INDUSTRY

Research Facility Deploys CoreDirector and CN 4200 to Create Solution for Automated Configuration and Provisioning of Lightpaths: Ciena Corporation, the network specialist, today announced research collaboration with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville to automate configuration and provisioning of lightpaths in support of grid computing applications. The university has purchased Ciena’s CoreDirector CI Multiservice Switch and CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform, which are being utilized in the creation of software for development and integration of User Controlled Lightpath Provisioning (UCLP) code. This UCLP code will then be available for deployment in optical networks throughout the nation’s research and scientific computing facilities for automated provisioning of IP lightpaths. The partnership builds on Ciena’s longstanding relationship with the U.S. federal government and research and education institutions worldwide. Ciena’s expertise has been leveraged in multiple capacities, including participation in the U.S. Department of Defense GIG-BE project, site deployments in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ultra Science Network led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and its enablement of a connection between Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the StarLight facility on the Chicago campus of Northwestern University. Historically known as a routing and switching laboratory, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is evolving as a top-flight optical networking test bed. Through its collaboration with Ciena, the lab is making strides to contribute to a de facto solution for optical control plane lightpath provisioning, which would allow groups of research colleagues to create their own application-specific IP networks optimized for specific grid application needs. This allows them to reconfigure their own networks with automation that virtually eliminates the involvement of an optical network operator. The university is also working on UCLP extensions to O-UNI, ASON, and GMPLS signaling and control plane technologies. Supporting both TDM and Layer 2 Ethernet switching, Ciena’s CoreDirector provides fast, dynamic provisioning and optimized bandwidth management for research network traffic. Ciena’s CN 4200 is the flagship product of Ciena’s FlexSelect Architecture, a standards-based, service-oriented approach to building next-generation network infrastructures. The CN 4200 delivers the industry's first universal line card with individual user-programmable ports, providing transport for any protocol at any speed on any available port. Together, the CoreDirector and CN 4200 platforms provide the University of Tennessee a multiservice aggregation, switching and DWDM transport solution capable of on-demand support for multiple service types over bandwidth that can be provisioned to fit network requirements. “Through our experience with other high-profile research facilities and our leadership in optical control plane technology and automation, Ciena has proven a strong commitment to and aptitude for providing high-performance solutions for some of the largest computing applications in existence,” said Steve Alexander, chief technology officer for Ciena. “Our collaboration with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville toward establishing a standard for optical control plane lightpath provisioning reinforces our position with this key group of innovators, and helps further our involvement with the growing research and education community nationwide.” “In creating UCLP software that can be used by all research facilities for high-bandwidth applications, we are empowering networked scientific computing efforts on a widely distributed scale,” said John Lankford, senior infrastructure architect at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. “In Ciena, we have an ideal partner for this environment not only because of its long-standing experience in the research and education community but also thanks to its platforms’ flexibility, dynamic reconfigurability and automated management – all characteristics we’re trying to bring to optical control plane research with this protocol.” By supporting dynamic provisioning of high-bandwidth connectivity, Ciena’s platforms enable computing-intensive research between geographically separate locations for supercomputing applications, cluster processing and transfers of large data sets, some in excess of one terabyte. For additional information on Ciena’s government solutions and support in the research and education community, please visit its Web site. *Effective as of 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, September 22, 2006, Ciena completed a one-for-seven reverse split of Ciena common stock. Ciena’s common stock began trading on a split-adjusted basis when the market opened on Monday, September 25, 2006. For a period of approximately 20 days, NASDAQ will append a “D” to Ciena’s stock symbol in order to inform the investment community of the reverse stock split.