Ciena Unveils Intelligent Control Plane Software

Ciena Corporation, the network provider, has unveiled OneConnect Intelligent Control Plane, its next generation control plane software. OneConnect introduces a new level of programmability and advanced virtualisation features for the Wide Area Network (WAN) as well as enables rich policy-based control more extensively across the network. As a result, many network operators deploying Ciena OneConnect can benefit from more than 40 percent bandwidth savings for service restoration, up to 30 percent latency reduction in highly meshed networks, and new differentiated service offerings including secure Optical Virtual Private Networks (O-VPN).

Building on this heritage, OneConnect includes numerous engineering innovations and optimisations – it creates, manages and restores bandwidth services faster, and with a richer set of policy options, than competitive control plane offerings. The next-generation OneConnect control plane software is also being made available on Ciena’s multi-layer 6500 Packet-Optical Transport platform, amplifying the benefits of a common intelligent control plane broadly across the network when combined with Ciena’s switching systems.

OneConnect supports ASON and GMPLS industry standards for interoperability.

OneConnect also allows very rich policy-based programming, allowing network operators to specify detailed behaviors taking into account network details including latency, diversity, and restoration priority and timing. As a result, Ciena customers can enable their network to behave with greater speed and accuracy, which is critical to service providers’ ability to meet subscriber’s unabated demands for bandwidth-hungry services and cloud-based applications.

Using the new virtualised model enabled by OneConnect, service providers can boost revenue potential by providing virtualised Optical-VPN services that leverage their existing switched infrastructure to offer secure, private line services over a virtual fiber network.

New latency-aware routing capabilities, enabled by OneConnect, help ensure that time-sensitive applications are routed across the network with the lowest latency possible.

Ciena’s control plane software also offers self-healing capabilities to make networks more resilient by dynamically re-routing services around failures caused by natural disasters or unexpected fiber cuts.

OneConnect can simultaneously run SONET/SDH and OTN control plane capabilities, thereby enabling seamless network modernisation and migration to next generation networks. With this capability, service providers can support legacy services while accommodating interoperability between network layers to support troubleshooting and restoration.

“Ciena’s intelligent control plane software acts as the brain of the network by allowing service providers to fine tune their networks to be more intelligent and to quickly respond to changing network demands – without manual intervention. OneConnect is the result of Ciena’s 12 years of success in optical control plane design and innovation. With today’s announcement, we are extending that leadership across the entire network and also giving our customers new revenue streams through latency-based routing and Optical VPNs for new and yet to be discovered virtual, dynamic service offerings,” said Steve Alexander, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Ciena