Craig Bowen 
The lengthy-desired intention of community automation is coming towards fact. Joe Cuello explains why autonomous networking on his own is not sufficient and introduces Ciena’s Adaptive Network, which combines the right combination of automation, intelligence, and scale that permits community operators to evolve in nowadays’s constantly moving environment.
Next-gen, smart, bendy, automated, agile, optimized, programmable, elastic. Our industry has been using those phrases for years to explain the end recreation for networks. With Ciena’s latest 25th anniversary, we’ve been spending pretty a chunk of time looking back on the early days — and it looks as if the entire enterprise has been using those aspirational community descriptions for as long as there were networks.
Maybe 2018 is the yr “aspirational” begins to turn out to be “reality.”
Like no different time in our industry’s records, a group of technologies and improvements is bringing the lengthy-preferred intention of an extra computerized network in the direction of reality. And none too soon. Make your manner out of the marketing slideware and into the bloodless reality of actual network operations, and maximum service companies will tell you that a whole lot of their process is still too guide, with more than one community-control structures that require spreadsheets and offline planning tools to make even the only modifications to the network.
Network operators do want more automation to address the harsh realities of today’s environment. But “complete automation,” or so-referred to as “self-sustaining networking,” isn’t the complete answer they may be seeking, as it’s now clear that these days’ surroundings aren’t the equal one they’ll face the next day. In this continuously moving ecosystem, automation alone will usually be revised and reset. It is with this venture because Ciena brings the Adaptive Network to our customers. We know that it’s not the biggest or the strongest who wins in tomorrow’s world — it’s individuals who adopt. Adapt to new services. Adapt to unexpected boom. Adapt to changes in how human beings use the remarkable connectivity you’ve given them.
With the tempo of increase in capability, devices, and mobility, defining adaptability — the right mixture of automation, intelligence, and scale — is frankly the answer to survival—the three keys to (sooner or later). To be clear, building a greater adaptive network takes greater than the industry sooner or later locating the solution to do it. There are real technology improvements that need to be delivered to bear. These advancements are nurtured inside those with the need and enjoy disrupting the popularity quo — to pressure the industry forward to the Adaptive Network.
Network Analytics and Intelligence — the world of Big and Small Data has made its way to networks. We have by no means been able to pull real-time records from the network as we can nowadays. And with all that statistics comes a capacity to run network analytics like by no means before. The result is the capacity to take predictive and adaptive action to increase community uptime and adapt to actual-time changes within the network.
Software Control & Automation — as the industry moves to software-defined networking (SDN) and multi-seller orchestration, real community automation turns more viable. As new services are ordered, or as records from the community indicate the need to make actual-time modifications, it is an open, software program-based architecture with multi-area service orchestration (MDSO) to take these requests and translate them into network movements.
Programmable Infrastructure — Underlying all of that is a dynamic pool of virtual and bodily network resources. Massive bandwidth is now table stakes. But not like generations beyond, this infrastructure need to be noticeably scalable and open, with trendy northbound interfaces that permit greater agile management and control. A programmable infrastructure must also own superior instrumentation to feed actual-time community performance information upward into analytic and intelligence engines so actual insight can be mined. From this, the community may be tuned to respond dynamically to changing bandwidth demands and optimize performance.
From Roadmap to Reality
While the framework laid out above is clear, that doesn’t make the course a smooth one to observe. Today’s networks are more complicated and complicated than ever earlier. The true news? At Ciena, we’re continuously paying attention to our clients and thinking about how networks want to confirm. Ciena’s Adaptive Network vision has really been more than five years within the making, starting with our OPn Architecture in 2012, accompanied by a sequence of improvements that considerably expanded the extent of the programmability of our client’s networks. These blanketed WaveLogic 3 programmable coherent optics, WaveLogic Photonics reconfigurable photonic layer, WaveLogic Ai, Wave server Ai, and Liquid Spectrum. We have additionally been investing in our Blue Planet automation and analytics capabilities, these days introducing Blue Planet MCP, our Analytics Framework, and Solution Practices. Each of these improvements had been designed with the standards of openness, scalability, and protection in thoughts, ensuring we are equipping our customers with solutions that destroy down complexity and permit them to upward push to any commercial enterprise challenge.
Although era plays a crucial role in any network evolution, network vendors also need to partner with providers who have the expertise and revel in to help them traverse this complex adventure. A sturdy professional service associated with the right know-how can foresee demanding situations and mitigate dangers. Ciena Services are designed to do simply that. Whether a community company is taking an initial first step or planning a large-scale transformation to realize the Adaptive Network imaginative and prescient, Ciena Services has the insight and confirmed revel in to ensure the journey is a success.
In reality, the evolution of the Adaptive Network is only simply beginning. This is an evolution that takes years to finish. But for plenty, it is an adventure of survival, and one you received’t must take alone. At Ciena, we have the technology, humans and the enjoy — and most significantly, we have got the force — to disrupt the fame quo and reframe the self-sustaining community dialogue.
In 2018, you’ll pay attention to the industry’s speak a lot approximately self-sustaining networking. Critical to the communique is Ciena’s precise angle that transferring closer to an Adaptive Network is a greater relevant approach that makes a specialty of our customers’ capability to thrive and win in complicated, hyper-aggressive surroundings. Our Adaptive Network, imaginative and prescient, combines a unique set of technologies and offerings, including automation and past, that permit you to conquer the complexity and uncertainty that define nowadays’s international.
