By Leonard Luna, Senior Marketing Manager, Cisco Service Provider Solutions

Cisco, and the international transport community, will converge on the Acropolis Convention Center starting this Tuesday in Nice, France -June 28, through July 1, for the 18^thannual NGON conference. NGON is considered by many to be the primer DWDM/Optical conference in Europe.  Hot topics this year will include:

• Optical evolution & differentiation -the start & progression of the 200-400G market
• Transport SDN & the true potential of the transport layer
• Intra & Inter data center connectivity and the role of optical networks
• Photonic integration & Telco components

Those attending NGON this week will learn how Cisco, a gold level sponsor, is driving innovation in all areas listed above, including transport rates that include and exceed 200 Gigabit per second, leading edgeCloud-ScaleDCI solutions with the Cisco NCS 1000 series, and the new Cisco NCS 4200 series of circuit emulation solutions. The NCS 4200 is the first-of-its-kind, economical in-service solution designed to help networks evolve to a fully IP-MPLS transport core, while enabling uninterrupted SONET/SDH service until customers, on a case-by-case basis, are ready to make the move to packet.

Plan on spending some quality time with our executives and experts in the exposition area (booth 26/31) to discuss leading edge Packet and Optical convergence innovations, transport network modernization, cloud-scale networking, and much, much more.

We also encourage attendees to attend our NGON speaking opportunities:

Day 1: Wednesday, 29th June, 12:35 p.m. to 1:05 p.m.
DCI Enabling Transport Technologies Comparisons
Panel Session: Maurizio Gazzola, Senior Manager, Product Line Manager, Optical Systems and Transceiver Group, Cisco

Day 2: Thursday, 30th June, 3:15 p.m. to 3:40 p.m.
Optimizing Capacity and Reach with ROADMs, Flexgrid, and Superchannels
Panel Session: Lorenzo Ghioni, Senior Manager, Product Line Manager, Optical Systems and Transceiver Group, Cisco

Day 2: Thursday, 30th June, 4:20 p.m. to 4:40 p.m.
Anticipating the Future: End-to-End Packet Optical
Architecture for Convergent Network Modernization
Executive Speaker: David Bianchi, Senior Business Development Manager, SP EMEAR, Architecture, Cisco

Day 2: Thursday, 30th June, 4:30 p.m. to 5:15 p.m.
Debating the Photonic Integration Alternatives: InP, Silicon, Both or Something else?
Panel Session: Mauro Macchi, Director SP EMEAR, Architecture, Cisco

Finally, we hope you can join us for our attendee appreciation reception in the common exhibition area to wrap up day-1 on Wednesday, June 29, from 6 to 7 p.m.

We look forward to contributing to the international exchange at NGON 2016 in Nice, and we look forward to seeing you at NGON, 2016.