Keeping the Lights on With Advanced Analytics

Utility companies are facing increasingly daunting challenges when it comes to network reliability and maintaining legacy SONET/SDH infrastructure. However, with Ciena’s Advanced Analytics capabilities, the power to keep the lights on with big data has become a reality.

3 Key Video Transport Innovation Trends We Heard at the #NABShow

At last week’s National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas, innovation was a consistent theme. Ciena’s Paulina Gomez highlights three trends from the show related to video transport innovation.

Q&A with Sven Freudenfeld of Lanner: Ciena’s newest Blue Orbit Ecosystem Partner

Ciena’s Brian Lavallée talks with Sven Freudenfeld of Lanner, Ciena’s newest Blue Orbit partner, about the company and the evolution of the NFV market space.

3 R&E Network Innovations Changing Lives for the Greater Good

Ciena's Renee Reinke highlights three developing network innovations that are enabling the R&E community to make a meaningful impact by facilitating collaboration of students, educators and scientists across the globe to further education and research.

Network, heal thyself – with analytics and AI

With the move to virtualized networks, operators need to be able to manage hybrid networks made up of physical and virtual components, and assurance must be predictive.To accomplish this, operators are beginning to use intent-based management that relies on orchestration, data analytics, policy and machine learning to autonomically provision, configure and assure their networks and the services they deliver to customers.

Software-Defined Control – Brought to You by the Letter C

SDN is an enabling technology for network transformation, but it is not a one-size-fits-all model. Models vary based on the current and future needs of the operator, which in turn are based on the underlying network infrastructure. What is essential in all cases however, is that there exists a cohesive operational process by which customer services can be dynamically deployed end-to-end, while the network is centrally controlled with fine granularity to maintain exceptional customer experience. Multi-tier SDN control is the key.

Ciena's Blue Planet and ONAP: Embracing Openness and the Future of Networking

Ciena has officially joined the Linux Foundation's Open Networking Automation Platform (ONAP) project. Nirav Modi of our Blue Planet team, reporting from the Open Networking Summit this week in Santa Clara, California, details the news.

4 Things We Learned at #OFC17

From 400G to DCI to software-enabled optical networks, OFC'17 was full of news and innovation. We surveyed our experts for their key takeaways and here’s what they said.

Ciena unveils Liquid Spectrum: The future of software-defined optical networks

For all the “agile” innovation over the last decade, today's optical networks are still predominantly static. Today that changes with Ciena's introduction of Liquid Spectrum™, which changes the way optical networks are engineered, operated, and monetized.

Learn How Blue Planet Multi-Domain Service Orchestration Can Help Drive Your Next-Gen OSS Strategy

Ciena's Kevin Wade has a few suggested resources for learning how to integrate MDSO into your next-gen OSS strategy

5 awesome new technologies you’ll see on the Ciena booth at #OFC17

Next week is the OFC’17 Conference in Los Angeles, and Ciena is bringing our Ciena Innovation Lab filled with all the newest technology our R&D team has been busy developing.

It Takes A Community to Raise a Network: The Ciena Collaboration Model

From Open line systems, the evolution of APIs, closed-to-open disaggregated platforms, and our Blue Planet DevOps Exchange, the ability of our customers to communicate in an open forum with their own counterparts and with our Ciena teams has become critical. Ciena's Brodie Gage highlights our new Ciena Community -- an endeavor not without challenges but well worth the work.

A DevOps Checklist for Traditional Service Providers

Can traditional services providers successfully implement a DevOps approach? While it can (and has been) done successfully, Ciena's Tim Pearson says there are five critical steps that need to be taken into account.

Visualizing the Future of Networking

Ciena has unveiled Blue Planet Manage, Control and Plan (MCP), providing real-time software control and advanced visualization across Ciena’s packet and packet optical portfolios. Marie Fiala of Ciena’s Blue Planet team highlights three key areas where MCP represents a quantum leap forward in the evolution to simplified, modernized network operations.

D-NFV for enterprises: 5 key benefits

Distributed NFV, or D-NFV, is a new concept for many enterprises. Learn why D-NFV's speed and simplicity might make it the next evolution of how enterprises deploy new network services.

Upskilling staff through disruptive times

As enterprises change how they architect networks, they must train staff. Ciena CTO Steve Alexander highlights how everyone involved—vendors, partners, enterprises—must play a role in skills development.

A quick start guide to the Path Computation Element

With more and more network operators looking at MPLS-TE for Traffic Engineering (TE) in IP/MPLS networks and services and the increasing deployments of SD-WAN and 5G network slicing, it’s about time the Path Computation Element (PCE) was more widely understood and embraced in carrier networks. Here’s a look at what a PCE is, how it works, and its benefits.

Blue Planet Analytics: Unlock your network’s treasure trove of hidden insights

Network analytics are only as valuable as your ability to collect, centralize and interpret the data. And with the growing scale and complexity of today’s network services ecosystem, unlocking your network’s hidden insights is more difficult than ever. Enter Blue Planet Analytics.

4 Reasons Enterprises Love SD-WAN

As enterprises look for new and better ways to connect branch offices and data centers, SD-WANs have emerged as a $6 billion market opportunity. Lee Doyle of Doyle Research explains why SD-WAN services are so attractive to enterprises, and what service providers can do to respond.

Ciena's 9 predictions for networks and tech in 2017

Some of Ciena's most distinguished experts and execs give their predictions for the upcoming year.

The need for real-time route analytics

Why Model-Driven Templating Matters with SDN and NFV networks

In the move to SDN and NFV architectures, model-driven templating plays a pivotal role in helping develop and deliver new services more quickly, says Abel Tong of Ciena's Blue Planet division. Here's what they are and how they are used with Ciena Blue Planet.

Best Practice Advice for Deploying SDN and NFV

Here is some advice for network operators looking to migrate to SDN and NFV.

3 Key Research Trends Poised to Change Our Lives

Ciena's Renee Reinke highlights three key trends in research enabled by supercomputing and the networks that connect them that will change our daily lives in the very near future.