HANOVER, Md., March 12 — Ciena Corporation, the network specialist, today announced that the Utah Education Network (UEN) and the University of Utah have deployed Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, equipped with WaveLogic Coherent Optical Processors, to provide high-speed, high-capacity 100G connectivity between the University and its new downtown Salt Lake City data center, and to UEN member organizations. The new Ciena-powered metro optical network will also support the University’s diverse research portfolio, which requires robust scientific computing and visualization capabilities in the areas of biomedicine, genomics, geophysics, combustion, molecular dynamics, fluid dynamics and climate modeling.

Key Facts:

• The University of Utah’s new metro optical network will connect the University to its Salt Lake City data center at speeds that will scale from 10Gb/s to 100Gb/s and beyond. This will allow the university to meet the advanced connectivity requirements of both research and general data traffic of the University, as well as UEN-connected institutions, on a converged network. In addition, extensions of the network to Provo and Logan are underway, enabling the network to serve Brigham Young University and Utah State University, as well.
• Ciena’s technology will also provide high-performance optical transport to support UEN, which operates a statewide backbone for K-12 educational schools, Head Start organizations, higher education institutions and public libraries. UEN facilitates interactive video and web conferencing, provides instructional support services, and operates a public television station (KUEN) on behalf of the Utah State Board of Regents.
• UEN also serves as the commercial Internet and provides connectivity between Internet2 and the state government and the Utah Telehealth Network, which connects health care providers across the state. UEN is an affiliate member of the U.S. Unified Community Anchor Network (U.S. UCAN) project that delivers network connectivity to more than 65,000 member organizations for the delivery of telemedicine, distance learning and other life-changing applications to communities across the United States.
• Through a combination of grants from the National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), the University of Utah and UEN combined will serve 1,084 K-12 schools, 10 colleges and universities and approximately 866,000 Utah students and educators.

Executive Comments:

• “In our experience, research and education organizations are increasingly challenged in their efforts to acquire, manage and distribute vast amounts of data. High-speed networks are essential because the network is an enabler to local, regional, national and international collaboration. By serving the University of Utah, the UEN and their constituencies with high-speed, high-capacity connectivity solutions that scale, Ciena is enabling the University and UEN to connect to the broader research community and meet bandwidth needs for years to come.” - Rod Wilson, senior director of external research, Ciena

• “UEN's partnership with the University of Utah and Ciena aligns with our participation in Utah's 2020 goal of at least 66 percent of our adults earning a college degree or certificate. Robust broadband and quality resources are essential to this ambitious plan. Our statewide collaboration has made UEN one of the nation's premier educational networks and one of Utah's greatest assets.” - Ray Timothy, executive director and CEO, Utah Education Network

• “The University of Utah has worked closely with UEN to build a modern network capable of meeting our advanced research and technology requirements, including connecting our in-state research partners at Utah State University and Brigham Young University, our new Downtown Data Center, and the Internet2 Network. We selected Ciena as our infrastructure provider for two reasons: Ciena is an experienced technology provider to the R&E community that focuses on understanding our complex networking needs, and its industry-leading, coherent optical solutions provide a high-capacity, resilient, and scalable optical backbone to support innovative methods of enabling advanced research and innovation by our students and faculty.” - Steve Corbató, deputy CIO, University of Utah

Technology Background:

• The pioneer and market leader in coherent technology for optical transmission, Ciena has to date shipped over 20,000 coherent 40G/100G line interfaces to more than 100 customers across the globe, with over 20 million coherent kilometres deployed worldwide. Ciena has a long standing commitment to the research and education sector and powers several of the world's largest research networks including Internet2 (US), ESnet (US), SURFnet (Netherlands), RENATER (France), CANARIE (Canada), and JANET (UK).
• Ciena’s coherent optical technology, a critical component of the company’s OPn architecture, enables service providers to build open, programmable next-generation networks that scale and automatically adapt to handle the changes created by cloud/data center migration, mobile broadband and the growing demand for high-bandwidth applications and services including those that support R&E efforts across the globe.

About Ciena

Ciena is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with OPn, its approach for building open next-generation networks. We enable a high-scale, programmable infrastructure that can be controlled and adapted by network-level applications, and provide open interfaces to coordinate computing, storage and network resources in a unified, virtualized environment.

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Source: Ciena