PETALUMA, CALIF., JUNE 05, 2012 – Cyan today announced that the Northeast Service Cooperative (NESC), which provides broadband connectivity to the Northeast region of Minnesota, has selected the Cyan Z-Series packet-optical transport platforms (P-OTP), Cyan 360 software-defined operations suite, and Cyan PRO professional services to deliver innovative, high-speed Ethernet services for the Northeast Middle Mile Fiber Project. The project consists of 915 miles of “middle mile” fiber connecting eight counties, 38 communities, three tribal reservations, 85 townships, and over 200 critical service institutions. The initiative is made possible by a $43.5 million grant/loan award from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) under the National Telecommunications and Information (NTIA) Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP).
According to Paul Brinkman, executive director of NESC, “Our goal for the Northeast Middle Mile Fiber project has been to build a stronger Minnesota by connecting more than 300 critical service sites throughout the area. In order to meet this aggressive plan, NESC requires a strong team and best-of-breed solutions. Cyan’s software-defined metro network solution has the ability to handle nearly every network scenario while also being able to scale as our needs change. Cyan’s solutions, team, and world-class support organization have proven to be invaluable in helping us realize this objective.”
NESC will use the Cyan Z-Series P-OTPs to cost-effectively deliver Ethernet services at speeds up to 10Gbps to critical service institutions, including the University of Minnesota, state college system, State Office of Enterprise Technology, libraries, healthcare, public school districts, cities and counties. The Z-Series platforms support the ability to drive multiple 10G and future 100G wavelength services per fiber using dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) technology with wavelength selectable switch (WSS) ROADMs. NESC required a fully automated, software controlled network operations model, so Cyan partnered with CALIENT Technologies, Inc. to integrate the new S320 3D MEMS photonic switch with the Z-Series platforms to provide the industry’s first operational CDC network.
NESC will employ Cyan 360 for multi-layer network planning, management, and service verification. Using CyPlan, NESC will be able to design networks and services with deterministic latency characteristics. Additionally, CyPortal will allow NESC and its customers to examine individual service connections in real time in order to ensure capacity and latency requirements are being satisfied.
A major consideration for NESC is the ability of CyMS, Cyan’s multi-layer management system, to integrate with third-party equipment. In this case, CyMS will manage photonic switches supplied by
CALIENT Technologies, greatly improving overall operational efficiencies. CyMS, along with CyPlan and CyPortal, are components of Cyan 360.
“Through the Northeast Middle Mile Fiber Arrowhead project, NESC will deliver Gigabit-Ethernet services to unserved and underserved rural areas throughout Northeast Minnesota,” said Cyan vice president of North American sales, Eric Clelland. “We will provide NESC with the Z-Series solution for scaling network capacity as their customer’s needs evolve as well as the management tools necessary to deliver tightly engineered, software-defined, and customer-monitored network connections to hundreds of sites in the Arrowhead region.”
