The Cisco® ONS 15454 Multiservice Transport Platform (MSTP) offers a Raman optical amplifier card operating in the C-band region of the optical spectrum to extend the reach and capacity of a regional, long-haul, or ultra-long-haul optical network. The Raman optical amplifier cards are part of the Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP intelligent DWDM architecture engineered to reduce DWDM complexity and speed the deployment of next-generation networking solutions. Background The Cisco ONS 15454 Raman optical amplifier card (OPT-RAMP-C) is a plug-in module that takes advantage of the proven Cisco ONS 15454 carrier-class features. This card delivers the reach and optical performances to support a single DWDM channel all the way to 80 channels today, to meet the requirements of service provider and enterprise networks. A Raman amplifier uses intrinsic properties of silica fibers to obtain signal amplification. This means that transmission fibers can be used as a medium for amplification, and hence that the intrinsic attenuation of data signals transmitted over the fiber can be combated within the fiber. An amplifier working on the basis of this principle is commonly known as a distributed Raman amplifier (DRA) or simply Raman amplifier. The OPT-RAMP-C unit not only embeds efficient next-generation pump lasers to generate counter-propagating Raman effect in the span fiber but also a low-noise Erbium Doped Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) to optimize the overall Noise Figure of the Node. Table 1 outlines the C-band optical amplifier plug-in card types available for the Cisco ONS 15454 MSTP with the applications they are designed to support.