Verizon Business to acquire Cybertrust, ICSA Labs

Verizon Business agreed to acquire Cybertrust, a privately held provider of global information security services. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Cybertrust provides identity management, managed security services, vulnerability/threat management, security certification programs and a full range of professional services including enterprise-wide quantified risk analysis, individual application assessments, and forensics and incident response services. The company has 800 employees and operations in 30 locations across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.



In addition to enhancing Verizon Business' global security services, Cybertrust offers a proven identity management suite, as well as Security Operation Centers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific for a true "follow the sun" approach to security operations. Additionally, Verizon Business will acquire ICSA Labs, an independent division of Cybertrust, which provides security product certification, and which has tested and certified an estimated 95 percent of the installed security products on the market today.



Verizon said Cybertrust's Identity Management unit gives it a strong new capability to help its customers efficiently manage user identities across multiple systems and applications. Through this group, Verizon Business will offer a full range of solutions for governments and enterprises to manage electronic identities that enable authentication management, information protection and secure access to resources across enterprise systems.

http://www.verizonbusiness.com

http://www.cybertrust.com

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ONEMAX Selects Veraz for IMS/WiMAX in Dominican Republic

ONEMAX, which is deploying a commercial WiMAX network in the Dominican Republic, selected Veraz Networks for its IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) solution. ONEMAX chose Veraz's User Services Core to offer its subscribers VoIP and IP-based multimedia services while Veraz's ControlSwitch and I-Gate 4000 series of media gateways will enable ONEMAX to connect to other operators.



In more technical terms, the solution that Veraz has delivered to ONEMAX is based upon 3GPP IMS release 7. It includes core IMS functionalities, for routing (Call Session & Call Control Function) and customer identification (Home Subscriber Server), plus key IMS service delivery components such as Application Server Function and SCIM (Service Capability Interaction Manager); as well as interconnect functions (PSTN) such as Signaling Gateway Function, and Media Gateway Control Function. Additionally, Veraz integrated this solution with third-party network and management components selected by ONEMAX. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.veraznetworks.com

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Sales of Cisco 12000 Routers Top $10 Billion

Sales of the Cisco 12000 Series Router have surpassed the $10 billion mark. Cisco said that more than 35,000 systems have been installed globally since the 12000 introduction in September 1997.
http://www.cisco.com

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MEF Approves Three New Specifications

The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) approved three new specifications, addressING the areas of service operations, administration and maintenance - OAM (MEF17), conformance testing for circuit emulation over Ethernet (MEF 18) and testing the UNI Type 1 (MEF 19).

• MEF 17 "Service OAM Framework and Requirements" addresses issues including fault management, performance monitoring, auto-discovery and both intra- and inter-provider service OAM -- an increasingly critical element for mass deployment of Carrier Ethernet services.



• MEF 18 "Abstract Test Suite for Circuit Emulation Services" completes the extensive specification work undertaken by the MEF to enable delivery of T1/E1 services over Carrier Ethernet networks by detailing testing procedures for MEF 8 conformance (delivering Circuit Emulation Services over Ethernet). The MEF 3, MEF 8 and MEF 18 Circuit Emulation specifications enable the smooth evolution of service provider networks to Carrier Ethernet, while maximizing the huge investment by service providers and enterprises in their TDM installed base.



• MEF 19 "Abstract Test Suite for UNI Type I". Both MEF 18 and MEF 19 " are directed towards future expansion of the MEF's certification program.

The MEF said it has also commenced several major Carrier Ethernet initiatives. These include:

• Local Ethernet Access Services Working Group, reflecting the current surge of membership among both Telcos and MSOs. It is aimed at facilitating inter-carrier access service definition and ordering -- so that local service providers can extend their effective Carrier Ethernet service 'footprints' by partnership with providers of wholesale Carrier Ethernet services.



• Mobile Backhaul Working Group, addressing both the technical and marketing work needed to enable and promote the use of Carrier Ethernet in mobile wireless backhaul.



• The Provisioning, Assurance and Billing initiative will be defining "best practices" for EMS, NMS, OSS and BSS operations to meet the demand for scalable, accurate and rapid service deployments.

HTTP://www.metroethernetforum.org

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California's Coaster Rail Installs Strix

The North County Transit District (NCTD) of San Diego has installed Strix's Access/One Network Outdoor Wireless Systems (OWS) and Indoor Wireless System (IWS) to provide real-time mobile communications for its Coaster rail line. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) paid for the Strix OWS/IWS network, which currently extends 10 miles along the Coaster rail line in San Diego.



Coaster uses Strix OWS and IWS to implement mission critical railway applications:

• Remote video surveillance provides 24x7 monitoring inside the trains and the surrounding track to improve safety and provide evidence should a serious or catastrophic event occur.



• Secured encrypted transport for railway communications secures stations, tracks, bridges, and tunnels.



