Ciena's new Corestream Agility system provides automatic wavelength switching
March 17, 2004 Linthicum, MD, and Hannover, Germany -- At CeBIT 2004, held this week in Germany, CIENA Corp. announced the general availability of its newest generation optical networking system, CoreStream Agility. The new system enables an advanced optical core network, required for supporting the adoption of high-capacity services at the edge. Shipping today, CoreStream Agility integrates optical transport and software-enabled wavelength switching in a single system that has been lab-tested for 40-Gbit/sec compatibility.
"Demand for new-generation enterprise and consumer broadband services at the edge of the network, such as Video on Demand, storage, and carrier-class data services, is driving service providers' plans for network evolution," reports Steve Alexander, chief technical officer at CIENA. "Service providers that want to capitalize on these services require next-generation capabilities in the core, which CoreStream Agility is designed to provide."
CoreStream Agility delivers agile WDM for new levels of network flexibility and efficiency by enabling rerouting of signals and reconfiguration of network traffic via software. Capable of routing 2.5-, 10- and 40-Gbit/sec wavelengths for long-haul and ultra long-haul (ULH) network routes, CoreStream Agility also delivers an all-optical bypass to eliminate optical-electrical-optical (OEO) signal conversions and transceivers, allowing capital-cost savings that grow as the network scales. Additionally, the system lowers ongoing operational costs by automating end-to-end service provisioning and management, inventory and resource tracking, and dynamic power management, claim company representatives.
CoreStream Agility has already been selected by MCI and the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) for their recently announced network builds. CoreStream Agility is deployed and operating in both lab and field applications today.
"Leveraging its strength within the long-haul and ultra long-haul marketplace, CIENA's CoreStream Agility is a flexible and scalable platform for supporting increased traffic growth and service flexibility, enabling reduced costs at the edge/core of the network," explains Pat Matthews, senior analyst for communications network infrastructure at the Yankee Group (Boston, MA). "As adoption of broadband services like carrier-class Ethernet and numerous others continues to grow, service providers are looking to agile WDM and other technologies that allow them to deliver more customized, more flexible service offerings while driving down both capital and operational costs end-to-end."
Like preceding CoreStream systems, CoreStream Agility provides a single platform for long-haul and ultra long-haul applications, offers up to 1.92 Tbits of optical capacity in the C-band alone and is L-band upgradeable. CoreStream Agility also includes tunable transceivers with optional G.709 and multiplexing client interfaces, next-generation integrated line amplifiers, and 10-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) support.
CoreStream Agility features are backward compatible with previous CoreStream systems. CoreStream Agility also has an ITU optics interface and is fully interoperable with CIENA's CoreDirector intelligent optical core switch for additional operational efficiency and service flexibility.