In the Spotlight: Ciena CEO Gary Smith

On how that transition happens: [Service providers] are looking at an automated software-centric network that is different from SONET ring architectures they’ve had before. BT [has] been building a 21^st Century network – but how do they migrate that traffic across in an economic way? To achieve the cost efficiencies, they have to turn off the old network. I’m optimistic that carriers are making those moves and the technology.

On how long it takes: The last cycle we went through was the cycle of provisioning SONET-SDH and that took 10 years. [Telecom service providres] spent, on the infrastructure side, about $80 billion. We are looking at a similar kind of cost for infrastructure - $80 billion to $100 billion to do that kind of cycle.

On the key transition to software-controlled networks: The transition is more increasingly about software, about IP integration and what they want to do is have an automated network that is software-configured. It runs on glass, with a converged Ethernet architecture with IP on top, with a software mesh architecture that can provision new services and new circuits in a way that is automated. That is the panacea we are trying to get to. There are a bunch of technologies involved – softswitches, DPI, converged Ethernet, Ethernet operating systems – but if you step back, it’s all about software.

On Ciena’s focus: We’ve invested heavily over the last few years in making that transition to converged Ethernet – we weren’t involved in SONET-SDH networks, so our focus has been on Next-generation architectures. We are really focused on software for converging al these networks. Core Director is a software platform for 10 billion lines of code. It provides the intelligence and integrated control plane for Ethernet and other services.

On the long-term future: I absolutely think the future of both the carriers and the equipment players is not about having a smart box anymore – it’s about a solution embedded in software being transported over a very efficient transport network. There are many ways to do that but it’s all about software.