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The deal will see Nokia help expand IP Telecom’s data centre connectivity infrastructure around metro areas, as well as increasing the network’s encryption capabilities
Today, Nokia has announced it has struck a deal with IP Telecom to expand the latter’s data centre cloud connectivity infrastructure to metro areas in Portugal.
The deal will see Nokia build an encrypted optical data centre interconnect (DCI) solution, including upgrades to multiple 100Gbps and 200Gbps wavelengths. In future, the solution will be able to deliver 400GE services.
IP Telecom currently operates three major data centres in Portugal – one in each of Lisbon, Portu, and Viseu – with this expansion allowing the network to reach additional nodes throughout the country.
Even more important here is the level of encryption that Nokia’s solution will reportedly offer this network.
Each wavelength is encrypted prior to transition across the fibre network but, with cyber attacks and data theft on the rise, these capabilities must be greatly enhanced to meet modern threats in 2022.
Nokia will make use of the 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS), 1830 Photonic Service Interconnect – Modular (PSI-M) optical transport platforms, and 1830 SMS secure management server, alongside AES-256 encryption engines, to create a combined solution the vendor calls the “strongest in the industry”.
The 1830 PSS allows traditional Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) to be transformed into a more flexible transport layer, allowing for more agile wavelength routing and scalable switching. The PSI-M, meanwhile, provides flexible and modular solutions for DCI applications.
Perhaps most interesting, however, is the 1830 secure management server, which reportedly supports centralised key management for the entire cryptographic service, as well as generating quantum-safe keys that should protect “against highly sophisticated brute-force attacks, including threats from emerging quantum computers”, according to the press release.
IP Telecom’s IP & Telcos Director, Pedro Mendonça, called Nokia’s encryption capabilities “a differentiator for [them]”.
“Nokia’s modular optical networking solution allows us to easily upgrade each customer’s cloud DCI as needed and, at the same time, ease any concerns about data protection,” he explained.
Quantum computing, of course, is a branch of computational science that remains in its infancy, yet its implications for the telecoms sector could be severe. The computation power of these theoretical computers would far outclass that of their classical counterparts, potentially allowing malignant actors to access encrypted data with relative ease.
As a result, this quantum security is gradually becoming an area of interest for the telecoms sector, with various operators exploring the technology to help devise more secure data systems. In the last two years, for example, both BT and Deutsche Telekom have notably begun exploring quantum key distribution, a process by which a random encryption key is created and any attempt to observe the data transmission by a third party results in the transmission being aborted and the sender notified.
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