Success Builders International (SBI) is offering organisations using optical networks, a two-day course on DWDM Optical Networking. The course was held recently in Johannesburg for engineers from Transnet Freight Rail (telecoms department).
With optical networks being installed throughout our cities at an increasingly rapid rate, businesses are realizing that their engineers need knowledge and training in this important development.
As uptake increases – from enterprise systems to SMEs and residences – knowledge at the corporate and network suppliers needs to catch up in order to deliver premium quality services. While SBI have been including this area in their PLATFORM training course, (PLATFORM is a 20 day certificate in Next Generation Telecoms programme) requests from clients have resulted in SBI offering a two or three day, stand-alone complete course, depending on client requirements.
“Our clients came to us with this requirement, and as it is currently a module in our quality approved PLATFORM: Certificate in IP-based Next Generation Telecoms programme, we were happy to extract and modify the DWDM section as a complete stand-alone two-day training course,” says SBI MD Caron Perkins.
“We have already held the course for 23 engineers, including a range of skills from engineers in training to highly skilled engineering and management staff from Transnet, and the feedback has been very positive. We have already held the course for 19 advanced engineers and engineers in training from Transnet, and the feedback has been very positive.”
Kabelo Ngobeni, senior engineer: telecoms at Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), comments: “On behalf of Transnet Freight Rail (Telecoms department), a division of Transnet SOC, we are pleased to have attended the DWDM course offered by SBI in a two day period. We (TFR) have pressing needs in terms of understanding the DWDM technology in that the Transnet market demand strategy (MDS) needs us to be ready in capacity to support the goals of high tonnages and communication requirements by 2018.
“SBI delivered training above our required expectations and all the engineers that participated valued the context of the course, and recommended it for broader use for technical persons within the company.
“Personally, I have gained extensive knowledge that will help me to be part of the design, implementation and integration of the DWDM network within the Transnet communication network,” he adds. “The course is well structured, catering from basic to advanced skills, making it easier for everyone to follow and understand. The setup for learning, communication and team engagement delivered by SBI exceeded all our requirements.”
The course is designed to provide an introduction to optical networking and DWDM technology. Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) is a technology that enables data from different sources to share an optical fibre, with each signal carried at the same time on its own separate light wavelength.
Using DWDM, up to 80 or more separate wavelengths or channels of data can be multiplexed into a lightstream transmitted on a single optical fiber. This enables the bandwidth on a single fibre cable to be multiplexed up to terabits per second.
Each channel can carry a different protocol, such as Ethernet and SDH. DWDM is also sometimes called wave division multiplexing (WDM). The course also explains the difference between CWDM and DWDM.
The components of optical networks are discussed as well as how they are used in the design of modern all optical networks. The architectures of DWDM networks are also covered. How wavelength switched paths are established across an all optical core network using ROADM technology is explained. Management, control and protection of an optical network plus the technologies used to achieve this are described.
