Ciena outlined its "Liquid Spectrum" vision for empowering network operators to tune, control and dynamically adjust optical capacity in an on-demand world.
Liquid Spectrum will encompass a series of next-generation optical and software technologies, including Ciena’s reconfigurable photonic layer, WaveLogic Ai coherent optics, Blue Planet Manage, Control and Plan (MCP), and new advanced software applications. Liquid Spectrum will use APIs and standard interfaces to support operators’ requirements for an accessible, open architecture. Ciena said its Liquid Spectrum helps ensure the ideal amount of bandwidth is used at any given time.
In its initial introduction, Liquid Spectrum will feature advanced software applications including:
- Performance Meter helps operators proactively ensure optimal system performance by providing access, for the first time, to real-time, accurate planning data for both the existing hardware and new planned services.
- Bandwidth Optimizer uses customer-defined service policies and suggests the ideal capacity, hardware configuration and spectral placement for any channel, across any network path.
- Liquid Restoration increases service availability with flexible adjustment of deployed coherent optical capacity as needed to route affected services across any available path in the network.
- Wave-Line Synchronizer accelerates service provisioning, reduces manual provisioning steps and eliminates associated human errors across multi-vendor optical deployments.
Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai and Blue Planet MCP – two key elements of Liquid Spectrum – will be available in the second quarter of 2017. Liquid Spectrum and its initial software applications are slated for delivery by the end of this year.
“There was a time when network operators could easily predict their network traffic demands and capacity needs at any given time. But we’ve entered a new world with new rules where networks are more complex and mobile and cloud applications can disrupt overnight. With Liquid Spectrum, we are sharing our full vision and blueprint for the way future optical networks should be built to tackle the challenges of the next 10 years and beyond,” stated Steve Alexander, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Ciena.
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