May 24, 2013
BT and Ciena Light 800G Super-Channel across 410km link in UK
Ciena and BT have announced the successful transmission of a stunning 800G super-channel across BT's core optical network.
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May 22, 2013
In the Lab with the Ciena 6500’s new packet features
We go inside Ciena's Ottawa R&D lab to learn more about the new packet switching capabilities of the Ciena 6500 platform.
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May 21, 2013
Infographic: The history of optical and Ethernet
This infographic shows the increasingly interwoven relationship between two of today's dominant communications technologies: optical and Ethernet.
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May 24, 2013
7:39 AM EDT
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BT and Ciena Light 800G Super-Channel across 410km link in UK
In the never-ending quest to squeeze more bandwidth out of a wavelength of light, Ciena and BT yesterday announced the successful transmission of a stunning 800G super-channel across BT's core optical network (here's the press release).
This bleeding-edge trial was conducted in March, and also included the transmission of simultaneous coherent optical signals at a variety of speeds, including 40G, 100G, 200G, 400G as well as the 800G super-channel -- all using Ciena's WaveLogic 3 coherent technology embedded in our 6500 Packet-Optical Platform.
What makes this networking feat so extraordinary is the conditions of the test. This trail was not conducted in a pristine and sterilized lab environment. BT intentionally chose a 410km high Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD) fiber link on its optical network between BT's Adastral Park Research and Development Centre in Ipswich and the iconic BT Tower in Central London -- a link that was in fact previously unsuitable for traditional non-coherent transmission at 10G speeds (quite a testament to the power of Ciena's WaveLogic 3 coherent technology).
The news is a confirmation of sorts to BT's previously stated intent to remain at the leading edge of networking speeds. Back in late 2011 when BT originally picked Ciena as its 100G supplier, the company was already expressing the need to move to 400G speeds in the future (see BT picks Ciena 100G for 21CN deployment, talks 400G).
Details of the trial
Using Ciena's WaveLogic 3 coherent optical chipset, Ciena and BT lit a series of ultra-high speed wavelengths across the 410km span using both single and super-channel techniques. The 800G transmission is believed to be the world's first successful field trial of an 800G super-channel. 200G, 400G and 800G speeds were accomplished using a 16QAM modulation format introduced in WaveLogic 3. For more information on the various WaveLogic 3 modulation formats and their uses, watch this video on WaveLogic 3 modulation.
A 16-QAM modulation format enables 200G capacities vs the 100G capacity of QPSK
In one part of the trial, 16QAM-based 400G traffic was carried over the network alongside adjacent 40G and 100G wavelengths that were using a QPSK modulation format, showing the ability to migrate to higher speeds on a wavelength-by-wavelength basis.
[Read more: Coherent Optical Processing for High-Capacity Networks]
Other combinations of simultaneous wavelengths were tested as well, including...
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May 22, 2013
8:20 AM EDT
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In the Lab with the Ciena 6500’s new packet features
Last week Ciena unveiled significant new packet switching capabilities on our flagship 6500 Packet-Optical platform (see Ciena 6500: Extreme Packet Makeover Edition). The new capabilities, branded as Ciena’s E-Suite packet modules for the 6500, fully round out the switching proficiencies for a platform that has already won awards and acclaim for its 100G coherent and OTN switching capabilities.
But what exactly are these new packet switching capabilities? To get those answers, we visited the very lab in Ottawa where these new capabilities were developed.
In that lab we found Gerald Smallegange, a senior systems and solutions architect for the 6500 platform. Gerald has been with the company for 20 years, and was part of the packet team that developed the first ever packet-optical cards for the 6500 platform (which included resilient packet ring, L2SS, and L2 MOTR).
These days, Gerald is focusing on the latest generation of packet switching capabilities for the 6500, and he was more than happy to walk us through a demo from Ciena’s Ottawa R&D playground in the below video.
If you’re more of the white paper and spec sheet type, you’re in luck, as Ciena has provided a wide variety of detailed specs for the new packet features. I suggest starting off at the completely revamped 6500 Family product page, which includes some great pictures of the various chassis and card options on the 6500 as well as a nifty 3D product rendering.
