Ciena Expands Involvement with U.S. Department of Energy; Fermilab Deployment and Support for SCinet Demonstration Highlight Growing Relationship.

LINTHICUM, Md. -- Ciena(R) Corporation (Nasdaq:CIEN), the network specialist, today announced the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is deploying its ONLINE Metro(TM) Multiservice DWDM Platform at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill. (see related announcement, "U.S. Department of Energy Selects Ciena for Flagship Research Network," November 7, 2005). Ciena also announced several technology demonstrations to occur as part of the SCinet event at the SC|05 conference, including disk-to-disk replication between Fermilab and the show floor, utilizing Ciena's CN 4200(TM) FlexSelect Advanced Services Platform.

ONLINE Metro is enabling 10G wavelengths for Fermilab to connect with one of the most advanced international optical networking facilities in the world - the StarLight (Science Technology and Research Light-Illuminated Gigabit High-Performance Transit) facility on the Chicago campus of Northwestern University.

"Ciena's transport platform provides us with connection to StarLight, in turn allowing high-bandwidth connections to the world's largest research networks," said Al Thomas, an optical network specialist at Fermilab. "This increased bandwidth supports Fermilab's high energy physics research and collaboration between scientists on a global scale. Connectivity and collaboration will be especially important for U.S. and Fermilab physicists when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN begins operating next year."

By supporting dynamic provisioning of high-bandwidth connectivity, the Ciena platform enables computing-intensive research between geographically separate locations for scientific computing applications, cluster processing and transfers of large data sets, some in excess of one terabyte. This allows for high-performance network transport with no packet loss and the lowest latency possible.

"Ciena has a wealth of experience in supplying solutions for high-bandwidth connectivity to the DOE and other government agencies," said Rob Rice, vice president and managing director of Ciena Government Solutions, Inc. "Our work with Fermilab further illustrates Ciena's specialist capabilities in providing on-demand research networking across great distances for the Research and Education community."

Ciena's ONLINE Metro Multiservice DWDM platform provides carrier-class solutions for both carrier and enterprise environments. The platform is widely used in the DOE and throughout the federal government for its ease of management in performance monitoring. For example, this Fermilab deployment makes use of the same Ciena technology employed by Argonne National Laboratory and other research institutions on the I-WIRE network.

Ciena Participation in SCinet and SC|05

Ciena will be exhibiting and demonstrating solutions at the SC|05 Gateway to Discovery conference in Seattle, Wash. from November 14-17 at booth #541.

At the event, Fermilab will demonstrate disk-to-disk replication between its facility and the show floor, utilizing Ciena's CN 4200 FlexSelect Advanced Services platform, a next-generation multiservice transport and aggregation solution, integrated with Fermilab's ONLINE Metro deployment for connectivity to StarLight and the UltraScience Net. This demonstration will simulate the functionality required between Fermilab and the international research community for research, experimentation and modeling.

In addition, Ciena will be demonstrating the following at the event:

--Delivery of 15 10G wavelengths to exhibit floor via CoreStream optical transmissions systems.

--10G AES, 256-bit key encryption with transceiver-based encryption embedded on two CoreStream line modules

--40G connectivity on the CoreStream line system, enabled for SCinet by Mintera Corporation, proving the system's upgradeability to meet both 10G and 40G lightpaths on the same line system.

--Dynamic provisioning of GbE and 10GbE bandwidth via CoreDirector between Oak Ridge National Laboratory's facility in Tennessee and its exhibit in Seattle.

--Integrated network management via ON-Center for full management capability and performance monitoring of the Ciena-based portion of the SCinet network.

For additional information on Ciena's government solutions and support in the research and education community, please visit http://www.ciena.com/government.

ABOUT CIENA

Ciena Corporation is the network specialist, focused on expanding the possibilities for its customers' networks while reducing their cost of ownership. The company's systems, software and services target and cure specific network pain points so that telcos, cable operators, governments and enterprises can best exploit the new applications that are driving their businesses forward. For more information, visit www.ciena.com.

ABOUT FERMI NATIONAL ACCELERATOR LABORATORY (Fermilab)

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is located in Batavia, Illinois, USA. Fermilab is operated by Universities Research Association, Inc., a consortium of 90 research universities, for the United States Department of Energy's Office of Science. Fermilab's mission is to advance the understanding of the fundamental nature of matter and energy by providing leadership and resources for qualified researchers to conduct basic research at the frontiers of high energy physics and related disciplines.

ABOUT STARLIGHT(SM)

StarLight is an advanced optical infrastructure and proving ground for network services optimized for high-performance, large scale national and global applications. Operational since summer 2001, StarLight has 1GE and 10GE switch/router facilities and true optical switching for wavelengths. StarLight is being developed by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) at Northwestern University, and the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, in partnership with Canada's CANARIE and the Netherlands' SURFnet. See www.startap.net/starlight.

NOTE TO INVESTORS

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 1, 2005. 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.