The unrelenting growth of bandwidth demand is causing a number of dilemmas for network operators—including how best to accommodate the need to provision higher-rate circuits, both for enterprise private-line customers and for operators’ own infrastructure for higher-layer services. Driven by trends such as storage/computing virtualization, data center interconnect, disaster recovery, high-end video contribution/distribution, and multimedia collaboration, managed optical services of 100 Mb/s and above are expected to double from 2006 levels by 2010 and grow into a potential worldwide opportunity of over $4B per year.
Challenges
The three infrastructure tools that network operators have had to provision these optical services—SONET/SDH, ROADMs or traditional DWDM—are inadequate for those services, particularly if the services span beyond a single metro ring. Each tool presents a barrier to profitability by requiring a trade-off between high value, low cost, and operational simplicity. The result is that Enterprises can’t get the services they value, service delivery is too complex, and the network is too costly.
Solution
What service providers need is a programmable end-to-end optical service delivery solution that provides profitable revenue growth by delivering any service—storage, video, Ethernet, legacy SONET/SDH, and wavelengths—anywhere, anytime; simplified networking through automation and remote programmability; and asset efficiency through converged transparent multiplexing, end-to-end sub-wavelength switching, and shared restoration capacity to minimize hardware and wavelengths.
Ciena's offerings
With the introduction of G.709/OTN networking on the CoreDirector® Multiservice Optical Switch, Ciena has enabled the service flexibility and wavelength efficiency of the CN 4200® FlexSelect® Advanced Services Platform to extend beyond the metro across a highly reliable and efficient regional, national, or global mesh core to maximize the profitability of optical services. These systems share an intelligent control plane enabling network topology and resources to be auto-discovered, determining the best path for service connections to be auto-configured, and empowering the network to be self-healing in case of faults. Leveraging programmable ports, connections and wavelengths together with service-aware G.709/OTN transparent muxponding and sub-wavelength grooming, Ciena enables network operators to provide high, differentiated value with both low cost and operational simplicity.
Benefits
• Deliver new services faster, more reliably, and without borders
• Allows operators to provision services, not networks, with port programmability and Bandwidth-On-Demand to deliver any service, anywhere, any time
• Offers 33% lower CAPEX and 25% lower power consumption per service due to OTN switching vs. back-to-back muxponders
• Requires 67% fewer wavelengths due to granular OTN grooming and mesh restoration
• Provides 20-25% time and cost savings for initial service provisioning and 60-70% savings for service upgrades due to intelligent control plane and end-to-end OTN switching
