
Analytics, adaptation, bigger and better bandwidth, and programmability are among the most important networking trends today. Telecom Asia has recognized Ciena for all of the above. It did that as part of the 11th Annual Readers’ Choice & Innovation Awards.
Ciena garnered a trio of awards from Telecom Asia. The media company recognized the Ciena 6500 Reconfigurable Line System with the Optical Network Innovation of the Year award. The Blue Planet Route Optimization and Assurance received the Analytics Innovation of the Year award. And Ciena received the Fixed Broadband Innovation of the Year award for its 5170 Service Aggregation Switch.
The Ciena 6500 Reconfigurable Line System is a photonic layer solution that provides network operators with more flexibility and programmability, reduces real estate requirements, and allows for greater scalability. It was designed for use in long-haul data center interconnect, metro DCI, and MSO metropolitan and access networks.
“We live in a fast-paced, app-driven world where users have insatiable bandwidth needs and want on-demand services,” notes Ciena CTO Steve Alexander. “Survival means offering an incredible customer experience that can only be delivered through more adaptive networks that deliver content and services with on-demand agility. Ciena’s new 8180 and 6500 RLS help operators satisfy this need by focusing programmable and highly scalable resources at fiber dense points in the network.”
Ciena got its Blue Planet Route Optimization and Assurance capabilities via the Packet Design (News - Alert) acquisition, which closed this summer. Collecting and analyzing network performance data using machine learning allows for predictive maintenance and better network planning. That means fewer service-affecting outages and networks that are ready to address business requirements and meet application and customer needs.
“With the integration of Packet Design’s capabilities, Blue Planet is now the only network automation platform that provides multi-domain, multi-vendor, and multi-layer support across Layers 0-3 of the network, giving us the broadest range of closed-loop automation capabilities in the market,” Rick Hamilton, Ciena’s senior vice president of global software and services says.
The Ciena 5170 Service Aggregation Switch, meanwhile, is a compact and high-density solution for metro networks. It allows for automatic provisioning. That helps network operators minimize operations costs and launch services faster.
Edited by Maurice Nagle