GigaOM » Ciena

The enterprise needs a better network to the cloud

Rick Dodd, Ciena Corp. — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 22:00:57 +0000

While much of the networking industry today is focused on improving speeds and feeds inside the data center, we need to recognize the importance of improving the networks that connect enterprise data centers to each other, and to the public cloud. If the industry can deliver an elastic network with programmable performance, then the walls between data centers could effectively disappear.

Trying to overlay cloud services on the same pipe being used for best-effort internet is going to disappoint users, and limit cloud service adoption. Specifically, we need to add speed and intelligence to these networks, and several factors are driving this requirement. For example:

Virtual machine (VM) transfers between data centers are increasingly common
Virtual storage is no longer isolated to a single data center
An increasing number of mission critical enterprise applications being deployed on VMs are moving to the cloud, driving the need for carrier-class network security and performance for workload balancing and reliability.
Adoption of cloud-based infrastructure (IaaS) for workload mobility, collaboration and availability is creating more complicated topology deployments and opportunities for software defined networking.

Let’s imagine a company with a 200 Mbps data connection to the world, which needs to make a server platform change. To do so without shutting down the business in the process, IT staff would like to temporarily move the applications on this server to the public cloud. Let’s assume the total data to transfer would be about 10 terabytes to make this migration happen. However, transferring 10 TB of data over a typical 200 Mbps network connection would take nearly a week, assuming full bandwidth utilization, no re-transmissions and 80 percent utilization. Clearly this company is not going to be able to run this simple workload job over this network service.

This issue is quite debilitating for IT organizations, and is something service providers like Verizon have been hearing about from their enterprise customers. In fact, the company just opened a new innovation center dedicated to finding solutions that improve the integration of networks and data center infrastructure.

To make this work, enterprises require new cloud network connectivity options for efficient operations—an intelligent Network-as-a-Service model that uses software defined networking to dynamically provide performance as dictated by the application. In the cloud world, demands on capacity and connectivity are fluid — entirely dependent on businesses’ specific requirements at any given time. The network supporting this environment needs to be as elastic, programmable and, in a sense, “virtualized,” as storage and servers are today.

Using the example above for a 10 TB data transfer, an intelligent network could more easily accommodate these workloads by dynamically expanding to 5 Gbps and completing the job in less than 5 hours without requiring the VM applications to go offline. When the job is done, the network would immediately return to standard levels so that the premium bandwidth is billed only as used.

The fictional company finds this use of the premium network service worthwhile, quite simply, because it makes using the provider cloud practical for this particular workload. On-premise data center capital and operational cost becomes avoidable, replaceable with a time-limited -– and thus net-smaller –- IaaS “rental” expense.

Enterprises and service providers both benefit. Enterprises minimize permanent data center-related costs and reduce return-on-investment risks, while providers attract more workload and demand to their cloud services, which boosts their revenues. More, and more affordable, network when needed is essential to vreate these benefits.

The ability to respond to varying workload demands with performance generated on demand is a key benefit of an intelligent network for the cloud. In addition to dynamic bandwidth, this network must have higher availability, lower latency and greater reliability, as it would be designed for critical infrastructure services. Programmable interfaces into an open cloud networking framework might also be used to adjust for policies, authentication or network events.

This open, programmable networking model can be implemented as a cloud backbone or as a fully integrated cloud and network operation. A single vendor could provide a dynamic packet transport core and data center endpoints. Or multi-vendor switching and transport equipment can be used in the core with data center connect performance optimization and cloud operations at the end points.

Many vendors are adopting an open network philosophy and looking to implement interoperability by using new open protocol standards and application programming interfaces (APIs) with a virtualized network.

With this sort of network, the IT manager will have the freedom to consider resources outside the physical walls of his or her building to be natural extensions of an owned data center. In effect, that IT manager would now have a “data center without walls,” that provides the same user experience as a completely dedicated data center, but on a partially rented, and thus more economical, basis.

Rick Dodd is vice president of marketing at Ciena Corp.

