INDUSTRY

New Ethernet-optimized optical network interconnects 32 Swedish universities to support bandwidth-intensive research and collaboration: Ciena Corporation, the network specialist, today announced that Swedish University Network (SUNET) has successfully rolled out its new 10-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network, OptoSUNET, using Ciena's FlexSelect Architecture that includes optical transmission, multiservice transport, Ethernet services and network management solutions. Ciena's platforms were deployed as part of a turnkey solution by Imtech N.V., a pan-European systems integrator and Ciena Platinum partner. OptoSUNET replaces SUNET's existing leased network, providing greater scalability, reliability and high-capacity connectivity between 32 Swedish universities to support growing demand for higher bandwidth applications. A robust and flexible network, OptoSUNET will allow educational institutions to optimize bandwidth usage and share the workload of research projects and simulations that require tremendous processing power and speed. It is also the first optical research and education network in Scandinavia to be based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology. The new, fiber-based network is fully redundant with two independent optical links connecting Stockholm to each major city, giving universities up to 80 channels with 10 Gbps per channel capacity and scalability to 40 Gbps per channel - for a total of 3.2 Tbps of capacity - as demand grows. It will afford universities the ability to connect via GbE and 10 GbE interfaces utilizing the Ethernet-friendly transport protocol OTN (Optical Transport Network), which is defined by the ITU as G.709 and is rapidly replacing SONET/SDH as the preferred transport protocol. The Ciena platforms deployed include CoreStream Agility Optical Transport System, CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform, CN 4350 Ethernet Services Provisioning Switch and ON-Center Network and Services Management Suite. "Research and education networks require a tremendous amount of capacity to facilitate collaboration on bandwidth-intensive applications, and Ciena's FlexSelect Architecture gives SUNET a high-performance solution with the scalability and service flexibility required to share critical resources throughout the university network," said Hans Wallberg, chief of operations for OptoSUNET. "In addition, a key driving force behind this new architecture is to reduce operational costs while moving to a network that is fully redundant and allows us to scale to 40G and beyond as requirements change." Ciena's CoreStream Agility and CN 4200 offer programmable optical ports and modular designs that enable customers to pay only for the capacity they require with the flexibility to change services on-demand. The OptoSUNET network will be utilized to transport traffic between Stockholm (central hub) and major cities or points of presence (POPs) and deliver GbE and 10 GbE point-to-point connectivity to each POP and major city. In addition, most university campuses will be equipped with Ciena's VLAN-capable CN 4350 Ethernet Services Provisioning Switch to aggregate and switch traffic throughout the network. All of the components will share network and service management using Ciena's point-and-click network and service management platform, ON-Center. "SUNET is representative of the increasing need for high-capacity networks and reliable connectivity to meet the unique requirements of the research and education community," said Francois Locoh-Donou, Ciena's vice president and general manager, EMEA. "Ciena's FlexSelect Architecture enables flexibility and efficient scalability as demand and usage increases while simplifying design and optimizing operations to advance the practical implementation of customized research networks such as SUNET." The SUNET deployment builds on Ciena's global success in creating customized, high-performance networks for research institutions, spanning from campus to regional to continental scale. Ciena's technology forms the foundation of many leading research networks worldwide, including JANET and RENATER in Europe as well as Internet2 and US Department of Energy's UltraScience Net in the United States. The Company's FlexSelect Architecture enables on-demand provisioning of optical and Ethernet services including GbE and 10 GbE Ethernet lightpaths between institutions, leveraging highly-flexible software-programmable interfaces, intelligent control plane technologies and an advanced management toolset.