Ciena Intros Data Center Interconnect for Web Scale

Responding to the demand created by massive growth in inter-data center traffic, Ciena introduced Waveserver, a new data center interconnect platform powered by its WaveLogic3 Extreme chipset and new web-scale software. With the Waveserver's compact design and Ciena's new Emulation Cloud prototyping environment the company is prepared to address the global DCI market, which, according to Ovum, reached $2.5 billion in revenue in 2014.

When compared to available competing platforms, Ciena says, the new Waveserver provides 60 percent more capacity per rack unit and nearly 20 terabits per fiber. Meant for metro DCI applications that carriers, content providers, and data center providers need, the new stackable interconnect system delivers a reliable high-capacity link to interconnect multiple data centers within a metro area, according to the company.

Being able to provide a mix of 10, 40, and 100GbE clients, Ciena says, the solution provides a total of 800G of input and output made up of 400GbE clients plus 400G of line capacity in just one rack unit. Ciena says the Waveserver can deliver 19.2 terabits per fiber pair, with 96 channels of 200G.

Ciena was able to leverage experience from clients using its 6500 Packet-Optical platform, such as Equinix, to build Waveserver. Jay Pabley, vice president of global network engineering at Equinix, said, "Ciena’s Waveserver will enable us to provide more capacity and more efficient data center interconnect, using significantly less space and power, which will help us to cost-effectively service our customers and rapidly grow our web-scale network."

With its new DCI platform Ciena also launched the Emulation Cloud open application development environment to cater to DevOps teams. The sandbox allows anyone to create, test, and fine-tune customized web-scale applications in a hosted cloud environment. Ciena also notes that the Waveserver utilizes its OPⁿ architecture approach and a set of open APIs with which network providers can program Waveserver manually or remotely to quickly establish a connection via any smart device.