Overture Networks Inc. is beefing up its carrier Ethernet offerings with a higher-capacity line of gigabit Ethernet access devices (EADs) for the metro edge. Essentially an upgrade to (and replacement for) the company's 20 series, the Overture 65, being launched Tuesday, is designed to provide more capacity, more flexibility in service creation, activation, and assurance, and easier deployment. Like the 20, the 65 box is intended for customer premises or cell towers, but it is matched for use with the firm's 6500 service delivery platform, introduced in March for use in back offices and data centers. Overture execs said the new devices, based on off-the-shelf chips, will be available this month but they declined to provide any pricing details. The 65 series boxes are designed with metro ring networks, small-cell aggregation, and enterprise IP services in mind. And with additional software, expected later this year, they will be ready to participate in Ensemble OSA, Overture's scheme for software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV), which the company first described last March. The new equipment can handle as many as 64 ring groups, and, using the G.8032 standard, can support multiple resiliency topologies, says Vijay Raman, Overture's vice-president of product management and marketing. Once the hardware is installed, configuration settings get pushed to the box via software. For small-cell aggregation, Overture is claiming non-blocking, full-duplex throughput of 7 Gbit/s for each 65 edge device. The devices offer less than 3 microseconds of latency, making them suitable for financial and mobile backhaul applications, Overture says. For the enterprise, the series 65 boxes can bring high-capacity Ethernet service directly into remote locations and even replace an on-premises router. A built-in client for the sFlow interface provides performance monitoring that can help carriers trying to sell more high-level services. — John Verity, contributing editor, special to Light Reading