Ciena Expands Blue Orbit Ecosystem, Strengthens Support for Open, Virtualized Networks

Ciena has added 30 new organizations as members to its Blue Orbit Ecosystem focused on delivering applications and infrastructure platforms for real-world, multi-vendor software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) deployments.

As a result of this expansion, Blue Orbit now includes a total of 64 members, who are committed to supporting network operators’ ongoing transformation to open, programmable and virtualized networks.

Additionally, Ciena has expanded Blue Orbit to reflect a greater focus on collaboration between customers and ecosystem members by creating four distinct categories: Blue Orbit Community Member, DevOps Partner, Service Partner, and Technology Partner.

Some notable additions to Blue Orbit include:

Akamai Technologies, the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services; Ammeon, an IT and Network transformation services company; Check Point Software Technologies, the largest network cyber security vendor globally; EMC, one of the world’s largest provider of data storage systems; Netrounds, a programmable test and service assurance provider; Open Networking Lab (ON.Lab), a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing tools and platforms and building open source communities to realize the full potential of SDN; and Sytel Reply, systems integration and digital services company.

Ciena’s Blue Planet Division enables true end-to-end service orchestration and provides a leading network virtualization, orchestration, and management software suite. The complete list of existing partners can be found here.

“Ciena has developed an excellent program that allows companies to work together to deliver more innovative solutions. Blue Orbit is making it easier to build next-generation networks that meet the current and future needs of network operators and their customers. As a pioneer in virtualized CDN (vCDN) technology, and a member of the Blue Orbit Ecosystem, we look forward to working closely with Ciena and its other partners to promote the importance of vCDN services in next-generation network environments,” said, Anand Parikh, Senior Director of Product Business Development, Akamai Technologies.

“We are excited to engage with Ciena because it is clear they have a vision to meet the next-generation of market demands, as well as the strategy in place to make it a reality. Through our Open Platform for Security (OPSEC) APIs, we look forward to integrating into the Blue Orbit Ecosystem to provide customers the broadest choice of best-of-breed integrated applications and deployment platforms,” explained, Alon Kantor, Vice President of Business Development at Check Point Software.

“EMC values our relationship with Ciena and the ability to leverage Ciena’s low latency packet-optical technology to maximize our customers’ network investments. By joining the Blue Orbit Ecosystem, we confirm our commitment to Ciena and look forward to contributing to our joint goal of building more open, programmable networks,” said, Kelly Kanellakis, General Manager, Telecom Transformation, EMC Corporation.

“Over and over again our customers seek out solutions that prioritize choice and openness to fulfill today’s market demands. Blue Orbit is a reflection of our collaborative approach, and is key to accelerating the development of new, innovative virtualized services. In order to propel our industry forward, we are working alongside these partners to lessen the risk for network operators and to increase the speed of deployments,” explained, Jim Brinksma, Vice President, Strategy & Business Development, Blue Planet Division, Ciena.