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Verizon upgrades network for a 100 gig world

Stacey Higginbotham — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:06:05 +0000

Long-haul networks aren’t the only pipes getting 100 gigabit upgrades these days. On Tuesday Verizon said it is upgrading the metro networks in at least seven U.S. cities to meet the demand for broadband at the edge. Verizon’s announcement follows the launch of a 100-gigabit middle-mile network in Washington, D.C., last week, and it shows how we are closing in on the terabit age.

Verizon is putting fat Cisco CRS-3 routers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle. The new gear, which will be deployed in the first half of 2012, can move up to 322 terabits per second — enough to download the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in one second. These mammoth machines will be part of Verizon’s upgrade to its core FiOS network and will help deliver more bandwidth to homes, for data centers in the respective cities, to cell towers for mobile backhaul and wherever else Verizon needs it. It will also play a role in Verizon’s network evolution strategy to IPv6, the new Internet addressing system.

This represents an opportunity for players such as Ciena, which is providing equipment for the D.C. network as well as for ADTRAN and private companies such as Zayo and Allied Fiber. Unlike the telecommunications boom of the late ’90s, the investment here seems to be matching up with real demand. Of course, I doubt we would have made it this far without all of that investment and dark fiber to kick things off in terms of building bandwidth-heavy applications.

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D.C. gets 100 gigabit network, maybe politicos will finally get broadband

Stacey Higginbotham — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:34:27 +0000

Washington D.C. went live with the first link of a 100-gigabit network Wednesday. The new network, called the D.C. Community Access Network (DC-CAN), will provide links out to communities east of the Anacostia River, but the ultra-high-speed network will soon serve the entire District.

Unlike what Google is building in Kansas City, this isn’t crazy-fast fiber to the home; it’s a city-owned, middle mile, network link other providers can tap into in order to deliver faster broadband to homes and businesses. The 100-gigabit fiber network will connect out to the big long-haul networks run by Level 3 Communications and other providers, offering a way for existing or new ISPs to connect to the larger web. In many areas, these middle mile links are owned by AT&T and Verizon, and it can be expensive, difficult or impossible to connect out to them.

So while the network may not seem fabulous today, it most decidedly could be. Already, 24 community anchor institutions such as libraries, schools and other municipal buildings are connected to the 100-gig network. As the network expands, the city hopes to link up to 199 more. And having a low-cost, middle mile network could entice other service providers to hook up D.C. homes and businesses with faster broadband access. The network was funded in part by federal broadband stimulus funds and is expected to be complete by 2013.

While many of the nation’s politicians don’t live in D.C. proper, I would love for this type of network to act as a showcase for how important the Internet can be for the average citizen. In many ways, it seems like the Web and technology industry speak a completely different language than politicos. Perhaps better broadband could help bridge that gap.

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Huawei, Corning test 100G over 3,000 kilometers

Om Malik — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:21:49 +0000

Not to be left behind by rivals Infinera and Ciena, Huawei of China and Corning, (a company known for making optical cables and glass for televisions, phones and tablets) have conducted a 3,000 km Ultra Long-Haul (ULH) transmission of 100G coherent Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology. The test was done at the Society of Cable and Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta, Georgia.

At the event, Huawei demonstrated the latest 100 Gbps single wavelength coherent technology and is also demonstrating co-transmission with its 40 Gbps coherent solutions at 50 GHz channel spacing.

Michael Kennedy, principal analyst at ACG Research in an interview with Fierce Telecom extolled the virtues of Coherent technologies.

“Coherent technology actually makes 100 Gbps cheaper than non-coherent, though for now it is more costly because it’s a newer technology. With coherent, think of it as a light beam with all of the light tightly aligned, but with non-coherent, the light would be more diffused. The coherent beam would look like a pen light if you shined it at the moon; the non-coherent would be like a flash light. Coherent reduces the need for amplification and increases the distance. It reduces chromatic dispersion, so you can have wavelengths set closer together, and you would need fewer sub-channels.”

