IBM Approves Ciena DWDMIBM Approves Ciena DWDM

LINTHICUM, Md. -- Ciena® Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN), the network specialist, today announced the successful completion of interoperability testing and qualification of its ONLINE Metro™ Multiservice DWDM Platform for IBM GDPS eServer zSeries mainframe environments. IBM’s validation of ONLINE Metro was based upon the successful completion of test scenarios on IBM zSeries mainframes deemed vital to GDPS operation.

GDPS is among the world's most advanced computing environments, providing a set of disaster recovery and continuous availability solutions ideal for large multi-site enterprises. The combination of IBM’s GDPS technology with Ciena’s metro optical DWDM systems connects local storage and server networks that are separated by distances of up to 300 kilometers for high-availability business continuity and disaster recovery applications. Either as part of a managed offering from a service provider or for a private enterprise network, this combination may offer a proven and economical means to connect disparate offices and islands of mission-critical information and increase data recovery speed in the wake of a disaster.

“Our GDPS solutions address the key factors that impact business continuity and regulatory compliance: availability, time to restart systems after a disaster, data protection and distance between primary and backup systems,” said Casimer DeCusatis, Distinguished Engineer, IBM Systems and Technology Group. “Paired with Ciena’s metro WDM solutions, GDPS users are able to extend powerful business continuity functionality over significant distance, regardless of bandwidth requirements.”

Ciena Corp.

IBM Corp.