There is also a brand new product page for our eMOTR cards. These Ethernet-enabled Muxponder modules are...
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May 21, 2013
11:55 AM EDT
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Infographic: The history of optical and Ethernet
This week the communications industry will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Ethernet, with many descending on the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, for this week's Ethernet Innovation Summit to celebrate.
Ethernet's seemingly constant state of evolution -- from a limited technology to connect LAN devices into today's increasingly dominant connectivity service across the WAN -- is a story that is well-told. But what I find interesting in that story is the parallel evolution of another technology, optical networking.
The two technologies are siblings of sorts, with fiber-optics being the older brother seven years senior (fiber-optic communications was born in 1966, Ethernet in 1973). And as they've grown up, they have become increasingly intertwined.
In the below infographic, we've laid out the history and evolution of both technologies, including major milestones for each. As they continue to evolve and grow, it seems certain that optical and Ethernet technologies will become both more a part of each other, and more a part of our lives.
Click on the below image to view or download the full infographic.
May 14, 2013
1:10 PM EDT
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Ciena 6500: Extreme Packet Makeover Edition
It’s time to rethink everything you know about Ciena’s 6500 Packet Optical Platform. You’ve known the 6500 as our flagship platform for next-gen optical transport, and for good reason. The winner of multiple industry awards over the last few years, the 6500 has been the driving force behind the industry’s coherent optical technology revolution, embedding Ciena WaveLogic technology to enable the wave of 40G and 100G deployments we are seeing around the world.
Today, the 6500 becomes much more than that.
This morning, Ciena has introduced significant new packet capabilities for the 6500 aimed at directly addressing the incredible growth of business Ethernet services and the inevitable convergence of the packet and optical layers of the network.
These new integrated packet-optical capabilities provide very efficient Ethernet aggregation and transport over an optical infrastructure, flattening the network and consolidating equipment needs by allowing Carrier Ethernet edge devices to network directly into the optical infrastructure. This means fewer devices to manage, lower power and space requirements, and faster, more automated turn-up and management of business Ethernet services -- from the network access to the metro core.
The details: New packet switching on the 6500
Today’s new packet capabilities come in two forms: new packet enabled cards for the 6500, and the integration of our packet operating system into the 6500.
Ciena’s Service Aware Operating System (SAOS) software is already ubiquitous across Ciena’s entire packet networking portfolio and deployed on more than 300,000 platforms worldwide. By extending SAOS onto the 6500, service providers can now seamlessly provision and manage carrier Ethernet services across our packet and 6500 families – from the network access to the metro core – using our OneControl unified management system.
Implementation of those packet service capabilities on the 6500 is enabled via Ciena’s new E-Suite packet modules, and include both blade-based packet switching modules for relatively modest footprint applications and fabric-based packet switching modules for higher density sites and mesh connectivity.
The E-Suite family
Within the E-Suite family, the blade-based packet switching cards, called our eMOTR cards, come in two versions: a dual-slot card optimized for GE services and a single-slot card optimized for 10G services.
In addition, a new eSw 4x10G card...
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May 13, 2013
8:05 AM EDT
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Ciena's little 3902 Carrier Ethernet switch wins big Cable award
One of Ciena’s smallest form factor products has just been given a big honor, being named as a Cable Spotlight Product of the Year Award Winner.
The product is Ciena’s 3902 Service Delivery Switch. Measuring under 6”x6” in size and weighing only half a pound, the 3902 can almost fit in your pocket. Given its ultra-small form factor, this Ethernet Business Services demarcation device can be discreetly placed just about anywhere on the customer premises.
Even though the 3902 is the smallest member of Ciena’s Packet portfolio, that doesn’t mean it is short on features. The 3902 offers a single port 10/100/1000Base-TX UNI, and a Gigabit Ethernet NNI with a variety of pluggable interface options for the flexibility to accommodate native Ethernet, Ethernet over TDM (T1/T3), and emerging EPON applications. The 3902 also supports Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) EPL, EVPL, and E-LAN service definitions.
