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Ciena ONLINE Metro Qualified by IBM as Interoperable in IBM GDPS Environments

Widely-deployed metro WDM platform certified for mission-critical storage extension and high-availability server extension applications

Ciena® Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN), the network specialist, today announced the successful completion of interoperability testing and qualification of its ONLINE Metro™ Multiservice DWDM Platform for IBM GDPS eServer zSeries mainframe environments. IBM’s validation of ONLINE Metro was based upon the successful completion of test scenarios on IBM zSeries mainframes deemed vital to GDPS operation.

GDPS is among the world's most advanced computing environments, providing a set of disaster recovery and continuous availability solutions ideal for large multi-site enterprises. The combination of IBM’s GDPS technology with Ciena’s metro optical DWDM systems connects local storage and server networks that are separated by distances of up to 300 kilometers for high-availability business continuity and disaster recovery applications. Either as part of a managed offering from a service provider or for a private enterprise network, this combination may offer a proven and economical means to connect disparate offices and islands of mission-critical information and increase data recovery speed in the wake of a disaster.

“Our GDPS solutions address the key factors that impact business continuity and regulatory compliance: availability, time to restart systems after a disaster, data protection and distance between primary and backup systems,” said Casimer DeCusatis, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Systems and Technology Group. “Paired with Ciena’s metro WDM solutions, GDPS users are able to extend powerful business continuity functionality over significant distance, regardless of bandwidth requirements.”

Joining a select group of IBM zSeries-qualified partners for GDPS-certified WDM platforms, Ciena offers a transport solution that provides automated power control, easing extension in multi-site environments and longer distances, and full redundancy for ultra-high availability.

Analyst firm IDC forecasts that metro WDM revenue will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.2 percent to reach $1.4 billion by the end of 2008. "Driving growth will be Ethernet over metro WDM applications and storage area network (SAN) extension over metro WDM applications," noted Sterling Perrin, manager, Optical Networks, IDC. "SAN extension applications will be a major driver of WDM spending through 2008, particularly for large enterprises. Enterprises will continue to extend SANs across longer distances, requiring, in some cases, the use of WDM technology for extension."

“The need for on-demand, service-selectable networks is growing, furthering the need for a scalable transport and aggregation solution that ensures continuous data availability. Qualification and interoperability with GDPS brings the performance, reliability and storage extension benefits of our proven WDM platform to the vast community of IBM enterprise users,” said Rob Adams, vice president of product management, Ciena. “We’re proud to have achieved another milestone with IBM, and will continue to work with them in driving evolution and standardization activities across our enterprise-applicable platforms.”

Ciena adds the GDPS certification of ONLINE Metro to its existing series of IBM certifications for the CN 2000™ Storage Extension Platform, a leading storage-over-SONET/SDH solution.

Ciena’s GDPS-certified solution has already been selected by a $60 billion life insurance company to enable the connection of data centers across 100 kilometers of fiber for the transport of GDPS and other data center applications.

About Ciena’s ONLINE Metro
Ciena’s ONLINE Metro Multiservice DWDM platform delivers industry-leading high-availability transport and aggregation solutions through intelligent DWDM optical technology. ONLINE Metro enables large enterprises requiring a variety of high-bandwidth connections for storage and LAN extension to build highly-reliable and scalable campus networks on dark fiber. Additionally, carrier-class features allow service providers to bundle fiber with managed carrier infrastructure as a comparable service offering to the enterprise. ONLINE Metro supports distances up to 650 km without optical regeneration, and includes native connectivity support for Fibre Channel, Gigabit/10-Gigabit Ethernet, FICON™, ESCON™, SONET/SDH and digital video with a single, service-programmable line card.

Ciena will showcase its CN 4200™, CN 2000 and ONLINE Metro platforms at Storage Networking World Fall, October 25-28, at the JW Marriott Grand Lakes Resort in Orlando, Fla.