Ciena and the Metropolitan Research and Education Network build high-capacity, on-demand networks for scientific research and collaboration

As part of a continuing effort to enable large-scale, data-intensive petascale science applications worldwide, Ciena® (NYSE:CIEN) and the Metropolitan Research and Education Network (MREN) have upgraded StarWave, a Chicago-based research and education (R&E) communication services exchange facility with Ciena’s 8700 Packetwave Platform. This upgrade will facilitate transfers for multiple sciences, such as data flows used by high energy physicists investigating particle collisions, and medical researchers sharing massive genomic data files and high-resolution images of protein strands used for cancer research.

Key Facts:

  • The      StarWave multi-100      Gbps exchange, located at the StarLight International/National Communications Exchange Facility Consortium, supports large-capacity, long duration, and low latency      individual data flow transfers. To boost network connectivity and      help researchers transfer even greater amounts of scientific data and      applications, MREN is deploying Ciena’s new 8700 platform for 100GbE      bandwidth interconnection.
  • Later      this month at the Supercomputing (SC14)      conference in New Orleans, multiple national and international 100 Gbps      demonstrations will leverage this network to showcase a variety of      advanced R&E demonstrations.
  • This network enhancement strengthens      Ciena’s long-standing collaboration efforts with MREN, a seven state      regional network, StarLight, and the International Center for Advanced      Internet Research at Northwestern University (iCAIR). The collaborators’ mission is to      develop new networking techniques, technologies, and services to support      petascale science and computing-intensive research that crosses a number      of disciplines including high-energy physics, computational genomics and brain      simulations.
  • Ciena and these      collaborators are also using SDN technologies to explore new virtualized      network models to increase performance and flexibility for researchers. The      work includes the National Science Foundation’s Global Environment for      Network Innovations (GENI) initiative      that supports "at scale" research in networking, distributed      systems, security, and novel applications. Through its participation in      this activity, Ciena is developing additional capabilities on the 8700 to      allow these researchers to integrate SDN technologies with 100 Gbps      services.

Executive Comments:

  • “Ciena’s technology plays a      pivotal role in supporting big data, high-performance computing and R&E      efforts, improving the way researchers interact and conduct complex,      data-intensive scientific discovery. Our 8700 platform enables the needed      collaboration in the R&E community by offering massive scalability to      carry huge science data flows in a platform that is easy to set up,      deploy, and manage.”
    - Rod Wilson, Senior Director of External Research, Ciena
  • “Large-scale data intensive science has a history of driving next-generation high-performance networking because science researchers encounter major communication technology challenges years before other communities.”
    -     Joe Mambretti, Director, Metropolitan Research & Education Network

Supporting Resources:

About the Metropolitan Research and Education Network (MREN)The Metropolitan Research and Education Network (MREN) is an advanced high-performance regional network interconnecting universities and national research laboratories in seven states in the upper midwest. Although MREN's primary focus is on providing advanced digital communications for leading-edge research and educational applications, it also supports multiple network research testbeds. MREN also provides connections to advanced national and international research and education networks. MREN is a collaborative effort undertaken as an interdisciplinary, interorganizational, cooperative partnership. The MREN consortium believes that its research community will continue to drive advanced networking technologies for the foreseeable future. For more information see www.mren.org.

About the StarLight International/National Communications Exchange FacilityThe StarLight International/National Communications Exchange Facility provides advanced network services optimized for high-performance applications, especially data-intensive scientific research. StarLight provides high-performance multi-layer switching among participating networks, including true optical switching for wavelengths.  StarLight is a core exchange facility for the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF), a highly distributed world-wide facility based on optical fiber that enables the creation of customized private networks, See www.startap.net/starlight.

About the International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) at Northwestern UniversityThe International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) at Northwestern University accelerates leading-edge innovation and enhanced global communications through advanced technologies, in partnership with numerous international and national advanced networking communities.  (www.icair.org)

About CienaCiena (NYSE: CIEN) 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 its OPn architecture for 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 Investors
Forward-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 September 9, 2014. 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.