Most importantly, it uses Ciena’s field-proven Service-Aware Operation System (SAOS). This enables the 3902 to be fully managed by our OneControl Unified Management System, a complete OAM suite that spans our entire Packet portfolio.
With SAOS, the 3902 turns into a...
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May 9, 2013
1:53 PM EDT
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On the hunt for 100G OpenFlow apps
Internet2 is on the hunt for new and innovative ways to apply SDN and OpenFlow standards across its 100G R&E network, and it’s willing to pay to find them. Yesterday in this press release, Internet2 announced a joint effort with Ciena, Juniper and Brocade to award cash prizes to the best open source end-user applications that make use of OpenFlow-enabled SDN capabilities of switches and controllers like those found on the Internet2 Network.
The program will provide grants of up to $10,000 for winning proposals, with the possibility of additional matching fund from Universities.
Ciena, Juniper and Brocade, all three of which provide networking gear for Internet2’s high-powered research and education network, are sponsors of the award program. Ciena, of course, provides the coherent 100G optical technology that powers the huge capacities for Internet2 and its members (see Internet2 shows what 8.8Tbps looks like).
“Fundamentally we want to be able to take advantage of the 100G and SDN-enabled capabilities of the Internet2 Advanced Layer 2 Service so a scientist can easily move petabytes of data without having to be a part-time network engineer,” said Eric Boyd, Internet2 Deputy CTO for Network Services, in an email interview. “Think drag-and-drop file transfer over 100G SDN.”
The invitation for proposals is open to all and runs through June 7th. The best proposals will be selected to move forward towards the development of actual production-quality software. The program was created to encourage...
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May 6, 2013
11:37 AM EDT
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Progress with OpenFlow: Much more than SDN-washing
I’m not a big fan of Wikipedia. I’ve seen too many errors, omissions and just plain bad pages to rely on it as a true source of information. But it can sometimes provide a perspective on hot topics of interest.
Take for example Wikipedia’s SDN page. It’s definition and background on SDN is innocuous enough at first glance, until you view the page history and realize this page – which was first created a mere six months ago – has already gone through 50 iterations by over 30 contributors. Indeed, the fervor over SDN seems to be everywhere – so much so that in a recent online chat on SDN hosted by Tech Target, there was an entire thread in the conversation about “SDN washing.”
To be sure, there is a ton of marketing going on these days around SDN from all angles, and it seems like every vendor in the industry has come out with their SDN vision in just the last few months. With all the hype, it’s easy to be the skeptic and cast every new SDN story into the bucket of marketing propaganda.
But there is also a lot of real work and progress going on in the SDN world as well. And much of that progress is happening in the Open Networking Foundation. The ONF is the organization that has taken over development of the OpenFlow protocol, an open standard for SDN that allows for centralized software-based control of a multi-vendor packet network.
Ciena has been a member of the ONF since its founding back in March 2011. As Ciena’s Chris Janz eloquently stated in a previous blog post, we see the ONF as a key epicenter of SDN innovation and discussion.
As such, Chris and his team have been highly active and committed to the ONF from the start. And we’ve been talking on this blog about the great work that’s been going on in the ONF since last year (see Ciena shows its OpenFlow stripes at ONF Plugfest). Our level of commitment to the ONF has recently increased even more, with the recent news that Ciena’s Lyndon Ong would be the Chair of the ONF’s newly formed Optical Transport Working Group.
The Optical Transport Working Group is charged with figuring out how to extend the benefits of SDN and OpenFlow to the optical network domain. This is...
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April 30, 2013
8:17 AM EDT
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Today’s Enterprises Seeing an Increase in Network Security Threats
This is the third of a series of three posts on a Ciena-sponsored VansonBourne survey on enterprise connectivity in Western Europe. Mervyn Kelly is Ciena's Director of Field Marketing for the EMEA region. Other posts:
- Cloud Forecast: Moving from Services to Encompass Network Connectivity
- Startling number of European businesses unsatisfied with network service quality
Today’s technology-intensive environment relies on communications networks to deliver information safely among individuals and organisations. Yet, as technology has become more complex, a recently released survey of over 400 IT decision makers amongst enterprises in Western Europe shows that threats against keeping information safe have also become more frequent, complex and pervasive. The survey, sponsored by Ciena, revealed that more than one-third of surveyed enterprises (36%) have experienced an increase in the frequency of network and data security-related incidents in the last 18 months.
