Micro-OTDR at the Maryland Research Education Network (MDREN)

Home / Micro-OTDR at the Maryland Research Education Network (MDREN)

Overview:

The Maryland Research and Education Network (MDREN), provides advanced network services to institutions throughout the State of Maryland and connections to regional and national resources. MDREN consists of a network that connects University System of Maryland members, other Maryland state universities, community colleges, and private institutions to each other, the Internet, and Internet2, as well as access to teleconferencing and distance learning facilities, over facilities ranging from 1.5Mbps to 10 Gigabit Ethernet using MDREN’s own fiber core infrastructure.

“…Then we discovered the Micro-OTDR approach.  With our own expertise, and support from OZC, we were able to design the Micro-OTDR into our existing network.”

Challenges:

  • Maintain the extreme performance and reliability required of a Research/Education network.
  • Eliminate the cost of the detection time component of the MTTR from a network fault.
  • Stay within the CAPEX budget of the university while meeting network service and monitoring goals.
  • Realize true OPEX savings by sending the right repair techs, to the right place, without delay.

Solution:

“Facing the need to replace and upgrade our network infrastructure over the course of the next several years, we wanted to also add a new element of physical layer monitoring to the optical fiber cable plant”, Mike Gemeny, Senior Network Engineer, observed.  “Remote Fiber Test Systems (RFTS) and/or full feature Optical Time Domain Reflectometer (OTDR) gear, could do the job, but were overkill for what we needed to accomplish.  Then we discovered the Micro-OTDR approach.  With our own expertise, and support from OZC, we were able to design the Micro-OTDR into our existing network.”

Available in both Single-Fiber, Single-Wavelength, and Conventional Dual-Fiber configurations, the OZC family of Micro-OTDR SFP/SFP+ fiber optic transceivers, offers a cost-effective way to monitor optical fiber networks for both the largest, and the smallest, Communications Service Providers (CSPs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and University, Research and Education Networks.

Solutions Used:

  • AF6-D51FZ-LU Micro-OTDR SFP
  • AF6-D51GZ-LU Micro-OTDR SFP
  • OZC Application Support

Have A Similar Challenge?

Contact Our Sales Engineer:

Michael J. Hartmann
VP of Business Development – Digital Products
(D) 818-579-9592 (M) 302-650-9795
(F) 818-780-9739 (S) mjhartmann
[email protected]