Ciena’s New Waveserver Platform Tackles Scalability, Space and Automation Challenges in Data Center Interconnect

Ciena ® (NYSE: CIEN) is introducing a new data center interconnect (DCI) platform that allows cloud, Internet content providers and data center providers to quickly scale bandwidth and support high-speed data transfer, virtual machine migration and disaster recovery/backup between data centers. With an extremely compact design that helps reduce real estate costs, Ciena’s new Waveserver™ stackable interconnect platform also provides 60 percent more capacity per rack unit and nearly 20 terabits per fiber versus competing available platforms, to support surging bandwidth demands of web-scale data centers.

Leveraging Ciena’s experience with deployments for some of the world’s largest Internet content players and leading data center providers, such as Equinix, Continuum, Digital Realty and Forsythe Data Center, the new platform is powered by Ciena’s WaveLogic technology and built with open software principles to enable automation and simplify management. Additionally, with Ciena’s new Emulation Cloud, an open, rapid prototyping environment, network providers, data center operators and developers can test and refine applications before they are added to the network.

Key Facts:

• According to Ovum, overall global DCI revenue in 2014 grew more than 16 percent, reaching $2.5 billion. Nearly one-half of all DCI spending in 2014 was from communications service providers (CSPs), while the Internet content provider (ICP) segment grew 64 percent year over year. Ovum expects overall global revenue to hit $4.2 billion by 2019.
• Purpose built for web-scale metro DCI applications, Waveserver is a highly-compact, stackable interconnect system that provides a reliable, high-capacity link to interconnect multiple data centers within a metro area. With Ciena’s OPn architecture approach and a set of open APIs, network providers can program Waveserver manually or remotely to quickly establish a connection via any smart device. Waveserver acts as a “bandwidth server” to provide “server like” deployment and provisioning.
• Waveserver provides significantly lower cost per transported bit, lower cost per bit per rack, and lower power consumption versus available competing products. It provides a total of 800G of input and output made up of 400G Ethernet clients plus 400G of line capacity in just one rack unit. It also frees network owners from having to upgrade their hardware as they increase their client rates by supporting an arbitrary mix of 10, 40, and 100GbE clients.
• Emulation Cloud is a new, open application development environment designed to allow data center operators, application developers and other third-party developers to create, test and fine-tune customized web-scale applications tailored to their specific needs. Hosted in the cloud, Ciena’s Emulation Cloud helps accelerate DevOps and ease the integration with IT systems.

Executive Comments:

• “The requirements of the new DCI operational paradigm can only be met by introducing new functionalities, tools and capabilities that live and breathe at web-scale. Ciena’s Waveserver encompasses multiple attributes of web-scale IT into the network to handle connections, offer open APIs, and support applications for any bandwidth need between data centers. The introduction of this platform further cements Ciena’s established DCI market leadership.”

       - Francois Locoh-Donou, Senior Vice President, Global Products Group, Ciena

• “Equinix infrastructure plays a critical role in the digital economy’s interconnected, on-demand era. Ciena’s Waveserver will enable us to provide more capacity—and more efficient data center interconnect, using significantly less space and power, which will help us to cost effectively service our customers and rapidly grow our web-scale network.”

       - Jay Pabley, Vice President, Global Network Engineering, Equinix

• “Data traffic volumes between metro data centers is skyrocketing and generating significant volume for high-capacity DCI. Vendors are responding to this emerging opportunity with a new class of equipment specifically designed and optimized for web-scale operators. Traditional optical platforms were designed for telco environments not data center environments making scale difficult. Ciena’s Waveserver stackable DCI platform is specifically designed for delivery of high-capacity DCI in a manner that is consistent with how ICP’s currently build and operate their networks.”

       - Ron Kline, Principal Analyst, Intelligent Networks at Ovum

Upcoming Events:

• On Wednesday, May 20 at 12:00 pm ET, Ciena will host a live virtual event, “The Future of DCI: A Live Introduction to Ciena Waveserver” to discuss its new platform. The event will feature Rick Dodd, Senior Vice President of Portfolio Marketing and Strategic Market Development, as well as several product development engineers. To access the event, click here.

Supporting Resources:

• Video: Ciena’s Waveserver “Behind the Scenes”
• White paper: Technology Innovation for Web-scale Data Center Interconnect
• Product Overview: Data Center Interconnect
• Application Note: Raising Data Center Interconnect to Web-scale Proportions

About Ciena

Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with its OPn architecture for next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment. For updates on Ciena news, follow us on Twitter @Ciena or on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/ciena. Investors are encouraged to review the Investors section of our website at www.ciena.com/investors, where we routinely post press releases, SEC filings, recent news, financial results, and other announcements. From time to time we exclusively post material information to this website along with other disclosure channels that we use.

Note to Ciena Investors

Forward-looking statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 12, 2015. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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