Data Center

If NCS1004 is a Beast, then what is NCS1010 ?

Umesh Sajjanar
October 13, 2022

Ever since the release of NCS1004 in 2018 which delivers multi-haul coherent DWDM transponders, it has been in the news for all the good reasons. It’s been winning all the awards starting with Pioneer Award twice and also NASSCOM Engineering & Innovation award 2021 “Next-Gen Product of the Year (Global Capability Centers)”. With its exceptional capabilities in terms of both scale and reach, flexibility and configurability, NCS1004 has become a benchmark by all standards. As the famous saying from “Lord of the Rings” which says “One Ring to Rule them all”, we have “One Card to Rule them all (Line Cards)”. It has been ruling the roost in optical market and has brought acceleration to the optical sales while wowing the customers across all segments. True to its name, BOSS HOGG: NCS1004 is HOGGing the limelight and proving who the BOSS is in the optical world of line cards. It’s a beast we can boast about proudly.

NCS1010 the new modular open line system which offers flex ROADMs or disaggregated ROADMs is on it’s well defined path to simplify the Optical Networks. While NCS1004 gave the flexibility in terms of the way it can be configured and used, NCS1010 is giving the user, flexibility at the hardware level to incrementally increase a Site/Node’s capability as and when needed and with much ease. The complexity at the hardware level has been removed and adding more opportunities to the burgeoning software automation. Optical Automation Software (OAS) has shown more avenues to modernise and allow intelligence to be moved to software in the direction of Software Defined networks (SDN) with Cisco Optical Network Controller(CONC). With simplicity comes, ease of maintenance along with the huge reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO). While NCS1004 has brought flexibility at Transponder Card level, NCS1010 has brought flexibility at ROADMnode level while Routed Optical Network (RON) along with OAS has brought both flexibility and simplicity at Network Level which is reducing the TCO by a whopping 47%.

The usage cycle of these products by customers at all stages is supported by OAS which consists of Cisco Optical Network Planner(CONP) & CONC. Network planning at pre-deployment stage supported by CONP and continuous monitoring and control supported by the post deployment tool like CONC would enable the customer to appreciate the simplicity involved in the product usage lifecycle. With NCS1010 as part of RON hardware and OAS as part of RON Software, it’s clearly evident where the direction of the whole ecosystem consisting of all of the programs are headed to. In the 12th century, it was said “All Roads Lead to ROME”, now in 21st century we can say “All Codes Lead to RON” in our BU for that matter. When such organised effort is directed towards a single goal, the result will be a revolution which is only a matter of time.