Colt And Ciena Partner To Deliver Enterprise Managed Services

LINTHICUM, Md., U.S.A. and LONDON, UK – September 29, 2011– Ciena' Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN), the network specialist, and Colt, Europe’s leading information delivery platform, today announced a partnership to extend Colt’s portfolio of managed security services. The two companies will enrich the performance, reliability and security of Colt’s managed High Speed Services portfolio with sophisticated, integrated wire-speed encryption capabilities from Ciena’s Packet-Optical Transport portfolio, enabling Colt’s enterprise customers to secure and protect their critical business information and intellectual property.

Key Facts • Colt is deploying solutions from Ciena’s 5000 Series throughout its regional managed metro networks to power its assured encryption data connectivity services, in 14 major European markets – including Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

• The new offering from Colt and Ciena simplifies the deployment of secure network services for enterprises by combining market-leading optical transport technologies with powerful, standards-based encryption functionality in a single, integrated infrastructure. Eliminating the need for standalone network elements dedicated solely to the encryption function, the solution simplifies network design and management.

• In contrast to some higher-layer encryption solutions, Ciena’s 5000 Series offers FIPS-certified, in-skin encryption capabilities that are protocol agnostic and operate independently from applications. This allows Colt to run multiple protocols, including Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Infiniband and OTN, over the same encrypted link, reducing the number of protocol-specific encryption appliances needed in a customer’s network and lowering their operating costs.

• The new offering also limits latency generated in the process of encrypting data to just several microseconds, significantly lower than traditional encryption solutions. The ultra-low latency capabilities of the solution aides in the reliable and secure delivery of mission-critical applications, such as those found in financial or transaction-oriented networks where assured services delivery offers a critical competitive advantage.

• Colt is also taking advantage of Ciena’s technical ability to separate encryption key management from transport network management. These segregation capabilities enable enterprise customers to control their own encrypted links and keys – providing them full ownership of their private data as well as real-time awareness of potential security alerts and logs on an end-to-end basis.

Executive Comments • “With increasing numbers of our customers focused on regulatory compliance and mitigating security breaches, especially in sectors such as financial services or government, we’re seeing enormous growth of interest in high-speed, encrypted data connectivity services. Our new partnership with Ciena allows Colt to further extend our managed security portfolio and gives us the opportunity to exploit the advantage of a low-latency, integrated encryption solution.” – Stefano Maifreni, Solutions Manager, Managed Networking, Enterprise Services, at Colt

• “With enterprises placing more value on the security of their intellectual property and data there is an opportunity to help them safeguard critical data for compliancy requirements, to maintain the integrity of firms’ business models and protect the companies’ brands. The unique encryption capabilities offered by Ciena’s 5000 Series give operators like Colt the opportunity to take early share in the growing security-oriented networking market and quickly establish competitive advantage, allowing them to attract new customers in key vertical sectors such as finance, healthcare, military, government or education.” – Peter Newcombe, vice president of sales, Northern and Eastern Europe at Ciena

Supporting Resources: • Data Sheet: 5100, 5200 Advanced Services Platform • Application Note: Wire-Speed Encryption Solution • Video: Ciena and Colt – Network Encryption Managed Service

# # # About Ciena Ciena is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. With focused innovation, Ciena brings together the reliability and capacity of optical networking with the flexibility and economics of Ethernet, unified by a software suite that delivers the industry’s leading network automation. We routinely post recent news, financial results and other important announcements and information about Ciena on our website. For more information, visit www.ciena.com.

About Colt Colt is Europe’s leading information delivery platform, enabling its customers to deliver, share, process and store their vital business information. An established leader in delivering integrated computing and network services to major organisations, midsized businesses and wholesale customers, Colt operates a 21-country, 35,000km network that includes metropolitan area networks in 38 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 18,000 buildings and 19 Colt data centres.

In 2010, the Colt Data Centre Services business was launched to deliver innovative high quality modular data centres which are rapid to deploy and power efficient. Colt is listed on the London Stock Exchange (COLT). Information about Colt and its services can be found at www.colt.net.

Note to Ciena Investors Forward-looking statements. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on information available to the Company as of the date hereof; and Ciena's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied, due to risks and uncertainties associated with its business, which include the risk factors disclosed in its Report on Form 10-Q, which Ciena filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 8, 2011. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ciena's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future and can be identified by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "should," "will," and "would" or similar words. Ciena assumes no obligation to update the information included in this press release, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.