Analytics Evolves on Ciena’s Blue Planet

Ciena today announced plans to enhance its Blue Planet orchestration software and move into an additional line of business.  They have added Analytics to the mix, enabling network operators in monitoring and understanding how their networks are actually operating. 

Basically, Blue Planet Analytics is the engine that collects and preprocesses raw operational data from devices throughout the network.  That then forms the basis for additional services that can take that data and do something with it.

Ciena is then simultaneously announcing what it calls Network Health Predictor, which is its first application that uses the analytics platform.  The idea is pretty straightforward, i.e. an application that sifts through the Big Data being produced looking for the telltale signs of the sorts of small issues that often blossom into big problems.  Advance warning means no or at least less downtime and better performance versus an SLA.

Both the Analytics platform and NHP will be available by the end of next month, and they start with two customers already up and running.  Ciena has both a US-based service provider using the new capabilities at the IP layer, and a utility network leveraging it at the optical layer.

Ciena is also going to be needing a new Chief Operating Officer.  Francois Locoh-Donou, who we interviewed here a year before he took over the COO position, is stepping down this Spring.  Francois’s tenure has seen a dramatic expansion of Ciena’s software capabilities, including the integration of Cyan and the Blue Planet platform.

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Categories: Big Data · Software · Telecom Equipment