Data security is a growing concern in today’s web-scale world, where more and more applications reside in the cloud. Businesses need the assurance that their data is secure not only at rest but also in-flight. New regulations and legislation for data protection have made securing this in-flight data a higher priority, especially for organisations such as financial service firms, healthcare and government organisations.
With this in mind, Ciena has launched WaveLogic Encryption with new optical-layer encryption capabilities to match the increasingly high capacity infrastructure needs – at speeds up to 200G. With this new capability, data can be secured as it leaves the private cloud and protected as it traverses across the network, across any distance, without sacrificing the end user experience.
Ciena’s WaveLogic Encryption is FIPS-certified and meets the highest security standards recognised globally in the industry. Powered by Ciena’s WaveLogic 3 Extreme chipset, it provides software-programmable modulation to enable both 100G encryption with QPSK modulation and 200G encryption with 16QAM modulation – an industry first at 200G data rates, the company claims.
WaveLogic Encryption is protocol agnostic, meaning it simultaneously encrypts any traffic type coming into the network, including Ethernet, Fibre Channel, OTN, IP, SONET, and SDH. It encrypts the entire wavelength before the data leaves the building or data centre, and transports it transparently with virtually no added latency, making efficient use of network resources and maintaining quality of end-customer experience.
Ciena also offers a software-based MyCryptoTool with a dedicated management user portal that allows the enterprise end user or security officer to manage all security parameters.
“While encryption inside the data centre or enterprise campus is well established, service providers are now realising that encryption of in-flight data is an important component of their holistic security strategy,” commented Sterling Perrin, senior analyst, Heavy Reading. “By integrating security functions directly into its coherent chipsets, Ciena’s WaveLogic Encryption provides protection from breaches for all high capacity links, something we believe will be well-received by both service providers and their end customers,”
Ciena customers have already started to deploy the new capabilities. “As Ciena’s encryption solution helps to ensure the best possible safeguards with no impact on service or latency we are already seeing take-up of these new capabilities; in fact we are currently deploying the 200G encryption solution for a customer in the Dutch finance sector,” said Geert Degezelle, Managing Director, Telindus.
The product will be generally available in the first calendar quarter of 2016.