New scalable, programmable 100G network expands capacity to support Iceland’s growing green data center industry

Ciena® Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), the network specialist, today announced that Farice, the main provider of international capacity from Iceland to mainland Europe, has deployed Ciena’s 100G coherent optical transport technology to upgrade its submarine cable system that connects Iceland and Scotland. With Ciena’s converged packet optical and GeoMesh solutions, Farice will be able to satisfy the growing and unpredictable bandwidth demands of both its traditional telecommunications carrier customers, as well as the rapidly growing Icelandic data center industry being driven by Iceland’s low cost and green energy sources.

Key Facts:

  • Farice operates submarine cables between Iceland and both Scotland and Denmark. The company is the main provider of wholesale capacity in and out of Iceland and operates a city-to-city network in five European countries. The network is optimized for delivery of wholesale capacity to service providers, content providers, cloud service providers, and data center customers.
  • Farice selected Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, powered by 100G WaveLogic 3 Coherent Optical Processors, and GeoMesh optical bypass for deployment on its 1,200 km submarine cable system, FARICE-1, and almost 800 km of terrestrial backhaul network where Ciena is the alien wavelength. This will provide high-bandwidth connectivity between Reykjavik and Keflavik, Iceland to Dunnet Bay, Scotland. It will also enable Farice to provide high-speed, reliable and flexible on-demand service delivery.
  • Ciena’s GeoMesh solution incorporates an all-optical network design to connect submarine and terrestrial segments into a single seamless link, with high-capacity optical signals carried as foreign wavelengths over the existing terrestrial backhaul network, reducing capital and operational expenses – savings that allow Farice to offer its customers higher capacity at more competitive prices. By allowing Farice to use the same technologies over land and undersea, it can efficiently interconnect its points of presence and service switching centers, with end-to-end service provisioning to make the global network operate as a single, unified network.
  • Additionally, GeoMesh’s simplified all-optical design delivers lower power consumption, therefore supporting Iceland’s green data center goals, while also supporting lower latency to improve connectivity between Iceland’s data centers and the rest of the world.
  • Farice will also leverage Ciena’s advanced management solution for simplified low-touch service activation, which provides rapid service delivery, comprehensive service visualization and network monitoring.
  • This deployment builds on an earlier agreement between the two companies to enhance Farice’s submarine cable system DANICE, which connects Iceland with Denmark. The DANICE upgrade was completed in January 2013.

Executive Comments:

  • “To serve the needs of our growing data center and traditional telecommunications customers, we need to be able to offer maximum bandwidth, lower latencies and seamless scalability, while maintaining our higher uptimes. After extensive lab and field testing, it was clear that Ciena’s coherent optical technology and GeoMesh solution is the best option to meet our requirements because we can leverage our existing assets.”
    -   Örn Orrason, vice president of sales and business development at Farice
  • “Ciena’s 100G-based GeoMesh solution allows Farice to create a seamless network of terrestrial and submarine links that is more responsive, resilient and scalable, with less incurred network latency. In addition, by applying Ciena’s OPn architecture approach, we are showing how network operators can enjoy the benefits of a flexible network that has the ability to automatically adapt to changing conditions, making it possible to safely and easily add 100G services to its existing cables.”
    -   Ed McCormack, vice president and general manager, Submarine Systems at Ciena

Ciena at Submarine Networks World:

  • Ciena is exhibiting at Submarine Networks World 2013 in Singapore this week in booth A7. Karl Horne, Ciena’s chief technology officer for the Asia Pacific region, will give a presentation on “Global Network Evolution from Land to Sea” on Wednesday, September 11 at 1:40 p.m. Horne will also participate in a panel entitled “100G Technology, What’s Next” on Thursday, September 12 at 9:20 a.m.

Technology Background:

  • Ciena's latest generation of WaveLogic Coherent Optical Processors allow network operators to maximize reach, capacity, flexibility, and reliability of their submarine networks with an operational focus on ease-of-deployment, cost efficiency, and protection of network investments. WaveLogic leverages industry-leading optical networking technology advancements that together offer network operators several key benefits, over and above simply moving to 100G line rates.
  • Ciena’s OPn network architecture for building next-gen networks combines optical and packet networking with software programmability and open interfaces.
  • Ciena is the pioneer and market leader of coherent optical technology with 27,000 coherent 40G/100G line interfaces shipped to over 150 customers across the globe, with more than 25 million coherent kilometers deployed.

Supporting Resources:

About FariceFarice operates a city to city network in five European countries.  The network is optimized for delivery wholesale capacity to service providers, content providers, cloud service providers and data center customers.  Further information about Farice and its services can be found by visiting www.farice.is.

About Ciena
Ciena is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with OPn, its approach for building open next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. For updates on Ciena news, follow us on Twitter @Ciena or on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/ciena. Investors are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website at www.ciena.com/investors, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other disclosure channels that we use.

Note to Ciena InvestorsForward-looking statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 12, 2013. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.