Ciena’s Waveserver Ai delivers scale and power efficiency for data centre interconnects

Technologies and Products

Ciena has introduced the Waveserver Ai, bringing industry-leading capacity and power efficiencies to data centre interconnect applications, along with a server-like operational model. This simple platform enables mass availability of on-demand cloud connectivity and high-capacity services.

The packet-optical platform enables ultra-high capacity connections between data centre locations while reducing network costs for enterprises and content providers, Ciena says. Waveserver Ai also addresses the interconnection of multiple clouds for multi-tenant data centre and cloud providers so they can offer more competitive high-speed, high-capacity services.

Ciena believes that today’s web-scale providers are challenged with the need to bring more content closer to end users while data centre operators are expected to deliver more high-speed connectivity to interconnect users across multiple environments.

These factors are driving surging demand for more high-capacity DCI. According to IDC, worldwide spending on public cloud services will grow at a 19.4 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from nearly $70 billion in 2015 to more than $141 billion in 2019.

Don Frey, Principal Analyst, Intelligent Networks, Ovum, commented, “Internet content providers and data centre operators demand open and programmable networks, the ability to provide ultra-high capacity metro and ultra-long reach subsea applications, as well as the ability to minimise power and space requirements.

“Ciena’s Waveserver Ai is the hammer that hits this nail on the head. By incorporating the latest generation of its WaveLogic coherent DSP technology, this new platform will be the industry benchmark in high performance data centre interconnect.”

Steve Alexander, Senior VP and CTO at Ciena, said, “By pairing a high-performance optical engine with a familiar web-scale IT operational model, our Waveserver Ai platform delivers more capacity with minimal footprint and greater power efficiency for DCI and other high capacity applications.”

Waveserver Ai is said to provide greater capacity and service densities with minimal footprint in data centres where space comes at a premium. Leveraging Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai coherent technology, the platform scales to 2.4T in a single rack unit of space, which equates to 50–100 percent more density compared to other compact DCI platforms. Additionally, with ultra-low power per bit, operators can reduce overall energy consumption and see a positive impact on the bottom line.

Another feature of Waveserver Ai is that it simplifies DCI planning and deployment with a programmable coherent chipset that can tune from 100G to 400G to maximise capacity for any distance – from metro, regional to long-haul. Using a single, compact Waveserver Ai platform, operators can deliver single wavelength 400G capacity for short-haul and 200G for long-haul DCI, doubling the capacity potential of today’s networks.

The new Waveserver Ai will be generally available in the second quarter of 2017.