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CIENA INTEGRATES PACKET SWITCHING INTO INTELLIGENT METRO ACCESS AND TRANSPORT SOLUTIONS

Company Introduces Layer 2 Packet Switching On Former Internet Photonics Platforms To Help Drive Revenue-Generating Services For Cable Operators and Service Providers

Ciena® Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN) today announced the integration of Layer 2 packet switching capabilities in both its CN 4300 Managed Optical Transport and Switching Platform and its CN 2300 Managed Optical Services Multiplexer (formally the LightStack GSLAM and LightStack MXA respectively). These developments underscore Ciena’s strategic evolution to a leading provider of intelligent service creation and delivery solutions for cable operator, service provider and enterprise customers from Core to Door™. The new features will be demonstrated at Ciena’s booths at Cable-Tec Expo (booth #2935, June 15-18 in Orlando, Fla.) and at SUPERCOMM (booth #23815, June 22-24 in Chicago).

Integrated packet switching at the central office or cable headend via the CN 4300, and at the point of access via the CN 2300, significantly enhances the business case for cable operators and service providers who are rolling out triple-play services for residential and commercial customers. By integrating intelligent Layer 1 and Layer 2 technology, Ciena creates a carrier-grade packet switch that can consolidate routing to a few locations, significantly reducing network complexity and enabling a high-bandwidth, low fixed-latency services transport network thoroughfare. This allows Ciena’s customers to support any mix of service applications (voice, video, data and storage) over a single optical infrastructure and converge around IP packet networks without the complexity and expense of putting routers at every network hop.

“Ciena has built a true carrier-grade packet switch with full redundancy, integrated optical protection switching and separation of the data and management planes, which enables our customers to deliver in-service upgrades. We’ve combined these features with the reliability, availability and scalability that always have been inherent in our platforms,” said Gary Southwell, vice president of marketing for Ciena’s Metro and Enterprise Solutions Group. “Our customers can now deploy one platform for transport and switching at 30-50 percent less cost than the competition, which significantly reduces network cost and complexity.”

“Adelphia intends to deliver our services via the most scalable, reliable, and flexible multiservice network possible. This converged network should allow us to deliver advanced services to both residential and business customers without building out separate infrastructures for separate services,” said Harold Willison, director of transport design and engineering, Adelphia. “Ciena is helping us with this initiative. The combination of Ciena’s Layer 1 VirtualWire™* technology and new integrated Layer 2 packet switching capabilities should enable us to create a more reliable and scalable multiservice network. Another benefit of adding packet switching to Ciena’s transport solution is that we should be able to leverage transport and switching at the edge of the network and centralize the routing to major headends, which significantly reduces capital costs and operational complexity.”

Cable Applications
Ciena’s CN 4300 and CN 2300 packet switching platforms enable cable operators to transport and switch applications such as Video on Demand (VoD), cable modem high-speed data, Voice over IP (VoIP), High Definition Television (HDTV), and more over one converged infrastructure.

In VoD applications, integrated packet switching technology allows partially filled VoD server links to be aggregated to full wire rate Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) signals. Additionally, the CN 4300 provides content switching so that programs on any server can be streamed to any set-top box regardless of its location. This is in contrast to today’s VoD networks, in which servers are often dedicated on a per-hub or edge QAM (quadrature-amplitude modulation) basis and not fully utilized, even during peak periods.

For high-speed data and CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System) transport applications, the enhanced CN 4300 and CN 2300 platforms can switch and aggregate high-speed data to fully fill GbE ports on Internet routers, reducing the number of expensive router ports required. The CN 4300 also works with the CN 2200 Managed Optical Services Multiplexer (formerly LightStack MX) for mixed applications where intelligent Layer 2 operations are concentrated to a few locations. This solution delivers flexibility and cost optimization in network designs by allowing all traffic to be brought back on VirtualWire channels to a centralized integrated Layer 2 switching function.

VoIP traffic can be cost-effectively switched and sent on to voice gateways and call management servers. Separate signaling and bearer VLANs can be set up to facilitate efficient centralized or distributed call routing schemes. This minimizes end-to-end latency by reducing the number of routing hops and leads to higher voice quality. Microsecond restoration techniques allow line cuts to go unnoticed by callers instead of dropping calls, as typically happens with today’s distributed routing approach.

These “multiple services” can be delivered over the same CN 4300 device and over the same network links with minimal engineering effort by leveraging Ciena’s intelligent VirtualWire technology – removing cross-service bandwidth contention and allowing different operations groups to manage the transport of each service type.

Service Provider Applications
In today’s telecom data networks, carriers can utilize Ciena’s integrated packet switching solutions to mix private line and virtual private line services over the same infrastructure starting with the customer demarcation (CN 2300 for multiservice access) back through the central office (CN 4300 for service aggregation). Services are converged on the same optical network but are kept separate and secure when carried with Ciena’s VirtualWire technology.

With the new packet switching capabilities, private line circuits can be directly mapped onto VirtualWire channels with fixed bandwidth and fixed low latency, while virtual private line traffic can be multiplexed onto shared bandwidth channels (VLAN and/or MPLS tagged on the CN 4300). VirtualWire channels keep each traffic type separate, preserving true private line characteristics and service level agreements (SLAs), while allowing other channels to be oversubscribed to increase traffic utilization. The new enhancements will enable service providers to maximize revenue per line by adding virtual circuit traffic with lower SLA requirements over the same fiber as private line traffic.

The CN 2300 enables Layer 2 switching through a software upgrade. This greatly simplifies delivery of private line and virtual private line services to multiple customers in the same building. Today, carriers typically deploy multiple devices on separate fiber facilities. Device stocking, sparing, provisioning, and operation, administration and maintenance (OAM) costs can be greatly reduced by using a single standard device. The CN 2300 feeds into the CN 4300 at the central office where virtual private line services from the access links can be aggregated and switched for hand off to VPNs or other value-added service networks. Private line traffic at the channel level can be switched to its appropriate destination. End-to-end circuits can be set-up simply by configuring each endpoint on a point-and-click basis via ON-Center® NCS (formerly LightStack NCS).

Specifications and Availability
The CN 4300 and CN 2300 platforms were specifically designed for the cable and telco triple plays. The CN 4300’s key differentiators include multiple strict priority queues for video and VoIP, avoidance of head of line blocking, and seven microsecond device transit latency – providing greater link utilization and the application-specific QoS (Quality of Service) required for a converged, multiservice network. CN 2300 features include a software-provisionable integrated Layer 2 switch function per module. The CN 2300 delivers port-based rate limiting and the ability to mix Layer 1 and Layer 2 modules in the same chassis, which enables customers to securely share the same fiber access link without forcing service multiplexing, bandwidth contention and increased transit latency.

The CN 2300 packet switching capabilities are available now. Packet switching capabilities on the CN 4300 have been in customer trials since late 2003 and are expected to be available in the third calendar quarter of this year.

* VirtualWire is a breakthrough, patented technology from Ciena that allows for the simple, but contention-free multiplexing of Ethernet, storage or other data services on a common wavelength. The end result is transit delay (latency) of less than seven microseconds and essentially zero delay variation (jitter) – for up to 100 percent line utilization. For cable operators and service providers, this means any application can be transmitted with the highest service quality automatically.