Nokia announced the launch of Aurelis for Data Centers, a PON-based fiber solution expanding its out-of-band management (OOBM) portfolio. Out-of-band management provides a secure, always-on control path to monitor, manage, and recover critical server infrastructure in data centers. Aurelis for Data Centers is a purpose-built solution leveraging Passive Optical Network (PON) fiber technology to reduce active equipment, power consumption, and operational costs.
The solution reduces the number of active switches by 90%, delivers 50% or more power savings, and simplifies operational effort by 80%. Traditional OOBM architectures rely on dedicated per-rack switches, increasing complexity, power, and cooling demands as data centers scale. Aurelis uses a PON optical switch with six nines availability to connect and manage thousands of endpoints from a single platform. It includes zero touch provisioning for easy installation, plug-and-play optical modems for remote management, AI-enabled proactive troubleshooting, and automated operations to reduce manual work and on-site visits. The solution targets AI and cloud providers seeking to establish critical OOBM functions efficiently.
Components include:
- Aurelis MF-2 Optical Switch (OLT): central switch using point-to-multipoint architecture to connect thousands of devices.
- Aurelis Optical Modems (ONT): stateless devices that terminate fiber and convert signals to Ethernet ports, typically top-of-rack mounted, with Ethernet and RS-232 interfaces, remotely manageable.
- Aurelis Command Center (CC): management solution with intent-based capabilities, designed to interface with data center controllers and automation systems.
Geert Heyninck, General Manager of Broadband Networks at Nokia, stated that with ongoing AI demand, data centers are adopting PON technology for cost and space savings due to its efficiency and reliability. Aurelis is deployed in over 700 mission-critical enterprise networks and suits data center resilience and efficiency needs.
Chris DePuy, Analyst and Co-Founder of 650 Group, noted that as data centers scale for cloud and AI workloads, PON-based OOBM supports a shift to simpler, greener, fiber-based architecture with point-to-multipoint benefits for space, power, and cost savings.