• Completely solar-powered Strix OWS nodes provide 24x7 uptime and emergency backup.

http://www.strixsystems.com

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ScanScout Secures $7 Million for Video Monitoring

ScanScout, a start-up based in Cambridge, Mass., closed $7 million in its first round of institutional funding for its work in digital video delivery. ScanScout technology helps advertisers and publishers by providing brand protection to ensure that advertisers' brand messages will only be seen adjacent to the most appropriate content.



The funding was led by General Catalyst Partners with participation from existing angel investors, Ron Conway and First Round Capital. http://www.scanscout.com

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Force10 Unveils C-Series Resilient Switch for Midsize Data Centers

Force10 Networks introduced its C300 resilient switch for midsize data centers and enterprise wiring closets.

The platform combines Force10 Operating System (FTOS) modular software for reliability with full hardware resiliency with redundant components and hot insertion technologies to ensure maximum network uptime. The modular FTOS includes an industry standard command line interface (CLI) that simplifies management and leverages the installed base of networking knowledge. Additionally, the C300 features HP OpenView-ready plug-ins with XML and SNMP MIB hooks for rapid integration into existing data center and wiring closet environments. The passive backplane of the C300 also means that it doesn't act as a single point of failure.



The C300 has a switching capacity of 1.5 Terabits per second (Tbps) or 96 Gbps per slot, providing the scalable capacity that will allow enterprises to expand their networks to support new applications without the cost of a system upgrade.



The C300 supports 384 line-rate Gigabit and 32 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports in a single chassis. Force10 said the scalable capacity of the backplane enables the C-Series to support multiple density increases in the future, providing long-term investment protection.



The Force10 C300 is priced at $20,000.

http://www.force10networks.com

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GENBAND to Spin Out Taqua for Class 5 Replacement Switch

GENBAND will spin out its "Taqua" T7000 product family to the leadership team responsible for developing and managing the product, Many of the new management and employees have been affiliated with Taqua since its inception in 1999.



"We are confident that the Taqua management team and its employees have the sufficient depth to effectively operate and grow the Taqua business, which has been our primary focus for this transaction," said Charles Vogt, president and CEO of GENBAND.



GENBAND will focus on its IP gateway and application solutions.



Founded in 1998, Taqua developed a next-generation Class 5 switch -- the Taqua 7000 Switching System (T7000), and claims over 250 deployments at incumbent and competitive carriers in North America. The T7000 features a "switch-on-a-card" design that performs all of the functions required of a Class 4/5 switch, thereby significantly increasing reliability and simplifying implementation. The T7000 can be used in Enhanced VoIP, Intelligent Gateway, Class 4/5 Transition, Triple Play and/or Cable Telephony applications. It supports a wide variety of protocols including SS7, SIP, MGCP, GR-303, CAS, NCS, PRI and others over line, trunk or IP interfaces.

http://www.genband.com

http://www.taqua.com

• In March 2007, GENBAND agreed to acquire Tekelec's Switching Solutions Group (SSG). The deal was structured as a sale of Tekelec's equity interests in Santera Systems and Taqua, and the SSG business assets held by Tekelec in exchange for a 19.9% common equity interest in GENBAND, $1.0 million in cash and GENBAND's assumption of certain SSG liabilities.



• In October 2006, GENBAND acquired Siemens Networks' DCO (Digital Central Office) circuit-switch business and has exclusively licensed other technology, enabling GENBAND to provide open interfaces for next generation network solutions to both the DCO and the Siemens North American EWSD installed base.



• In September 2004, General Bandwidth named Charlie Vogt as its new president and CEO. Vogt previously served as President and CEO of Taqua, a supplier of a Class 5 softswitch. Charlie was part of the executive management team with Santera Systems, a Plano, Texas-based developer of a next-generation voice switching technology that was acquired by Tekelec.

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Alcatel-Lucent to Acquire NetDevices for Branch Office Service Gateway

Alcatel-Lucent agreed to acquire privately held NetDevices, a developer of services gateway products for enterprise branch networks, for an undisclosed sum.



NetDevices, which is based in Sunnyvale, California with R&D in Bangalore, India, offers a Unified Service Gateway which is designed to reduce the cost and complexity of managing branch office networks. NetDevices' products unify all services required at the branch--including perimeter and content security, robust data networking, and VoIP support--into a modular, remotely manageable, and always-available platform.



NetDevices features a "OnePass" architecture for packet classification and inspection from which multiple advanced services -- such as firewalls, intrusion detection, VoIP gateway and VPN gateway -- would be based. The company argues that real-time services will be best supported if all these functions are connected together by a system-wide approach to processing and management. OnePass classification and management is more efficient than running multiple boxes and latency is reduced.



NetDevice's platform features a modular operation system and separate traffic, control and management planes to ensure "always available" system access. The system has a hardened forwarding path into which multiple services are inserted and integrated.



NetDevices was founded in 2003 and has 45 employees.



