Ciena Uses Sun Servers for Testing

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW - News), today announced that Ciena Corporation, the network specialist, has selected Sun Microsystems' leading x64 (x86, 64-bit) Sun Fire(TM) servers for its electronic design automation (EDA) platform, in order to improve the speed of its simulation and testing capabilities. Ciena purchased 30 Sun Fire V20z servers, running a standard Linux operating system and powered by the AMD Opteron(TM) processor, which have improved Ciena's ability to design and test its ADSL2+ telecommunications solutions by a factor of four compared to its previous systems.

"In almost every head-to-head test we conducted, the Sun Fire V20z servers based on the AMD Opteron processor with Direct Connect Architecture proved faster than the comparable systems we evaluated," said Steven Rennick, lead network systems engineer, Ciena Corporation.

Ciena Corporation supplies networking systems, software and services designed to target and cure specific network pain points to help its customers best exploit the latest applications and reduce their cost of network ownership. Motivated by a steady desire to improve the capabilities and innovation of its products and processes, Ciena's digital ASIC design team evaluated various existing EDA solutions and found that most lack the computing performance Ciena requires to run its unique design and testing simulations. Ciena's ASIC design team ultimately turned to Sun, purchasing Sun Fire V20z servers powered with AMD Opteron processors in order to more efficiently run the necessary computer-aided engineering applications for its design simulations.

"For Ciena, simulation and testing is a critical part of delivering a reliable ASIC, which is a key element of our ADSL2+ solutions," Rennick added. "The proprietary enterprise license blade system we used previously did not offer enough compute power to run all of the simulations in the necessary timeframes. Once we moved to the Sun Fire V20z servers with the AMD Opteron processor we were able to easily deliver the results and meet our tight manufacturing deadlines," Rennick added.

Ciena Corp.

Sun Microsystems Inc.