OPn NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

What is OPn? OPn (pronounced Open) is Cienas new network architecture. It derives from Cienas vision of how networks will evolve, and guides both the companys product strategy and its advocacy to customers and the market. The aim of OPn is to bend the cost curve of networking down in the face of rapidly increasing bandwidth and evolving service demands, and to enable network operators to monetize new applications and superior user experiences. To do this, OPn offers three key elements:
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fine-grained traffic shaping into a smaller number of locations, while optimizing a larger number of locations for low-touch, streamlined forwarding and transport. In particular, OPn introduces hardware systems optimized for low-touch packet forwarding, leaving high-touch functions to more centralized, higher-cost routers. In this sense, the OPn networking architecture is congruent with the trend in both content and compute for consolidation into a relatively small number of data centers.
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Enhancing scale economics for optical packet transport by  innovating coherent optics for the highest possible capacity across a given optical link, delivering the richest and most reliable optical switching, and taking advantage of high-volume data center economics for packet-switching hardware

I ntelligent optical and lean packet capabilities to scale at lower cost than alternative architectures S  oftware automation and orchestration to speed and reduce the cost of operations S  oftware linkages to allow the network to better integrate with the data center, transforming connect, compute, and storage functions into a programmable platform for a wide variety of new services
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Using open software techniques to decouple software  scaling from hardware scaling and enable the network infrastructure to become a programmable platform that supports rapid and flexible service and application development. This will also allow the network to understand and react to shifting capacity needs, providing greater efficiency through higher resource utilization.

The name OPn reflects these attributes:

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E  xponential scale at lower cost, made possible by Optical Packet networks S  oftware-enabled orchestration and automation, made possible by open interfaces both within the network, as well as between the network and the applications that use it

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Why is OPn important? Cienas OPn network architecture is vital for networks to be able to scale economically to great capacity over wide areas. It is especially important in light of the changes wrought by cloud (particularly the evolution of the data center), mobile broadband, and the rise of the application model for new services. Because of the general growth of network traffic, network operators have been cost-challenged since the mainstreaming of the Internet. The cost-at-scale problem is exacerbated by the growth of content- and compute-centric services, which create greater variability and unpredictability of traffic, requiring greater overcapacity to compensate for traffic uncertainties. OPn reduces cost at scale by:
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In addition to lowering capital and operational costs for large-scale networks, OPn is also important because it improves the competitiveness of network owners. Communications providers and IT providers are attacking one anothers markets with the introduction of cloud services. Ciena believes the orchestration and software-definable network capability inherent to the OPn architecture allow network owners to prototype and release services and applications faster, differentiate their offerings, and/or deliver better customer experiences than would be possible with a dumb network. In particular, the ability to virtualize the network, along with storage and compute assets, would allow service providers to compete more effectively in the emerging Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) marketplace. How is OPn different from other approaches? Cienas OPn architecture differs from that of traditional router vendors in that it does not merely optimize the IP routing function in the network. Instead, it optimizes routing, switching, and transmission simultaneously and utilizes the lowest cost and most simply administered function for a given need, thus reducing network cost and operational complexity together. Traditional router architectures tend to

U  sing the lowest-cost, easiest-to-administer function possible for a given need. OPn optimizes network cost curves by minimizing the number of high-touch, high-cost functions such as IP/MPLS connection engineering and

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espouse pervasive routers connected by over-provisioned bandwidth, which wastes both router and transmission resources. OPn recognizes the vital function of high-touch routing, but centralizes that function into a smaller number of locations to promote economies of scale. OPn also offers the bandwidth and operational scale advantages of intelligent coherent optics and switching, providing more scale for a given cost. Compared with traditional transport vendor solutions, Cienas OPn uses lean packet switching intelligently and usefully because it is coupled to circuit and optical switching

and provisioning, and differs in its delivery of softwaredefined networking capabilities driving the whole. OPn complements Cienas long-standing work in control plane software and both circuit and packet switching by adding a new network hypervisor function for network virtualization and provisioning integration within fully automated operations systems. This ties the optical packet network into the full platform infrastructure, which includes IP services, computing, and storage.
Ciena may from time to time make changes to the products or specifications contained herein without notice. Copyright 2012 Ciena Corporation. All rights reserved. WP109A4 6.2012

Networks that change the way you compete.

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