Ciena wraps $400M Cyan acquisition, further SDN, NFV plans

Ciena has completed its acquisition of Cyan, a deal that immediately enhances its software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) plans.

With the acquisition now completed, Ciena said it will unify the software activities of both companies under a single brand that will be known as the Blue Planet division.

The new division, which will include Ciena's former Agility business, will focus on helping customers automate services. This includes everything from creation to orchestration to delivery--across both physical and virtual domains.

Cyan's former president and founder Mike Hatfield will lead the Blue Planet division as a senior VP of Ciena.

The Blue Planet product portfolio includes Cyan's software applications, including Planet Orchestrate and Planet Operate, as well as Ciena's SDN Multilayer WAN Controller and its applications, V-WAN, Agility Matrix and network management solutions. Blue Planet will be comprised of teams responsible for software development, product line management, product marketing, service and support, sales and business development.

The Blue Planet portfolio consists of a multivendor SDN and NFV platform that's designed to automate, orchestrate, and manage the lifecycle of virtualized services across data centers and the WAN. It also includes a family of applications designed to control and manage both physical network elements and virtual SDN/NFV resources.

In addition to bolstering Ciena's packet-optical capabilities, Cyan brings to Ciena a growing base of metro packet optical customers such as CenturyLink and Windstream, two telcos that have already deployed Cyan's equipment in their networks.

Ciena said that the combined product set of the new company will be able to provide new and existing customers "even stronger support and greater forward innovation for customers, inclusive of commitments for Cyan's Z-Series Packet-Optical Platform."

For more:
- see the release

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