Jio partners with Ciena for world's largest self-healing optical networks

Reliance Jio has partnered with the US-based telecom equipment maker Ciena to make it's national transport network 'future-proof" with transport SDN capabilities.

This new initiative lays the foundation for adaptive Network that can scale with high efficiency and dynamically adapt to fast-changing capacity requirements and application demands," Ciena said.

"Jio's network is powered by Ciena's multi-terabit optical technology that comes with a control plane and provides self-healing service restoration capabilities to support Jio's pan-India 4G network core, the company added.

As a next step in the Adaptive Network journey, which is aimed at the enterprise and Fiber to the X (FTTx) market, Jio and Ciena have entered in a partnership to deploy Transport SDN architecture.

"The addition of automation capabilities is a significant step in our network transformation journey to an Adaptive Network that will enable higher levels of scale and network intelligence, catering to our customer's evolving digital lifestyles," said Jyotindra Thacker, President, Technology & Procurement, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, Jio.

The new Network framework will also give Jio more flexibility in launching new services and faster time-to-market.

Another key aspect of this initiative will enable Jio to unleash the potential of its automation capabilities to custom build use cases that drive optimization and efficiencies across the network.

After launching its services in 2016, Mukesh Ambani- owned Reliance Jio has become the third largest telecom operator in just two years of its operations and now it has more than 280 million active subscriber base.

Key Highlights

Jio's automation strategy is helping them transform their network. The full potential of Multi-Layer closed-loop automation becomes possible when all network layers are integrated with Jio's automation engine.

Ciena's T-SDN architecture is built on cloud-native 'micro-services based' architecture and has open northbound interfaces which seamlessly integrates with Jio's automation engine. This will fast track use cases like automated network audits, tighter control on service assurance and agility in rolling out new services to the market, hence driving efficiencies into Jio's network planning, operations and time to market.