Norfolk Southern selects CIENA's ONLINE Transport optical data networking solution

CIENA Corp., a provider of intelligent optical networking systems and software, announced that Norfolk Southern Corp., one of the nation's transportation companies, has selected CIENA's ONLINE Transport metropolitan DWDM platform to support multiple services for its internal telecommunications network.

Norfolk Southern deploys data centers to manage transportation, e-commerce, and other corporate data applications. CIENA's ONLINE Transport provides Norfolk Southern increased network capacity and optical protection for mainframe and client server systems between multiple data centers and large campus environments. Norfolk Southern has deployed the ONLINE Transport platform to provide for disaster recovery and normal operations of these transportation, e-commerce, and corporate applications.

According to Dexter Grindstaff, manager of network systems for Norfolk Southern, CIENA delivered the density and variety of services Norfolk Southern required to build and manage a resilient, multi-protocol metropolitan optical network by utilizing native transport ESCON, Fibre Channel, SONET, and Gigabit Ethernet capabilities on a single platform. The ONLINE Transport platform provides cost-effective and reliable network architectures to help Norfolk Southern ensure client satisfaction with efficient delivery, control and safety.

ONLINE Transport's ability to handle high channel counts will interconnect Unix servers in support of critical web-based business ordering, tracking, and billing applications, allowing customers to efficiently manage their rail traffic.

The ONLINE architecture, equipped with optical add/drop multiplex capabilities, significantly reduces the number of required nodes and ports on the network while improving overall resiliency (less than 50 milliseconds). CIENA's next-generation solution, including dynamic optical power management, also grants Norfolk Southern the growth flexibility to readily add services, channels and nodes with minimal manual effort required.

For more information about CIENA Corp. (Linthicum, MD), visit the company's website at www.ciena.com.