GEANT to Deploy Infinera Packet Optical SDN Solution for Network Optimization

SUNNYVALE, CA --(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - Infinera, a provider of Intelligent Transport Networks, announced that GÉANT, Europe's leading collaboration on network and related infrastructure and services for the benefit of research and education, and operator of the pan-European GÉANT network, will deploy Infinera's programmable and open packet optical software-defined networking (SDN) solution integrated with GÉANT's ONOS-based controller. GÉANT recently validated the solution and will now move forward with plans for a network-wide deployment that will optimize its multi-layer network and enable efficient delivery of very high-bandwidth connectivity for data intensive research.

Together with its National Research and Education Network (NREN) partners, the GÉANT network connects over 50 million users at 10,000 institutions across Europe, supporting research in areas such as energy, the environment, space and medicine. It has been a vital element of Europe's e-infrastructure, providing the high speed connectivity needed to share, access and process massive volumes of data: data which is essential to the study of particle physics, bio-informatics, the advancing of medicine or simply enabling arts performers in different continents to perform together in near real-time.

GÉANT tested and validated two key components of Infinera's packet optical SDN solution, the Open Transport Switch (OTS) software and the Packet Switching Module (PXM). The PXM enables Ethernet and MPLS switching intelligence on the Infinera DTN-X platform, which is widely deployed in the GÉANT network. Infinera's DTN-X family delivers terabit-class scalability, operational simplicity and efficiency, and high levels of flexibility and programmability for multi-layer Intelligent Transport Networks. Infinera's OTS software further enables multi-layer SDN programmability of Infinera networks with an open modular architecture, open APIs and a simplified programming model for rapid SDN application development. Introduced in 2015 and initially deployed for SDN-driven optical bandwidth on demand services, OTS has been extended to support programmability of Layer 2 packet services via the PXM, enabling multi-layer service provisioning and optimization over an integrated packet-optical transport network.