Ciena Corp. (NYSE: CIEN) says it has added significant network intelligence and service automation capabilities to its optical transport platforms via its new WaveLogic Photonics hardware and software upgrades.
According to Mike Adams, vice president, product and technology marketing at Ciena, WaveLogic Photonics adds intelligent capabilities at the photonics layer to promote on-demand service and resource provisioning and support what he called “tunable SLAs.” The new capabilities come in three parts:
- Ciena has upgraded its OneConnect Intelligent Control Plane to provide more distributed intelligence across the photonic and Optical Transport Network (OTN) layers. The extended capabilities enable operators to offer an expanded range of services and service-level agreements, the company asserts.
- The company has added a Smart Raman capability that automates the deployment of Raman amplification, including the ability to autonomously test fiber conditions prior to self-activation to ensure safe deployment. The result is “plug and play” Raman capabilities, Adams asserts.
- The new PinPoint feature performs automated optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) testing on fiber-optic network spans to both establish fiber conditions prior to service turn-up as well as troubleshoot problems that may arise. Adams told Lightwave the capabilities are equal to those available from standalone OTDRs.
The Smart Raman and Pin Point features are available now, Adams said; the control plane upgrade will be released in the next few weeks. Taken together, the WaveLogic capabilities provide a greater degree of software programming and automation to the photonic layer and pair with Ciena’s existing packet and OTN traffic management to provide greater network control and flexibility, he concluded.
Cable MSO Comcast was able to examine elements of WaveLogic Photonics first hand during the terabit transmission tests it conducted with Ciena last year (see “Comcast conducts terabit trial with Ciena's 6500 platform”). “As we prepare to scale our core network beyond 100G technology, it is critical that we have the most efficient and highly scalable infrastructure in place to meet the growing demand for content, speed, cloud, and business services,” said Kevin McElearney, Comcast’s senior vice president, network engineering, via a Ciena press release. “During our live terabit field trial, the Raman and PinPoint components of Ciena’s WaveLogic Photonics solution were instrumental in helping us recover material decibels of system margin and extend unregenerated signal reach for maximum performance.”
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