Network Solutions Engineer - Optical Engineer

CtrlS taps Ciena for 100 Tb/s India data center network. India-based data center operator CtrlS Datacenters is deploying Ciena optical networking technology across five metro networks that will connect nine data centers in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, New Delhi and Noida. The companies said in a September 28 announcement that the networks are designed to deliver up to 100 terabits per second of capacity. The project forms part of a wider Managed Optical Fiber Network deployment for an unnamed hyperscale customer. Five metro networks link nine facilities. CtrlS will use Ciena's WaveLogic 5 Extreme-powered Waveserver platform and 6500 Reconfigurable Line System for the rollout. Ciena's services team is handling end-to-end project management, while its Navigator Network Control Suite is intended to automate network operations and speed service delivery. The announcement describes a data center interconnect deployment rather than the construction of new facilities. It does not disclose the customer, contract value, rollout schedule or how the planned capacity will be allocated among the five metropolitan areas. CtrlS founder and chief executive Sridhar Pinnapureddy said the company is seeing demand from enterprises and hyperscalers for more reliable data center interconnect services. Ciena India vice president and general manager Prashant Ramesh Malkani said the upgrade is intended to improve network performance as artificial intelligence workloads add to India's digital infrastructure needs. The companies did not publish independent performance measurements for the system. The figure of up to 100 Tb/s should therefore be read as the announced capacity of the deployment, rather than current traffic carried across the network. Optical links support AI and cloud workloads. Data center operators use metro optical networks to move large volumes of data between facilities with high capacity and low latency. That role becomes more important as cloud platforms and AI clusters spread compute, storage and networking equipment across multiple sites. The CtrlS project covers major data center markets in northern, eastern and southern India. Connecting facilities in five cities gives the operator a broader platform for serving customers that need resilient links between campuses and metro locations. The release describes five metro networks, not a single national backbone. It does not say whether the five city networks will be directly interconnected, whether additional long-haul routes are included, or whether the 100 Tb/s figure is an aggregate design capacity or applies to particular links. Those architectural details would be needed to compare the deployment with other large interconnection projects. CtrlS says it operates 19 data centers across nine Indian markets with more than 370 megawatts of capacity. It also reports 4.4 gigawatts of projects at different stages of execution. Those portfolio and pipeline figures are company-supplied and were not independently verified for this report. The operator has also announced plans to expand into the Middle East and Southeast Asia, with Thailand identified as its first overseas market. The current Ciena deployment, however, is focused on CtrlS' domestic Indian footprint. Interconnection is part of the infrastructure constraint. The rollout illustrates that AI infrastructure expansion involves more than adding servers or building data center capacity. High-capacity links between facilities are also required to move training data, application traffic and cloud workloads reliably across a distributed footprint. That networking layer complements the power, cooling and site-capacity issues discussed in a recent TNGlobal analysis of India's AI infrastructure challenge. The comparison is contextual: neither CtrlS nor Ciena disclosed the energy use, customer workload or commercial economics of this optical deployment. The companies also did not say when all five metro networks will enter service. The next material milestones would be completion dates, customer activation and measured capacity or reliability data once the system is operating.

ACE cable system upgrades africa-europe route to more than 30 tbps with Ciena. September 23, 2026 The upgrade is designed to meet rising connectivity demand from more than 500 million people across the regions served by the cable. The ACE cable system consortium has selected Ciena to upgrade a key submarine route connecting Western Europe, West Africa and South Africa, as demand for high-capacity connectivity across Africa continues to grow. The approximately 17,000-kilometre ACE system spans 18 landing stations and will use Ciena's 6500 platform powered by WaveLogic 6 Extreme (WL6e) to deliver more than 30 Tb/s of capacity. The modernization is expected to expand bandwidth over existing infrastructure while limiting disruption to live traffic. The upgrade is designed to meet rising connectivity demand from more than 500 million people across the regions served by the cable. Ciena Services is deploying WL6e over ACE's existing submarine line terminal equipment, allowing the system to scale without requiring complex traffic migrations. "International routes drive economic growth, digital inclusion, and cloud adoption across Africa, and this upgrade gives regional service providers a high-capacity path that reaches more than 500 million people. Ciena's coherent optical technology and proven Services team give us confidence that we can keep customers connected while meeting expanding bandwidth needs." - Philippe Recco, President, ACE Management Committee Ciena Services will also manage ongoing maintenance and transformation of the system as ACE prepares for growing demand for resilient connectivity within Africa and between Africa and Europe. "Ciena supports this vital link between Africa and the rest of the world with our subsea deployment expertise and coherent optical innovations. Together, we are expanding existing cable infrastructure and developing a long-term technology roadmap for future growth with minimal operational impact." - Thomas Soerenson, Vice President, Global Subsea, Ciena The consortium will also use Ciena's Navigator Network Control Suite for greater visibility and management of its services. Its Liquid Spectrum applications, including Channel Margin Gauge, provide real-time visibility into the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) margin of wavelengths, helping ACE identify opportunities to increase capacity. The modernization also introduces greater automation and visibility, enabling operators to plan future network expansion and manage services more efficiently while maintaining the existing infrastructure. The TechAfrica News Podcast