400ZR Pluggable Modules Drive Down Cost-per-bit In Data Center Interconnects

By Ferris Lipscomb, Ph.D. on June 18, 2020  |  

 

There are more than 500 hyper-scale data centers around the world making up the Cloud, and a major element of Cloud infrastructure is the interconnection of these data centers both to consumers and between the data centers themselves.  Networks operating at 400Gb/s and beyond data rates at distances of 80 km and more have adopted coherent transmission because of the high data rates and lower costs that are achievable.

And now, this same long-distance transmission at 400Gb/s is possible in pluggable coherent transceiver modules, such that direct connection