Network News: Zayo Partners With Internet2

Here’s our review of some of today’s noteworthy links for the networking sector of the data center industry:

Zayo and Internet2 bring 100G to the north. Zayo Group announced its partnership with Internet2 to add substantial new capacity on Zayo’s fiber route from Chicago to Seattle. The system will have greater than 4 terabits of overall capacity to support Internet2’s new 100G network. Set to be completed in the spring, the infrastructure will extend the capability to reach the nation’s leading research and education network’s 100G services to universities and research centers in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Washington, and Wisconsin. The project will provide new 100G national backbone paths between Internet2’s core routers in Seattle and Chicago, reduce latency for time-sensitive applications and increase capacity for global innovation with partners throughout the west and Asia that connect through Seattle. "This project demonstrates Zayo’s commitment to building strong strategic alliances with the research and education community and our investment into our extensive fiber footprint," says Zach Nebergall, vice president of Wavelength Product Group at Zayo. "Internet2 is helping to bring substantial amounts of additional capacity to the research and education community via its partnerships."

CenturyLink Deploys Ciena 100G.  Ciena (CIEN) announced that CenturyLink (CTL) recently utilized its converged packet optical platform with WaveLogic coherent optical technology to modernize and upgrade its network that spans more than 50 metropolitan locations across the United States. With the upgrade CenturyLink can offer 1GE, 10GE, 100GE and equivalent wavelengths, utilizing Ciena's 6500 Packet-Optical Platform. The 6500 platform will also offer integrated packet switching which gives CenturyLink agility in the delivery of groomed Ethernet services to its enterprise customers. "CenturyLink understands the increasing need for scalability, capacity and high-speed network services for today’s business requirements," said Pieter Poll, senior vice president of national and international network planning, engineering and construction, CenturyLink. "Ciena’s converged packet and coherent optical technology allows us to provide speed and capacity improvements to our international and domestic regional networks, creating a true, end-to-end 100G network to deliver today’s bandwidth-intensive services and applications.”

Level 3 to build data center in Bogota Columbia. Level 3 Communications (LVLT)  announced the construction of its newest data center in Bogota, Colombia, as a result of increased demand for IT services among its customers. This new, 500 square-meter Premier Elite data center, designed to support managed services, will provide onsite technical staff, high levels of availability, enhanced security and high power density cabinets and suites. "The Colombian market shows a growing demand for colocation, housing, hosting and value-added services," said Luis Carlos Guerrero, sales vice president for Level 3's Andean region. "The trend to outsource these services to a trusted business partner – one that will support the customer in its expansion strategy – is crucial for companies today so they can focus on their core business."

Extreme Networks solutions tested by EANTC. Extreme Networks (EXTR)  announced that its high performance cloud and Mobile Backhaul Ethernet switching solutions were among the first to be tested by European Advance Network Test Center (EANTC) for Carrier-focused Software Defined Networking (SDN), MPLS and Hybrid Timing combining Synchronous Ethernet (Sync E) and IEEE-1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP). EANTC's final test plan for the SDN/MPLS and IPv6 testing was rigorous and included 51 test outcomes with 19 of them making fresh paths to SDN testing. The SDN OpenFlow tests highlighted Layer 2 & 3 forwarding, OpenFlow topology discovery, failure recovery in OpenFlow, and policy based routing. "Extreme Networks continues to deliver first to market and high performance SDN and Mobile Backhaul Ethernet solutions for sophisticated multi-tenant data centers and mobile 4G networks," said David Ginsburg, CMO for Extreme Networks. "Our successful completion of the EANTC organized testing in Berlin in 2013 further validates our ability to support the network architectures required by new carrier service offerings."