Here are some of our previous posts about 100 Gbps networks.

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Verizon Delivers 100G Speeds to U.S. Internet Backbone

Stacey Higginbotham — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:17:49 +0000

Unlike the cap and congestion crowd, Verizon Communications keeps upgrading its network planning for the upcoming cloud and streaming era. Verizon plans to upgrade backbone pipes to 100 Gigabit per second capacity along select U.S. routes by the second quarter of this year. The network segments include Chicago to New York, Sacramento, Calif. to Los Angeles and Minneapolis to Kansas City, Kan. and follow similar upgrades made in Europe this year.

We are rapidly progressing to a 100 Gigabit world. As companies put more of their computing in the cloud, reducing latency and adding capacity through faster backbone speeds is essential. On the consumer side the adoption of video streaming, interactive gaming and video chat will also put pressure on the backbone networks as more bits traverse the web. Verizon’s consumer fiber efforts or cloud computing business can’t sustain high speeds at the edge without capacity at the core, so that’s what these upgrades are about.

Moving to 100G enables Verizon to increase bandwidth efficiency on its existing fiber infrastructure. By installing new equipment on the network while retaining use of the current fiber system, the company can carry up to 10 times the amount of network traffic carried on a standard route. Optical efficiencies also are gained from carrying traffic on a single 100G wavelength as opposed to 10 wavelengths, each operating at 10 gigabits per second. Verizon’s rollout of 100G in the U.S. will use Juniper Networks’ routers and Ciena’s 100G coherent optical transport solution (check out the video on this from 2008!). Verizon also used Juniper and Ciena equipment for its 100G deployment in Europe earlier this year.

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We Will Soon Live in a 100 Gbps World

Stacey Higginbotham — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:21:21 +0000

Thanks to iPhones, tablets and Netflix, the demand for bandwidth is back, and that’s drumming up interest in expanding and building out fiber networks. Today we think 1 Gbps fiber networks are enough, but soon we’ll need 100 Gbps, and a host of infrastructure companies are gearing up to provide it. Unnoticed by Silicon Valley, telecom is on the move again.

Equipment and network companies such as Ciena and Adtran are reaping the rewards in their stock prices: Ciena’s stock has risen more than $14.74, or 117 percent in the last six months, while Adtran’s has risen by $14.46 — or 47 percent. Other industry players such as Infinera and Tellabs, however, have seen their stock prices fall. But Infinera is about to announce new products aimed at ushering in “The Terabit Age,” which may offer a boost. Corning, which provides the actual glass that goes into the ground for fiber networks, has seen its share prices rise by $6.70, or almost 42 percent, in the last six months.

Meanwhile, cloud computing and connecting data centers to faster and fatter networks has led to a new round of investment in fiber providers. From Allied Fiber –which launched last year — building a new type of network that combines the pipe with the processing capacity at data centers along the fiber pathways, to GE Capital providing $230 million in available credit to Lightower Fiber Networks, a dark fiber provider that has purchased three different fiber companies in the last six months.

Jimmy Yu, Sr., director of optical transport research at Dell’Oro Group, said in a report released earlier this month that:

“[T]here is a need to increase deployments of higher speed optical wavelengths such as 40 and 100 gigabit. We, therefore, raised our forecast and now project that in the total WDM market, which includes both metro and long haul, 40 gigabit wavelength shipments will grow at a CAGR of over 40 percent and the recently available 100 gigabit wavelengths will grow at a CAGR over 200 percent. By 2015, the combined 40 and 100 gigabit wavelengths may contribute up to $4.7 billion of optical revenue.”

Fiber Inside the Cloud

As fiber between data centers makes wired networks faster, the onus is on the networking providers inside data centers to boost their speeds. This means innovations such as Fujitsu’s creating of an all-optical switch that will keep packets that come into the network at light speed in their optical format as long as possible before converting them to electronic signals. This keeps the packets whizzing around the network faster and saves on energy because the signals aren’t converted.

