Why DCI?

They connect to each other using Data Center interconnect (DCI) technology.

DCI connects two or more data centers over short, medium, or long distances with high-speed packet-optical connectivity. DCI is important for enterprises and operators looking to meet rapidly expanding demand for cloud-based services and data.

DCI technology and solutions have been changing as cloud-based and content-driven networks have evolved. Requirements for simplicity, density, and power efficiency are bringing new DCI solutions to the market. With the recent changes in the DCI landscape, now is a good time to re-examine the question: why DCI?

There are a number of reasons customers are turning to DCI:

• Connect content faster: Whether across the metro or the long-haul, you can ensure your network is ready to quickly interconnect high-bandwidth demands, applications, and customers. DCI provides a high-speed, direct connection between your data/servers, customers, and cloud providers.
• Rapid scalability: Quickly scale to meet the growing bandwidth needs of the most demanding cloud and over-the-top applications and data services. Eliminate capacity exhaust and flexibly interconnect your facilities, or connect your data center locations to a variety of multi-tenant data centers and cloud providers.
• Simpler to operate: New DCI solutions are easier to use than ever before. Easy planning, fast ordering, and quick delivery will lower operational costs and speed execution velocity. Streamline operations and business performance and simplify your customer’s experience.
• Quicker turn-up of services: Get new projects up and running and generating revenue faster than ever. The quick delivery with rapid turn-up and intuitive management mean you can build new content delivery systems or provide new services to enterprise customers in record time. Meanwhile, you’ll have streamlined operations, improved business performance, and a better customer experience.

Automated back-office tasks: Industry-standard APIs and common management interfaces are integrated into DCI solutions to enable the automation of labor-intensive manual tasks and free staff from repetitive, error-prone manual operations, while reducing maintenance windows.

Operational benefits
Enterprises and operators are dealing with a data explosion. Cloud applications, video, and other needs are pushing them to their limits. DCI offers enterprises and operators some important operational benefits:

• Lower operating costs: Optimized designs with low power consumption and compact footprints reduce electricity, cooling, and real estate costs. Simple product architecture also helps lower management, sparing, licensing, and training costs.
• Increased flexibility: DCI platforms give enterprises and operators considerable flexibility. Choose from various connections and interfaces, protocol rates, modulation schemes, and deployment scenarios. Plus, you can decide whether to run over new or existing photonic lines in protected or unprotected configurations.
• Capacity for traffic growth: More easily meet traffic growth requirements for the foreseeable future without massive injections of CAPEX, because DCI offers high capacity and seamless scalability to multiple terabits per second.
• Customizable tools: By utilizing application development portals and platform-embedded APIs, you can develop unique and customizable software tools for management and automation, tailored to specific requirements.

Why is DCI important?
For most companies, information is the business—it must be stored, protected, and easily accessible. Interconnecting data centers is critical to provide access to cloud applications and services and improve user and customer experiences. DCI solutions help you achieve all of this, while gaining efficiencies and lowering costs. Ciena solutions help you connect your data centers regardless of their distance, whether they are just across the road in the same metro region, or across the continent.

Why Ciena?
Ciena’s DCI solutions leverage field-proven coherent optical processing technologies to carry mission-critical traffic. These technologies are trusted by customers around the world and across various industry segments. Globally, Ciena has deployed more than 100 million kilometers of coherent networking solutions—equivalent to 130 round trips to the moon. Ciena’s reputation for delivering highly reliable networks enables data center operators to eliminate worries about network failures and capitalize on high availability as a competitive differentiator.

Recognized as the leader in DCI by Ovum in April 2016, Ciena combines best-in-class optics and web-scale IT to deliver massive capacity and programmability while providing power and space efficiency—all in a way that is simpler to use, scalable, and tailored to each customer’s needs.