Carriers need to modernize their networks to handle growing bandwidth demands and support new services and applications. Legacy networks are costly to maintain, inflexible, and unable to meet current needs. Modernizing with Ethernet switching, programmable optical core networks, and network automation can simplify operations, improve performance, reduce costs, and future-proof the network to support scalable bandwidth growth and new business models. Ciena offers solutions to help carriers optimize their infrastructure and modernize their networks.

1. Experience. Outcomes.
INFOBRIEF
The Network Modernization
Imperative
To meet growing bandwidth demands, carriers
need networks that can adapt to new business
models, scale on demand to support new services
and customers, and protect margins. However,
achieving this can be very challenging—especially
for those with a large and sprawling installed base
of legacy infrastructure.
Most operator networks were not designed to handle today’s
immense traffic volumes, let alone support future applications
and services such as 5G backhaul and virtual reality. While
some operators continue to add onto their networks and
create workarounds, some are now facing the fact that legacy
infrastructures are fundamentally unsuited to today’s dynamic
networking environment.
Challenges driving modernization initiatives among carriers
typically include:
• Sprawling network infrastructure
Legacy network architectures require additional hardware
and software deployments to support new services, adding
to network complexity and operating costs.
• Inflexible networking equipment
Dated infrastructure that was not designed to meet the
today’s requirements often need complex configuration to
provision and deploy new services, negatively impacting
customer experience and extending time to revenue.
• Business risks posed by unsupported legacy infrastructure
As products reach the end of their supported lifecycle, spare
parts and specialist skills become scarcer. This makes legacy
environments increasingly expensive and complex to run and
increases the potential for infrastructure and service failures.
• Unreliable performance and Quality of Service (QoS)
SONET and SDH networks lack the ability to offer multiple
levels of QoS management, which means there is typically
no way to differentiate between one service and another.
Modern data protocols often are carried on legacy networks
via mapping into SDH/SONET, which is inefficient and costly
versus native Ethernet interfaces. It also adds latency and
jitter, often negatively impacting service performance and
customer experience.
• Inefficient networking with poor resource utilisation
SONET and SDH networks typically use 50 percent of their
capacity for ‘working’ bandwidth and 50 percent for ‘protection’
bandwidth. While desirable in some situations, this means that
only half of the network is being used for live data transport,
which significantly reduces operating efficiency.
• Costly and inefficient use of facilities
Legacy networks burn 10 to 100 times more power and space
than new technologies for the equivalent bandwidth, often
necessitating new buildings and utility power feeds as
bandwidth grows exponentially.

2. 2
Preparing for the high-bandwidth future with a modern,
adaptive network
By replacing costly, inflexible legacy network components with
modern, adaptive programmable infrastructure, carriers can
keep pace with growing bandwidth demands while dramatically
reducing operating costs.
A modern adaptive network simplifies traffic aggregation
and switching. Ethernet switching, for example, addresses
the growing need to efficiently aggregate and switch large
quantities of Ethernet and IP traffic. Dense aggregation across
high-capacity coherent optical connections reduces footprint
and power requirements, increases fibre utilization, and
provides scalable programmability of existing fiber assets.
Overall, streamlining and automating service provisioning
and management based on fully programmable network
components and leveraging open API-based interfaces
allows mapping traffic onto the optical core network in
a highly efficient way to maximize performance.
Defining the modern network—the rise of Carrier Ethernet
By replacing sprawling legacy aggregation and switching
infrastructure in the metro network with high-bandwidth Carrier
Ethernet equipment, operators can take a major step toward
modernizing their environments. With today’s 10G and 100G
aggregation and switching solutions, large numbers of routers
and other dedicated gear can be retired from the network, and
resource utilization can be increased dramatically. With fewer
devices required and a simpler network topology, operators
can achieve major real estate, power and cooling, maintenance,
and support savings.
Key benefits of network modernization based on Ethernet
aggregation and switching include:
• Reduced support complexity and costs
With the ability to replace complex legacy equipment with
simple, cost-effective Ethernet equipment that requires no
specialist skills to maintain and support
• Reduced transport costs
Based on aggregation of multiple 1G services and ports
to a smaller number of 10G and 100G Ethernet ports. Typical
utilization is around 70 percent for 10G ports compared to
just 40 percent for multiple 1G ports, delivering major
aggregation efficiencies that directly benefit the carrier’s
bottom line
• Reduced core IP router costs
Ethernet-based aggregation and transport of IP traffic result
in the presentation of more highly utilized 10G and 100G ports
into core IP routers, saving costly ports on these devices versus
the legacy alternative of multiple smaller, less-utilized ports
• Scalability on demand
With the ability to programmatically increase available
capacity across the network without the need for additional
hardware or software deployments
• Savings through network automation
Based on pre-integration with Software-Defined Networking
(SDN) and orchestration technologies and support for
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) adoption
Download the free eBook:
The Experts Guide to Carrier Ethernet
Future-proof, scalable, programmable
optical core networks
The foundation for the modern network is the optical core.
This uses coherent optical technologies to deliver large
numbers of optical wavelengths, each supporting 100G to
400G bandwidth. Programmable infrastructure within modern
core networks also allows service providers to provision and
turn up new services in seconds rather than days or months,
supporting new revenue streams and business models.
Key benefits of network modernization based on adaptable,
programmable optical core networks include:
• Increased network efficiency
Based on the ability to transport traffic from multiple clients
on a single wavelength while preserving all the required
performance and security SLAs. This ensures carriers can
use bandwidth on their networks efficiently and maximize
their service margins.
• Scalability on demand and faster time to revenue
With the ability to deliver 100G, 400G, and even terabyte
transport speeds and programmable infrastructure that
responds to the bandwidth needs of upper-layer applications,
Learn more about the Adaptive Network

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excellent user experiences can be supported and new services
provisioned and turned up in minutes, rather than months.
• Outstanding network performance, QoS, and security
Based on deterministic traffic paths and protection algorithms,
supporting network performance guarantees for multiple
clients concurrently. Traffic can also be ‘hard partitioned’ onto
dedicated circuits to ensure the highest levels of privacy and
security, preventing hackers or employees gaining access to
data or restricted areas of the business. Certified encryption
capabilities ensure all traffic on an optical wavelength is
secure as it transits across the network, thus enabling
compliance with regulatory needs such as the European
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
• Support for virtual private optical networks
Based on the ability to partition the optical core network into
dedicated private networks known as Optical Virtual Private
Networks (O-VPNs). These provide a dedicated, independent
set of network resources to each client, allowing them to
connect into Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) and adopt
cloud services based on their technology and business needs.
Download the free eBook:
The Experts Guide to OTN
Modernize and optimize your infrastructure with Ciena
Ciena is uniquely positioned to help carriers modernize and
optimize their networking structure. We offer a comprehensive
portfolio of next-generation optical and Ethernet networking
products and software control and automation. We also use
business and technical modelling to fully understand your
network challenges, and to create solutions and practical
upgrade paths that help you overcome them.
These solutions streamline operations and optimise your
footprint, delivering significant real estate, power, and cooling
savings. With integrated network intelligence software tools,
service providers and enterprises can automate services
from creation through orchestration and delivery, minimizing
interventions and lowering management costs.
In particular, Ciena offers comprehensive, converged,
software-driven packet-optical networking products, featuring
our award-winning WaveLogic Photonics, packet/OTN
switching, and packet networking platforms. Ciena accelerates
end-to-end service delivery with software-based network
automation and service orchestration, Network Functions
Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI), as well as a suite of
professional services to help you realize a future-proofed
adaptive network.
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