Networking technology provider Infinera (INFN) today announced that it is shipping its Cloud Xpress product, a small optical networking platform targeted at datacenter connectivity. Cloud Express is part of a strategic move by Infinera to move packet optical technology into datacenters.

Packet optical techology combines the scale of optical networks with the flexibility of electronic traffic routing, and it has been primarily used for moving bits along core telecom networks or metro networks. Infinera sees this changing as the boost in traffic created by datacenter growth is creating more “East-West” traffic, which means servers talking to one another either inside a data center or between two data centers.

Investors appeared to like the story. Infinera shares rose 4% to $14.68 in midday trading, nearing a 52-week high. The Cloud XPress platform had been previously announced, but it had not yet shipped.

Cloud XPress is targeted at network operators in the cloud business. Infinera is not naming customers specifically, but it says Cloud Xpress customers include Internet content providers, datacenter operators, and large enterprises. A small, stackable optical networking platform, Cloud Xpress is designed to provide high-bandwidth connectivity while lowering power and space requirements.

It's a needed move for Infinera, as the service provider equipment market has featured a lack of growth -- and profit. Service provider consolidation, margin pressure, and competition have all made the service provider market difficult. Infinera sees this as a way to take advantages of the growth in cloud.

Infinera says the Cloud Xpress can support one terabit per second of input and output capacity in just two rack units with up to 500 gigabits per second (Gbit/s) of line-side capacity and a mix of 10 gigabit Ethernet (GbE), 40 GbE, and 100 GbE client-side interfaces. Read the press release here.