Microsoft has revealed it has collaborated with Ciena to define a blueprint for what it calls a zero-trust tiered optical network architecture.
In a white paper explaining the nature of the partnership, the firms note that modern networks demand more than simple redundancy; they demand true resilience engineered into every layer. Moreover, they say disruptions in complex optical networks result not just from hardware faults, but from human error, misconfigurations, automation glitches or unexpected maintenance impacts, any of which can disable even the most robust transport infrastructure.
Ciena says optical networks are more intelligent, faster and programmable than ever, with automation and software control having provided unmatched flexibility and scale.
But with this progress comes added risk: one misconfigured automation roll-out, a fibre cut and equipment failure, unintended policy change, or mismatched software version can take down an entire optical domain. Events like these do not happen often, but their effects can be severe, and making sure network designs consider such events is critical.
The zero-trust optical business continuity and disaster recovery (optical BCDR) architecture is claimed to embody this shift, moving beyond traditional backup paths and instead combining two fully independent optical systems – a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM)-based transport network and an optical BCDR layer, tied together only at the routed Ethernet edge – designed to sustain uninterrupted services even during systemic failures.
Microsoft and Ciena stress that there are four key benefits of the architecture, namely: human error isolation; maintenance flexibility; zero-downtime and seamless experience; and bandwidth flexibility. That is the network – which supports 10G/100G/400G services across both ROADM and channel multiplexer/demultiplexer-based systems – can ensure service survivability during misconfigurations or provisioning errors, and allow scheduled work or patching on either domain without impact.
In addition, when site migration occurs, traffic is said to continue to flow with the BCDR layer in place, ensuring service continuity for customers.
Concluding, the paper emphasises that modern networking means planning for the worst while delivering the best as unexpected interruptions to mission-critical traffic and applications can impact revenue opportunities. It argues that Microsoft’s zero-trust optical BCDR blueprint shows how to combine Ciena ROADM and optical BCDR services to achieve “unmatched” metro resilience, shifting the focus from trusting any single system to trusting a design that anticipates and absorbs failures at any scale.
Ciena stressed that by combining ROADM and CMD fixed-filter photonic networks based on proven photonic layer technology, the architecture can offer an innovative approach to improving network resiliency against maintenance and operational outages that might occur due to automation or human error.
It added that organisations with business-critical traffic can adopt this tiered architecture as part of their next-generation transport network strategy to offer highly resilient connectivity or business continuity and data recovery services between locations in metro area networks.