The country most affected by the trend of increased security-related incidents is France, where nearly half (49%) of enterprises have noticed an increase in security threats; followed by Germany (40%), the UK (28%) and the Netherlands (25%). The most affected sector is utilities with over half of companies (54%) having mentioned an increase.
In my opinion, these results show that enterprises now need a comprehensive security approach to protect themselves from increasing security risks. This approach should find the right balance between three key elements: server security, at-rest encryption and in-flight encryption.
Currently, encryption of corporate devices and data at the application layer are the most popular encryption methods and are deployed by about half of surveyed organisations (53% and 48% respectively), while only approximately one-third of surveyed enterprises (36%) deploy in-flight encryption on the WAN links between sites and data centres. The adoption of in-flight encryption does vary by country, Germany is leading the way when it comes to in-flight WAN encryption, with about half (49%) of surveyed companies stating that they use in-flight encryption on WAN data link between sites or data centres. In contrast, in the Netherlands and France about a third of enterprises (36 and 33% respectively) have adopted in-flight encryption, and in the UK only about a quarter (24%).
Enterprises are underestimating the value of in-flight encryption; securing information stored in devices whilst running an unsecured network is a bit like locking all the windows in a house, but leaving the front door open. This view may be changing though, as more enterprises plan to start adopting the use of in-flight encryption in their networks. The Netherlands and Germany are expected to be the leaders of this effort in the near future. From the enterprises in these countries that are not currently deploying in-flight encryption, approximately one-third plan to adopt the method for the first time (36% and 31% respectively). When broken down by sector, transport (40%), finance (33%) and utility organisations (22%) are expected to lead the adoption of in-flight encryption.
The truth is, today’s network infrastructure is asked to do more than ever, whether supporting time-critical financial transactions, sensitive healthcare record storage, secure government communications, or simply wireless voice connections --- and all of this in an environment of increasing threats. So enterprises will have to continue to look to solutions that ensure the information travelling across their networks is secure, while still meeting the ever increasing demands on their network.
Read more in our Application Note: Wire-Speed Encryption Solution
Notes on the survey:
The research project surveyed 400 senior IT decision makers, including an equal number of participants from the United Kingdom, Germany, France and The Netherlands. 46% of the companies surveyed have more than 3,000 employees, 44% have between 1,000 and 3,000 employees, and 10% between 500 and 1,000. The online survey was conducted by VansonBourne in December 2012.
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In the Lab with the Ciena 6500’s new packet features
May 22, 2013
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Ciena 6500: Extreme Packet Makeover Edition
May 14, 2013
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It’s Here: Ciena unveils its Trans-Pacific 100G WaveLogic 3 submarine transponder for submarine networks
April 23, 2013
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New P-OTS survey puts Ciena ahead of our biggest competitors
March 18, 2013
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Coherent optical turns 5: Here’s how it was made
March 15, 2013
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February 28, 2013
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February 26, 2013
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February 20, 2013
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January 24, 2013
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September 26, 2011 -
Ciena 6500: Extreme Packet Makeover Edition
May 14, 2013 -
Delivering on fully open SDN for service providers
April 25, 2013 -
Ciena's little 3902 Carrier Ethernet switch wins big Cable award
May 13, 2013 -
It’s Here: Ciena unveils its Trans-Pacific 100G WaveLogic 3 submarine transponder for submarine networks
April 23, 2013 -
On the hunt for 100G OpenFlow apps
May 9, 2013 -
BT and Ciena Light 800G Super-Channel across 410km link in UK
May 24, 2013 -
In the Lab with the Ciena 6500’s new packet features
May 22, 2013 -
Coherent optical turns 5: Here’s how it was made
March 15, 2013 -
Openness, from the top down: SDN for service providers
April 15, 2013
