Ciena Develops an SDN Controller

Ten Four, Big Buddy

Ciena's main attractions were its truck, its dynamic capacity pricing and allocation presentation (just to the right of the truck door), and a vending machine that dispensed T-shirts. There's never a lack of demand for T-shirts...

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Carol Wilson 3/13/2014 | 9:31:48 PM

Three of a kind So Ciena and Ericsson, who are working together on SDN, will now have a total of three controllers in play: Ericsson's original controller, being tested by Telstra, the one Ericsson has pledged to built on Hydrogen, the Open Daylight controller, and now Ciena's also built on Hydrogen.

I have to say it's not clear to me how all these controllers will work together or serve different functions.

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[email protected] 3/13/2014 | 11:43:50 PM

Re: Three of a kind Yes, good point Carol.

I neglected to point out that Ciena is flying solo on this -- this is NOT a joint development with new friend Ericsson.

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Carol Wilson 3/14/2014 | 1:19:43 PM

Re: Three of a kind Okay, folks, here's a clarification from Ciena on the controller situation:

"We will be doing joint development with Ericsson on an SDN controller. The joint development is initially focused on a SDN controller built on the OpenDaylight framework to provide multi-layer control across layers 0-3."

So, to Ray's point, Ciena isn't "flying solo" on this.

Further from Ciena:

"...we will continue to leverage some of the work/development we have already undertaken with SDN on layer 0-2 .... We have also been involved in a number of lab and trial efforts with customers and partners that leverage some of our earlier SDN development."

So I hope we haven't muddied the waters too much here.

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Mitch Wagner 3/14/2014 | 4:55:45 PM

Fills a need While SDN provides benefits, service providers can't reasonably expect to just rip everything out and start with a green field. Ciena's ability to work with existing hardware will be a benefit.

Kudoes for the 70s CB radio reference. Keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down, good buddy.

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DOShea 3/16/2014 | 9:27:31 PM

Re: Three of a kind I think that sounds sorta like Ciena was planning to do one on their own, but maybe changed plans when the Ericsson partnership came up...? In any case, and regardless of how many controllers Ciena and Ericsson have between them, there may still be too many controllers across the market from a variety of vendors and probably still more to come.

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Carol Wilson 3/16/2014 | 9:37:08 PM

Re: Three of a kind I think both companies have adjusted their SDN controller strategies to incorporate the Open Dayllight work and support the 'open' approach. The key to this whole transformation process may be the ability to be flexible and not get locked into a strategy dictated by specific products, even those as significant as an SDN controller.

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[email protected] 3/17/2014 | 8:18:59 AM

Re: Three of a kind And just to add to the clarifications....

Ciena had been developing its SDN controller by itself but is now working on its controller develpoments with Ericsson.

A reference was made during my discusion with Marc about how this was a solo effort by Ciena, but that was not in particular reference to the SDN controller, so my apologies for any confusion caused on this message board.

Ray

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