Obviously, as interconnect technologies such as Intel’s Light Peak and all-optical chips advance, the future computing and web world will be based on light as opposed to circuits, but that’s further out than I’m willing to go here. For now, the rise of fiber is occurring in the ground and will soon reach the switches inside data centers.

Fiber will also play a role in wired broadband for municipalities. Last week, the FCC issued a National Broadband Map that showed how lacking many hospitals, schools and libraries are in the U.S., with two-thirds of schools not having access to 25 Mbps or higher connections. Joe Freddoso, president and CEO of the North Carolina MCNC, a non-profit fiber network serving universities, told me demand at universities increases by up to 20 percent a year. Right now, his network “is barely scratching the surface” of its 40 Gbps capacity, but he estimates that by the end of this decade, the network will need 200 Gbps capacity.

The Mobile Ecosystem: Fiber on the Run

Wired communities aren’t the only consumer demand driving faster fiber (also known as more wavelengths). Mobile operators are seeking faster backhaul to support their 4G networks. Two weeks ago, I talked to Stefaan Vanhastel, director of product marketing from Alcatel-Lucent, who said the company’s 10 Gbps technology is aimed more at mobile operators than residential consumers. That makes sense given that LTE networks of today are seeking to provide speeds of up to 12 Gbps, while those of tomorrow may provide 10 times that amount. Once a bunch of individuals at a cell site are sharing those speeds, the pipe taking the traffic back to the larger web has to grow as well. From a DB research note issued this morning:

Carriers are looking to pull fiber to all of their base stations, and 1GB systems may not be sufficient. This is good news for Ciena who remains in the lead for supplying 100GB and OTN systems. More 1GB and above base stations means more traffic and this should be lead to solid demand for Cisco’s and Juniper’s carrier business.

Indeed, Cisco’s ASR-9000 router, introduced in 2009 to deliver terabytes of capacity at the edge, has seen a lot of success despite naysayers questioning the need for that much bandwidth. This latest fiber build out is showing how we’re taking advantage of connectivity to improve our products and our lives. As a platform for innovation we still have a long way to go with broadband and we’re going to need a lot more bandwidth to do it.

e-Book Echo: Consumers Fight Back; ASUS Reader Coming

James Kendrick — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:03:19 +0000

Our platform focus continues this fine Sunday with the e-Book Echo, our take on the week in the digital publishing world. Publishers are learning the hard way that consumers are willing to pay for what they want, and more importantly they don’t like for companies to push them around. That’s what consumers felt was happening when a number of publishers recently stated they would delay the release of e-book versions of best sellers in an attempt to get consumers to buy the expensive hardcover books instead. This is nothing new, having purchased e-books for a decade I can remember when e-book versions of top sellers followed the paper versions by months. What is new is how consumers are fighting back. A few publishers, HarperCollins among them, have seen a number of their books get stuck with one-star reviews on Amazon to mark displeasure at the delay of the Kindle version.

The folks that gave us the netbook are preparing to enter what is becoming a crowded field of e-book readers. The ASUS DR-570 will have a 6-inch screen and the company is claiming it will provide 122 hours of reading on a battery charge. While Eee-Reader sounds better than DR-570, ASUS is raising the bar by including a color OLED screen, and the integrated 3G and Wi-Fi will come in handy to get Flash content that can be played. There is no word on what this jewel might cost.

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What's Left of Nortel Today?

Stacey Higginbotham — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:25:56 +0000

Ciena today announced that it had jumped all of the regulatory hurdles in its $769 million buy for the metro Ethernet assets of Canadian telecommunications company Nortel, bringing the company’s year-long dismemberment through the bankruptcy courts closer to the end. According to a Nortel spokeswoman, the company has some patents and its joint venture with LG Electronics left.

The LG joint venture was created in 2005 and offers IP phones and unified communications equipment. Nortel put its portion of the JV on the block in May. The scope of the remaining patents, which include some potentially valuable LTE patents, is unclear. But as we end the year it’s worth taking a look at one of the first victims of what we believe will be an ongoing consolidation of the telecommunications equipment industry. Nortel’s demise brings to a close more than 100 years of operations for the company, which started out in 1895 as Northern Electric and Manufacturing supplying telephones (and later gramophones!) to Canadians.

Jan. 14: Nortel files for bankruptcy with $4.5 billion in debt.

Feb. 20: It becomes clear that Nortel will sell itself in pieces rather than emerge from bankruptcy as a whole company.

Feb. 25: Nortel cuts 3,200 employees, bringing its workforce down to 25,000.

March 31: Radware buys Nortel’s application delivery business for $18 million. Nortel bought that business in 2000 for $7 billion.

July 28: Nortel gets court approval to sell its CDMA business and LTE Access assets to Ericsson for $1.13 billion after some drama involving a bid by Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry. Nokia Siemens Network was also a potential bidder. The deal is completed on Nov. 13.

August 10: Nortel’s CEO Mike Zafirovski quits.

Nov. 23: Ciena beats out Nokia Siemens Networks for Nortel’s metro Ethernet assets with a bid of $769 million.

Nov. 25: Ericsson and Kapsch emerge as successful joint bidders for Nortel’s global GSM/GSM-R business, and on Dec. 2 received court approval to pay $103 million in cash for the assets.

Dec. 8: Nortel completes the sale of some of its Carrier Networks business associated with the development of next generation packet core network components to Hitachi for $10 million.

Dec. 18: Nortel completes the sale of its global Enterprise Solutions business, as well as its government equipment business and DiamondWare subsidiary, to Avaya for $900 million.

Dec. 23: Nortel agrees to sell its Carrier VoIP business to privately held Genband for $282 million.

Image courtesy of Ashwin Kumar’s Flickr stream.

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Ciena Buys Growth With Nortel Metro Ethernet Deal

Stacey Higginbotham — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:18:54 +0000

Ciena today beat out Nokia Siemens Network to buy bankrupt Nortel’s metro Ethernet business for $769 million, winning the bidding war for the assets that it began in October. A court will still have to approve the deal that will see Ciena, which makes fiber optical equipment, pay $530 million in cash and issue $239 million in debt that will be due in 2017. The transaction will more than double Ciena’s sales when it closes in the first quarter of 2010.

Ciena reported fiscal 2008 sales of $902.4 million (it’s fiscal year ends Oct. 31). Sales for the first three quarters of fiscal 2009 were hit hard by the macroeconomic decline that began in September of 2008, and have totaled $476.3 million. The Nortel assets generated $1.36 billion in revenue for the Canadian company in 2008 and $556 million in the first six months of 2009, so Ciena is taking on a huge integration with this deal, which could more than double its sales and total employees (it’s expected to make job offers to at least 2,000 Nortel employees).

A motion to approve Ciena as the acquirer will be heard by bankruptcy courts in the U.S. and Canada on Dec. 2. Ironically, it was Nortel’s failure to sell its metro Ethernet business in September of last year that marked the beginning of the end for the venerable Canadian telecommunications firm.

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Ciena Wants to Buy Nortel's Optical Business

Om Malik — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:20:27 +0000

Ciena Corp., the Linthicum, Md.-based optical equipment maker, today announced that it’s in advanced discussions to acquire substantially all of the optical networking and carrier Ethernet assets of Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) business. Nortel, which has been selling off its various divisions, first announced its decision to sell its optical business last September. It’s still unclear how much Ciena would pay for these assets. Nikos Theodosopoulos, an analyst with UBS Research, estimates that Nortel could get about $500 million for them.

There’s a good chance that Nortel can negotiate an even higher price. Why? First of all, Ciena needs Nortel’s equipment to further mine the 40G optical cycle. Ciena has bet big on the 100G deployments, which are still taking some time to kick off. If Ciena does indeed get Nortel’s optical business, it could use that to become a bigger supplier to AT&T. In addition to Ciena, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks could also be bidders for Nortel’s optical business.

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