Roundup: Verizon, Ciena, Dell, Level 3, Blue Coat

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

SEA-ME-WE submarine cable upgraded to 40G/100G.  A key submarine cable, that connects Europe to Asia, has been upgraded with 40G/100G technologies.  Verizon Business (VZ)  noted the upgrade of the South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) cable as a way for their customers to immediately take advantage of the improved performance and better scalability in the region.  "SEA-ME-WE4 is a major link connecting Southeast Asia to Europe through the Middle East - critical regions to our multinational customers," said Ihab Tarazi, vice president of global network planning for Verizon. "With the phenomenal growth we're seeing in these areas, SEA-ME-WE4 will provide the much needed capacity without the time and cost of laying new cable."  The 12,427 mile system is the longest submarine cable system to deploy 40Gbps technology, the highest wavelength capacity currently available on such systems.  Ciena (CIEN) was selected to supply optical switching equipment (ActivFlex 5430 with multi-terabit switching and ActivFlex 6500 with coherent 100G optics)  for all 16 cable landing sites as well as for 100G transport for an upgrade of the terrestrial link connecting Alexandria to Suez in Egypt. Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) was selected for an upgrade to 40G (Gigabit per second) transmission of all the submarine segments. Telecom Ramblings notes that the cable went live around 2006 and has a map of the route it takes.

FBI selects Level 3 and Dell.  Level 3 (LVLT) announced that it was selected by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), through its prime contract holder Human Touch, to provide content delivery network (CDN) services to improve the performance of the FBI’s primary website fbi.gov.  Their services will also increase the FBI’s ability to refresh content more quickly, improve traffic monitoring, and enhance security while reducing associated costs.  Dell announced that the FBI has selected Dell’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Perot Systems Government Services (PSGS),  as one of the 46 prime service and solutions providers for the agency’s indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) FBI Information Technology Supplies and Support Services (FBI IT Triple S) contract. The FBI IT Triple S vehicle has a ceiling value of $30 billion over a period of up to eight years.

Blue Coat selected by Nine Entertainment. Blue Coat Systems (BCSI) announced that Australia media group  Nine Entertainment has deployed Blue Coat ProxySG appliances with Blue Coat WebFilter to improve productivity and web security for more than 4,500 employees while reducing management costs and help desk requests.  Additional products being utilized at Nine Entertainment include the Blue Coat WebPulse service, and Blue Coat Director and Reporter, which will be used to centrally manage and report on the company’s 30 sites across Australia, Asia and New Zealand. "The flexibility of the Blue Coat solution makes it easier for us to give each employee access to the Web content and applications they need to be effective and eliminates the need for IT to be a traffic cop, allowing us instead to define policies from a business perspective,” said Garry Clarke, IT systems manager for Nine Entertainment Co.