Japanese network and data center operator KVH Co. is using Cyan's software-defined network platform and a combination of Cyan and Accedian Network metro network equipment to roll out new burstable, on-demand Ethernet services, beginning in early summer, the companies announced today. (See KVH Chooses Cyan for Burstable Ethernet.)

Cyan Inc. 's Blue Planet SDN platform will provide the service automation and orchestration features for the multi-vendor rollout of the etherXEN service suite designed to provide connections to KVH Co. Ltd. 's data centers for advanced cloud services and more. Enterprises will be able to buy services at speeds as low as 1 Mbit/s and do on-demand bursting up to 100 Gbits/s beginning in August, according to KVH.

The suite will include Ethernet private line and virtual private line services, dedicated private connections to the Amazon Web Services Inc. cloud, beginning this month, and multipoint connectivity beginning in August. KVH is using Cyan's Z-Series metro packet-optical gear and Accedian ' MetroNODE LT/GT equipment.

The deal is a significant one for Cyan, and a real-market test for Blue Planet, previously deployed by Colt in Europe and by DukeNet as a pilot in the US. (See Colt a Significant Win for Cyan and DukeNet Takes SDN to Demo Phase.)

"This is the first service they are building off that architecture and they did it very quickly, based on fast service automation platform," says Joe Cumello, chief marketing officer for Cyan. "KVH is committed to connecting up data centers -- AWS is part of the announcement -- and trying to make the network as flexible as the data center and compute resources are via the cloud."

As importantly, Cumello says, KVH is able to offer price points for its new etherXEN services that will be highly competitive in the Japanese market, while delivering new services in as little as 10 business days, compared to the market standard of five to six weeks.

"This is a proof point for how doing things in software lets them move much faster," he says.

Two major areas of new efficiencies for KVH using Blue Planet will be automated processes that eliminate both the time spent on manual connections and the resulting error rate, and the ability to manage across domains, linking the metro and core networks, adds Abel Tong, director of solutions marketing for Cyan.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading