NTT DATA and NTT Corporation (NTT) announced the successful establishment of ultra low-latency connections between data centers in the United States and the United Kingdom, enabled by their All-Photonics Network (APN) technology.
According to data, typical delays between data centers at similar distances exceed 2,000 microseconds (2 milliseconds). Remarkably, the APN technology reduces latency by half and significantly decreases jitter.
UK and US Data Centers
In the UK, NTT DATA and NTT established connections between data centers situated north and east of London using NTT's Innovative Optical Wireless Network (IOWN) APN, achieving communication with a round-trip delay of under 1 millisecond. Similarly, data centers in Northern Virginia, USA, achieved comparable results.
The objective of this endeavor is to unify geographically dispersed IT infrastructure to function as a single data center.
In separate demonstrations using APN equipment from NEC, NTT DATA and NTT linked data centers in the UK (HH2 in Hemel Hempstead and LON1 in Dagenham) and in the US (VA1 and VA3 in Ashburn). These UK and US data centers are 89 km and 4 km apart, respectively.
Notably, tests conducted over 100 Gbps and 400 Gbps links revealed that the APN-connected data centers in the UK operated with less than 1 millisecond (approximately 0.9 milliseconds) of latency and a delay variation (jitter) of less than 0.1 microseconds. In the US, the delay over the much shorter span was approximately 0.06 milliseconds, with a delay variation of less than 0.05 microseconds.
Proven APN Capability
Moreover, NTT’s APN offers extremely low latency, which is vital for a wide range of current and emerging applications. These include distributed, real-time AI analysis such as industrial IoT and predictive maintenance, smart surveillance systems, smart grid and energy management, as well as natural disaster detection and response.
An additional advantage of the IOWN APN is its ability to activate lines by simply adding wavelengths, eliminating the need for installing new dark fiber. Consequently, data center operators can swiftly respond to customer demand.
Apart from the recent data center milestones, NTT DATA is also conducting demonstrations within the financial sector, where low latency is essential for remittances, settlements, and transactions.