Juniper designed the card, which carries two 100Gbit/s ports, as a line-side interface for the PTX series of packet-optical core systems. (See Juniper Aims Big With 100G Optical.)

When those are in place, a carrier doesn't have to connect the PTX to a separate transponder system. It's the same as the IP-over-DWDM strategy, where optical modules are put on the router directly.

The company that had been providing that transponder shelf was ADVA.

"That was always part of the plan," ADVA CEO Brian Protiva says. "We built long-haul and ultra-long-haul solutions for them with the intent that they would have a coherent transponder in their solution" eventually.

The transponder might be the most lucrative part of ADVA's portfolio, as one carrier source casually remarked to Light Reading after hearing the news. ADVA can't be thrilled about getting shut out of a transponder win, the source concluded.

What ADVA gains is a toehold in a part of the network it doesn't commonly inhabit, Protiva argues.

"It's enabling us to move into core networks. Ciena and NSN [soon to be Coriant] don't want to do it, because they don't want to give up their transponders. We say go for it, we don't care," Protiva says.

"Even if we don't generate the 100G volumes of the transponder business, we get amplifiers, flexgrid ROADMs, all the other line cards -- it's a really nice business. We will get big leverage."

Juniper's OFC/NFOEC demos did feature the original case where the PTX connects to an ADVA transponder via a CFP client-side 100Gbit/s module rather than Juniper's coherent interface. So, Juniper and ADVA are still good neighbors, in that sense (and in the sense that their booths were practically next to each other).

That case is still interesting for Juniper not only because some customers might want it, but because it shows an integration of management planes. Juniper lets a client-side optical interface on the PTX be controlled by ADVA's management system -- or by the managment system of its other partner, Nokia Siemens Networks, which is being re-formed as Coriant.

They worked on that years ago, but the concept sounds more hip now that everyone's talking about software-defined networking (SDN).

Juniper also made a point to explain how the PTX, using Juniper's new coherent transponder, can connect directly into a ROADM network provided by someone like ADVA.

For more

• Juniper Prunes Back Its Packet-Optical Plan
• ADVA Makes 100G Debut
• Coriant Counts on NSN's Optical Strengths

Keep up with all our OFC/NFOEC coverage at http://www.lightreading.com/ofc-nfoec.

— Craig Matsumoto, Managing Editor, Light Reading