November 8, 2004 Linthicum, MD -- Ciena Corp. has signed a multiyear agreement with MGM Mirage, the entertainment, hotel, and gaming company, to supply its ONLINE Metro Multiservice DWDM platform to expand bandwidth capability and converge multiple services on a single infrastructure.
With continuing growth of network services that included storage, voice and video, and limited access to fiber, MGM Mirage sought to expand its traditional networking architecture to incorporate DWDM technology and to enhance sharing of network resources. Ciena's ONLINE Metro connects several of the MGM Mirage properties to ensure the continuity of critical business operations like reservation systems and casino entertainment equipment.
"We anticipate a tremendous amount of growth in network services over the next several years and were looking for a solution that would allow us to host all types of traffic on a single network while maximizing the investment in our fiber infrastructure," said Laura Fucci, CTO at MGM Mirage. "We chose Ciena's ONLINE Metro because, in addition to meeting all of those needs, it also enables the resiliency we need for mission-critical applications."
MGM Mirage partnered with Ciena, EMC Corp., and Brocade to implement its data center mirroring application. The gaming company's architecture includes Gigabit Ethernet as well as 2-Gbit/sec Fibre Channel transport using EMC's EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility remote storage replication software running synchronously between Brocade SilkWorm 12000 Directors.
"We are impressed with the proven interoperability of solutions from Ciena, EMC, and Brocade," Fucci said. "Due to the vendors' interoperability testing, we were able to validate the success of our application prior to the production installation."