It is, said the company, the world’s longest single system data-centre-to-data-centre 400GbE service.
Laurie Miller, CEO of Southern Cross, said: “The new technology and capability has been designed to support the rising demand for bandwidth driven by cloud adoption and digitisation. We are now thrilled to be able to offer 400GbE Layer 1 services as the first of several planned innovations taking advantage of the Southern Cross ecosystem, and the new Next cable.”
Southern Cross Next (green on the map) was ready for service six months ago, and in its earliest days was already testing 400GbE services in collaboration with Ciena.
At the moment services are running between data centres in Sydney and Los Angeles. The cable will have a point of presence (PoP) in Auckland, New Zealand, later in 2023.
Miller said: “Demand for 100G+ high-capacity links has been booming in recent years particularly for data-centre to data-centre GCN connectivity, where extremely large and resilient volumes of data are required to traverse core network infrastructure for data replication, data storage connectivity and disaster recovery. An application where the Southern Cross multi-path eco-system excels.”
Southern Cross’s 400GbE service runs on Ciena’s 6500 packet-optical platform. The system incorporates Ciena’s 5400 and 8700 platforms, providing the ability to deploy services from 100Mbs now up to 400GbE connectivity over applicable wavelengths.
Ciena’s regional manager, Ivan Polizzi, said: “With such a flexible and scalable network foundation from Ciena, Southern Cross is able to target the growing demands of today’s networks and provide customers with unrivalled connectivity by way of applications such as 400GbE services.”
The Southern Cross Next cable, which was built by Alcatel Submarine Networks, runs from Hermosa Beach, Los Angeles, at the eastern end to Sydney suburb Alexandria, New South Wales, at the west. It will serve two landing points in Fiji, one in Kiribati and one in Tokelau.
The New Zealand landing station is at Takapuna, on the north shore of Auckland.
