Pacific Wave, an international network peering facility which connects research and education (R&E) networks in 40 countries in the Pacific Rim, on Tuesday announced that it updated its network to 100G.
Leveraging Ciena's (Nasdaq: CIEN) 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, the new deployment will provide 100G network capabilities to Pacific Wave's R&E network on the United States western coast that stretches from Los Angeles to Seattle.
Pacific Wave's 100G backbone will connect all of its major peering locations with other colleges and institutions conducting research in astronomy, oceanography, high-energy physics, and genomics in both the United States and in international locations.
Outside of the United States, Pacific Wave has presence in various international countries, including Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, Singapore, South America, and Taiwan. It has established a presence in Europe via a peering arrangement with StarLight in Chicago.
The two groups that run the Pacific Wave network—the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives (CENIC) and the Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP)—said that by choosing Ciena they would be complying with the 100G upgrades made by both Internet2 and the US Department of Energy (ESnet).
By deploying the Ciena platform, Pacific Wave said that its West Coast backbone will be able to "ride on the Internet2 backbone as a fully separated "virtual wave," capturing the benefits of a private fiber network at a fraction of the cost through managed spectrum."
In addition, the new project, which was funded from National Science Foundation to the University of New Mexico grants, will provide advanced network capabilities, while expanding the use of the Internet2 network in the western United States and enabling new capabilities to participants in CENIC, PNWGP, and Internet2 R&E networks.
Having already established a presence in the Internet2, DOE, and Renater, this is another important win that Ciena can put in the R&E column. R&E are large consumers of high speed networks and these wins, if anything, prove the viability of the 100G trend.
For more:
- see the release
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