In an effort to provide service providers with an alternative to routers for packet service transport and cross-connect, Cyan – a supplier of software-defined metro network solutions – has introduced a significant upgrade to its Z-Series platform and G.709 optical transport network (OTN) switch fabric that improves the economics for router bypass in metro software-defined networks (SDN).

In a statement, Michael Hatfield, president at Cyan said, "Routers play an important role in the network, but the majority of services does not require routing and can be offloaded to reduce costs and simplify operations. Our Z-Series platforms and SDN software are helping more than 100 service providers around the world achieve these goals in a variety of applications."

Cyan’s Z-Series are "purpose-built" packet-optical transport platforms that support the aggregation and grooming of packet, SONET/SDH, OTN and wavelength services, natively in individual, highly-integrated platforms.

Some of the significant upgrades to the Z-Series platform include a new Cyan XC-2800; a multi-terabit packet; and G.709 OTN switch fabric for the Z-Series packet-optical transport platforms (P-OTP), which enables up to 2.8 Tbps of packet switching and cross-connect capacity per shelf.

The Cyan Z77 XC-2800 packet, OTN and packet flow-based switch fabric modules support an array of packet, SONET/SDH, G.709 OTN and DWDM/ROADM (News - Alert) service modules. The modular XC-2800 switch fabric enables Z-Series customers to add scalable packet-optical switching to existing Z77 platforms.

Completing a Cyan solution set for simplifying metro networks, the XC-2800 multi-layer switch fabric eliminates expensive routers. Additionally, the new enhancements will provide service providers with a compelling alternative to routers for packet service transport and cross-connect.

XC-2800 multi-layer switch fabric also provides an end-to-end architecture with superior performance and economics compared to traditional router-centric approaches.

According to Cyan, the Z77 platform and XC-2800 switch fabric support up to 200 Gbps per slot of full duplex, non-blocking packet and/or OTN services concurrently across all 14 service slots for a total of 2.8 Tbps of switch capacity.

Officials with Cyan said the combination of the Cyan Z77 XC-2800 switch fabric and a new TSW-10G10 switching module facilitates high-density, non-blocking switching and aggregation of 10 gigabit Ethernet backhaul services. This in turn eliminates the need to use metro-core routers for large-scale aggregation.

This capability, along with existing edge aggregation and grooming of packet and OTN services across other Z-Series platforms, provisions for a distributed network-wide, multi-service switch fabric under centralized software control.

TDS Telecommunications, a service provider, has been leveraging Cyan’s solution for more than two years now.

"This is exactly the functionality we need to more efficiently scale our networks and operations,” said Ken Paker, vice president of engineering and architecture, TDS Telecommunications. “We're not putting routers into places we otherwise would have. People talk about replacing routers. We avoid putting more in altogether."

In recent news, Cyan was once again recognized by The Wall Street Journal on its "Next Big Thing" listing of the top 50 private companies in the U.S.