How GeoMesh Extreme Works

GeoMesh Extreme is an end-to-end network architecture, overland and undersea, that unites hardware, software, and professional services to enable submarine network operators to scale their information-carrying capabilities, protect terabits of traffic from inevitable cable faults, and lower the total cost of network ownership to protect both revenues and margins.

How GeoMesh Extreme changes the game

GeoMesh Extreme is built upon four main components: transport, switching, management, and professional services. Transport includes Ciena’s WaveLogic^™ family of coherent modems on 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and Waveserver^®, Liquid Spectrum™, and integrated test capabilities. Switching includes Ciena’s 5430 Packet-Optical Platform, 6500 Family, 8700 Packetwave^® Platform, 8180 Coherent Networking Platform, and intelligent control plane. Management includes Ciena’s OneControl Unified Management System, Ciena’s Manage, Control, and Plan (MCP), and Blue Planet^® automation software portfolio. Finally, Ciena Services and Blue Planet Services are also included to support submarine cable operators with their unique business needs.

With more than 99 percent of the world’s intercontinental electronic communications traffic and over US$10 trillion worth of transactions carried by submarine cables every day, the critical nature of this infrastructure simply cannot be overstated. With global bandwidth consumption set to grow at approximately 40 percent CAGR for the foreseeable future in all submarine corridors, there are three core challenges you'll face in managing your submarine network assets:

Keeping up with voracious and ongoing global bandwidth growth
Protecting multiple terabits of traffic and avoiding outages from inevitable faults
Safeguarding revenues and margins while combating ongoing price erosion

Ciena created GeoMesh Extreme to directly solve these daunting challenges.

How GeoMesh Extreme is being used and rolled out

Submarine cable operators are turning to GeoMesh Extreme for its unique architecture that leverages both submarine, terrestrial, and cloud technologies. For example, GeoMesh Extreme brings intelligent SDN capabilities to submarine networks—leveraging functions such as analytics and machine learning to proactively address equipment faults before they occur.

Other GeoMesh Extreme features and services include:

SLA Portal, which dramatically improves customer satisfaction and retention by providing transparent visualization of service performance. Customers can self-diagnose network service health and verify SLA performance assurance.
PinPoint C-OTDR, which provides visibility into the performance of multiple segments and systems of submerged plant. It also enables remote access to C-OTDRs in various sites, from a centralized NOC/data center.
Ciena’s Managed Services, which extend your customers’ business with the networking skills and experience required to manage their network infrastructure, provision bandwidth growth, and minimize network downtime that impacts critical business processes.
Network Health Predictor, which utilizes big data analytics to enable you to proactively identify and address areas where network issues might occur.
Topology Discovery, which ensures you can utilize the network to maximum capacity by revealing actual network connectivity, stitching circuits, and identifying stranded bandwidth.
Alarm Correlation, which groups events to reduce the number of issues you need to investigate. It identities related alarms and targets them simultaneously so you can spend less time troubleshooting.

How Ciena helps

In 2013, Ciena changed the game with the introduction of GeoMesh, which pioneered PoP-to-PoP networking. GeoMesh erased traditional submarine-terrestrial network demarcation points, which became legacy relics, in cable landing stations. In doing so, Ciena revolutionized how end-to-end networks—overland and oversea—are designed, deployed, and maintained.

Ciena then took this revolutionary architecture to the extreme with the launch of GeoMesh Extreme. The newest generation improves upon its forerunner by incorporating several enhancements such as WaveLogic 5, MCP, Blue Planet Analytics, packet switching, Ciena Services and Blue Planet Services. With this enhanced and open submarine network solution, cable operators can mix-and-match any components they desire—enabling broader choice and truly Open Cables, a foundation we set with our TE SubCom partnership alliance.

Ciena understands that one size does not fit all, so cable operators can build customized solutions by choosing only the GeoMesh Extreme components they require for purpose-built networks that address specific market requirements.

With GeoMesh Extreme in your arsenal, you’ll be able to optimize and monetize submarine assets by designing your network exactly as you want it, from PoP-to-PoP. You’ll keep up with voracious global bandwidth growth, protect multiple terabits of traffic, avoid outages that come from inevitable faults, and protect your revenues and margins by combating ongoing price erosion. GeoMesh Extreme changes the submarine networking game, again.