Verizon Business Builds Trans-Atlantic Mesh with Ciena CoreDirector

Verizon Business has deployed a highly-resilient mesh network based on Ciena CoreDirector Multiservice Optical Switches across its terrestrial and undersea cable network. The new configuration provides six diverse paths for rerouting traffic, if needed, on three major submarine cable network systems. Verizon has deployed Ciena CoreDirector multiservice optical switching platforms at locations in both the United States and Europe. Networked CoreDirectors continually evaluate the health of the network and maximize its resiliency.



Verizon Business now plans to expand this project to the terrestrial global IP network in both the United States and Europe in 2007.




Verizon said the six-way mesh ensures greater resiliency for customer voice and data traffic traversing the Atlantic Ocean. Previously, trans-Atlantic submarine networks used ring configurations to provide redundant paths. However, that architecture provides protection against only a single failure within any network ring. In the event of a service interruption on two or more segments of the same network system, no physical cable restoration is available until a cable ship is deployed to make repairs.



"Although mesh designs have been used in the past on terrestrial networks, we believe this is the most advanced design used for an undersea cable network system," said Ihab Tarazi, vice president of Verizon Business' global network planning."



Ciena's CoreDirector mesh network is shared across multiple "working" routes using a unique "FastMesh" restoration technology that can dynamically reroute services around failures using available bandwidth anywhere in the network. In addition, CoreDirector supports multiple classes of service that map service levels to network resources by combining protection and restoration with routing and signaling intelligence so services can be delivered over the route with the appropriate level of protection and lowest cost.



Each customer circuit is assigned a specific end-to-end path. If there is a service interruption, transport equipment switches to protection circuits that are either pre-assigned or determined by the system. Traffic is rerouted to the next best available path or paths.

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