Ciena was awarded a contract by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to support the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Defense Information Systems Network (DISN) project, the United States Department of Defense's initiative to transform its global communications infrastructure.

Ciena’s CoreStream™ optical transport and switching platform is deployed in DISA's DISN optical IP terrestrial network. DISN is designed to enhance the Defense Department's network infrastructure to operate at 10 Gb/s  in support of voice, data, video, and transport services among more than 100 key locations worldwide. The integration of Ciena's optical networking solutions satisfies the agency's objective to significantly expand available bandwidth and create an automated, reconfigurable optical network.

Ciena successfully completed an exhaustive six-month evaluation and field trial period managed by SAIC, the project's systems integrator, before being selected for the DISN project.