Idaho Regional Optic Network taps ECI for fiber-optic network upgrade

The Idaho Regional Optic Network (IRON), whose Charter Associates own and operate a fiber-optic network that serves the state's research, healthcare, education and government organizations, has decided to upgrade its infrastructure with systems and technology from ECI, according to the systems house.

IRON primarily supplies 10/100-Gbps fiber-optic network services to the Charter Associates. The organization now plans to expand its network, with an eye toward incorporating software-define networking (SDN) principles. ECI will supply its Apollo packet-optical transport systems for this purpose.

"We chose to work with ECI not only for the flexibility and adaptability of its current offering but also for its long-term commitment to developing solutions which have a clear migration path to SDN. We were also very impressed with the various SDN POCs that we have privy to and ECI's strong reputation with customers similar to us like DFN, Switch, GRNet, and others," explained Dan Ewart, president and CEO of IRON.

"We are confident that ECI's solutions will meet our requirements for a dependable, high speed optical network with strong management control as well as help to smoothly facilitate our eventual migration to SDN," Ewart added.

In addition to the Apollo hardware systems, ECI also will supply its LightSOFT network management system for IRON's unified, multi-layer, end-to-end network management requirements. LightSOFT's ability to manage both ECI and equipment from others vendors will help ensure openness, interoperability, ease of installation, and management, which ECI described in a press release as "prime IRON requirements."

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