the scene for the doctor to watch, the camera on the scene belongs to the horizontal flow, it is impossible to transmit the image to the background again, come back in a circle and then display it on the spot, what if it affects the effect? In addition, doctors need to hold meetings in the medical office before ward rounds and make analysis and summary after ward rounds, and network printers are not used for document printing, which is still a horizontal traffic problem, and the PON solution cannot be solved.

In addition, a similar situation occurred when I was doing school projects. For example, when students are in class, the blackboard projects images of real-time teaching, which is a typical horizontal traffic scenario. Therefore, the actual needs of the owner are the basis for selection, and the Ethernet color light technology is the user's own scene needs. After communicating with the school's technical staff, the other party also recognized the solution of Ether IPL. In addition to the problem of application scenarios, if you use the PON solution, you will face the management problem of two systems, and the Ethernet color optical network has good compatibility, so you don't have to worry about this problem.

Left: Ethernet Right: PON Network

From the perspective of architecture, the bandwidth of the OLT is shared between the ONUs in the PON network, while the bandwidth from the access switch to the passive aggregation in the Ethernet color optical network is the exclusive bandwidth. The horizontal traffic mentioned in the above scenario refers to this fast and reliable access to information points in a room. Therefore, compared with PON, Ethernet color light technology has significant advantages in horizontal traffic scenarios.

Considering the complexity of the campus environment, it is difficult to expect a single technology to solve all problems, and the application of solutions is not one-size-fits-all, but based on the characteristics of the project and from the user's scenario. In addition, in the design process, the owner will also be concerned about the cost. Under the traditional network scheme, the average level of copper cables is generally calculated, and the demand for at least each point is 50-60 meters. In the Ethernet color light scheme, the line distribution is based on the area as the node, with the room/room switch as the center, and the average copper cable usage is about 15 meters, and the copper cable usage is reduced by at least two-thirds. According to actual experience, the cost of copper cable is 600-800 yuan at a single point, and there are often thousands of points in new scenarios.

Characteristics of application scenarios

Colleges and universities: There are many types of services, complex networks, and a dense number of end users

Primary and secondary schools: Multimedia, high-frequency video teaching, recording, broadcasting, and other services require high bandwidth

Hospitals: Electronic imaging, electronic medical records and other services require bandwidth and high availability, mobile ward rounds, intelligent infusion, and asset management

Enterprises: office, design, production, manufacturing, and other different levels of network requirements and collaborative office requirements

Government: Multi-egress and multi-tier requirements, network security, and management and operation and maintenance requirements

Cultural and museum venues: the venue's own business system, venue operation guarantee system, public safety and public Internet needs

Transportation: Office business, production system business, Internet access in public places and other different levels of needs

Stadiums: unique event systems, business systems, office systems, and Internet requirements in public places

In general, scenarios with high bandwidth, complex logical networks, and complex horizontal traffic and access control relationships are suitable for network design, deployment, and O&M of Ethernet technology architectures.

When designing the solution, I think there are the following points that need to be considered from the user's point of view.

1. The practicability and advancement of the solution, the Ethernet color optical network supports 10G~400G high bandwidth, responds to the trend of optical fiber entering and retreating, and the optical fiber networking has a long service life, high speed, long transmission distance and low latency;

2. Stability and reliability, using industry-level network hardware equipment, low failure rate, stable and reliable, key equipment using hardware backup, redundancy and other reliability technology design;

3. Flexibility and scalability, Ethernet supports the upgrade of various network transmission, services or usage requirements, without the need to rewire to the weak current room, and has strong expansion ability;

4. Economy and standardization, make full use of capital and technical investment, based on international standards and relevant standards promulgated by the state and associations, the "Technical Regulations for the Construction of Ethernet All-Optical Network in Smart Parks" issued by the China Construction Industry Association is the first standardized document on the construction of smart parks;

5. Easy management, using Ethernet architecture, continuing the existing operation and maintenance knowledge system of most information center personnel, greatly reducing the cost of network construction and use; In addition, the middle layer of the Ethernet all-optical network is passive, and gas fire extinguishing and air conditioning are no longer required for gas fire extinguishing and air conditioning cooling in the weak current room as in the traditional solution, which greatly reduces the O&M pressure of the weak current room.

6. Security: Ethernet has the advantages of mutual access and on-demand flexible security isolation, and has better service carrying and security protection capabilities.

From the designer's point of view, firstly, the Ethernet color optical network is basically the same as the traditional Ethernet, and the designer is overly smooth, most of the original drawing habits and drawing templates can be extended, and the learning conversion cost is relatively low. Secondly, the scheme is suitable for scenarios with more horizontal businesses such as hospitals and schools, which meets the short-term, medium- and long-term development needs of the business, and helps to highlight the design highlights and highlight the design value. Finally, the Ethernet solution can more calmly cope with the complex changes of design, and through standardized and modular design, it can help simplify the design work and reduce the design workload.

Ethernet color light technology is a practical demand of users in the scenario of "light in copper and copper out", and there are many practical models in the construction of smart parks such as smart education, smart healthcare, and smart enterprise parks. As long as it is beneficial to the project, beneficial to the user, and can be combined and matched with the national policy, it is a responsibility for us to do design. We need to make good use of this technology so that it can be popularized. The future of Ethernet requires the full cooperation of design units, construction units, research units and manufacturers, and the four-in-one integration of "production-learning-research-use" is possible to inject more long-term genes into the high-quality development of the intelligent building industry.

For more information, please click Full-Scenario Live Streaming Solution - Aerospace Cloud Network Solution