Ciena’s first fully programmable coherent modem WaveLogic Ai unveiled

BENGALURU: Hanover-located Ciena has unveiled WaveLogic Ai, the industry’s first fully programmable coherent modem, which the company claims to deliver maximum network performance at minimum cost. With its combination of scale, automation and intelligence, WaveLogic Ai is a foundational enabling technology for a self-driving network that is critical in the era of IoT, machine learning and disruptive on-demand services. Ciena is the pioneer and global market leader in coherent optical transmission systems. Over 100,000 WaveLogic high-speed coherent line interfaces have been shipped and deployed across more than 100 million coherent kilometers worldwide. WaveLogic Ai will be available in the second quarter of 2017.

The company says that WaveLogic Ai sets new performance benchmarks that significantly improve transport network economics and flexibility across a broad set of network applications. Specifically, in metro and DCI applications, it drives 400G single carrier transmission with disruptive power and density metrics. In regional and long-haul networks, WaveLogic Ai establishes 200G and 300G as the new reference line rates for backbone transmission, doubling capacity and dramatically lowering cost per bit. And, in submarine networks, it provides maximum capacity with ultimate reach at distances up to 14,000 kilometers.

WaveLogic Ai offers enhanced intelligence for new levels of visibility into the network that enables autonomous decisions to further improve network performance. Through open interfaces, it monitors and gathers critical networking data, including embedded real-time link measurements, to make intelligent capacity decisions in real time. For instance, WaveLogic Ai helps determine the optimal capacity for any path across the network and can tune to different capacity levels from 100G to 400G in 50G increments.

“Growth in cloud computing, HD video and IoT have greatly changed the way our customers use and rely on the network. To meet current and future demands, the Verizon network needs to be not only scalable, but also have the intelligence and programmability to monitor, control and respond in real-time to meet user demands. The introduction of Ciena’s next-generation WaveLogic platform brings a new paradigm for optical networks and is an important step in our future network evolution,” commented Glenn Wellbrock, Director of Optical Transport Planning, Verizon