Approximately a month ago Alcatel-Lucent launched Converged Backbone Transformation (are they sharing marketing wizards with Cisco … or is the excessive hype an industry-wide phenomenon?): a visionary(?) convergence of IP and optical technologies. If you haven’t heard about it yet, you could try to start with the IDC report published on Alcatel-Lucent’s web site (I’m always amazed how some people manage to tell so little in so many words).

Once you get past the fluff to the details, it could be that they're implementing a lot of common-sense. For example, it looks like the lambda-level grooming replaces GBIC/SFP transceivers with something that can generate multiple lambdas on the router and feed these lambdas directly into the DWDM gear. In my understanding, it replaces the GE port-GBIC-fiber-GBIC-GE port-lambda generation-DWDM chain with the shorter and cheaper GE port-lambda GBIC-fiber-lambda port-DWDM chain (obviously, I might be completely wrong; it’s hard to deduce the details from a press release).

Anyhow, I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this launch. Does it make sense? How does it compare to what Cisco and Juniper are doing? Is this a move in the right direction … or is Alcatel-Lucent playing a catch-up and trying to cover it with a grand marketecture?