Upon close of the transaction, the NetDevices team and products will be integrated into Alcatel-Lucent's Enterprise Business Group, reporting into Tom Burns, president of Alcatel-Lucent's Enterprise Solutions activities.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

http://www.netdevices.com

• In August 2005, NetDevices closed $25 million in Series B financing for its services gateway products for enterprise branch networks.



• NetDevices was founded in 2003 by Seenu Banda (CEO), Rob Haraga (VP of Engineering), and Jeff Kidd (VP of Hardware Engineering). Prior to founding NetD, Banda was senior director of marketing for mid-range routers, including the 7200 and 7500, at Cisco Systems. Haraga spent 10 years at Cisco, where he led the development and engineering of three generations of router product lines in the 7000 series. Kidd also served at Cisco in senior engineering roles for the Cisco 7000, 7200, 7300, 7500 and 7600 routers, and the Cisco Catalyst 5000 and 6000 multi-layer switching platforms.

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XO to Supply 10G Wavelength Service to PCCW Global

XO Communications announced a contract to provide multiple wavelength circuits to PCCW Global, supplementing existing connectivity across PCCW Global's network in the United States. PCCW Global will use the XO wavelength services to expand the capacity of its network and the services it currently provides to its customers in Asia and the United States. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.xo.com

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Broadcom Unleashes Single-Chip, Dual-Port 10GbE C-NIC

Broadcom introduced a single-chip, dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) converged network interface controller (C-NIC) specifically developed for high volume server designs.



Current servers typically are equipped with Gigabit Ethernet ports and upgrading to 10 Gbps could mean additional support from the host CPU to process the data.



Broadcom said its new 10GbE C-NIC enables simultaneous processing of network, storage, processor clustering and management traffic on chip while enabling convergence of different traffic types over a single Ethernet fabric. By supporting Microsoft's Windows TCP chimney engine, iSCSI block storage and remote direct memory access (RDMA), the new C-NIC enables network protocol processing on-chip, thereby saving the server's CPU and memory I/O resources to perform their primary tasks - running applications.



The Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM57710, which is part of the NetXtreme II C-NIC family, is a fully functional dual port C-NIC that runs at 10Gbps rates and supports small form factors and PCB footprints. It converges TCP, iSCSI, RDMA, and remote management traffic over 10GbE with PCI Express interface to the host. The BCM57710 also eliminates the need for external memory, which is essential for lowering the cost of 10GbE to enable its widespread adoption. Sampling is currently underway to early access customers. Volume production is expected during the fourth quarter of 2007. http://www.broadcom.com

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Colubris Launches Enterprise-Class 802.11n Access Point

Colubris Networks introduced an intelligent enterprise-class 802.11n access point (MAP-625) as part of its802.11n-ready Colubris Intelligent Mobility Solution, which gives organizations a centrally managed WLAN networking solution.



Colubris said its MAP-625 uses dual radios to provide 802.11n clients with more than four times the performance of current generation WLANs, while simultaneously supporting legacy 802.11a/b/g devices at their full speeds. The MAP-625's dual-radio design features an 802.11n radio with 3x3 MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) technology and an 802.11a/b/g radio.



The MAP-625 also eliminates concerns about protocol fall-back -- when 802.11n network performance falls short of the promised maximum speeds due to the presence of 802.11a/b/g devices.
http://www.colubris.com/

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Nokia Boosts Q2 Device Market Share Outlook

Nokia expects its share of the global device market to increase sequentially in the second quarter 2007, from its estimated 36% share at the end of the first quarter. Previously, Nokia said it expected its device market share in the second quarter 2007 to be approximately at the same level sequentially.



Nokia said it believes that its device shipments in the second quarter 2007 will be positively impacted, as excess device inventory in the market has sufficiently cleared. http://www.nokia.com

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Huawei-3Com to Resell eIQnetworks' Enterprise Security Analyzer

Huawei-3Com (H3C), a wholly-owned subsidiary of 3Com, agreed to resell eIQnetworks' Enterprise Security Analyzer (ESA) as its exclusive security information management (SIM) appliance solution. H3C will market eIQ's ESA as SecCenter to a broad range of customers in mainland China and Hong Kong. http://www.eIQnetworks.com

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Gear6 Unveils Terabyte-Scale Caching Appliances

Gear6, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, unveiled its "CACHEfx" line of scalable caching appliances designed to accelerate response times and throughput for a wide variety of demanding, cross-industry enterprise applications.



Gear6's CACHEfx appliances complement existing network attached storage (NAS) by centralizing a massive pool of coherent memory that serves data 10-to-50 times faster than mechanical disks, eliminating I/O bottlenecks and "hotspots." Gear6 centralized storage caching solutions deploy transparently in the data center and preserve current infrastructure, applications, file systems, and storage management software.



Gear6 said centralized storage caching extends to nearly all I/O intensive applications and those requiring immediate data access such as databases and transaction processing. Its CACHEfx appliances support a baseline of 250,000 I/O Operations per Second (IOPS), 16 Gbps of throughput, sub-millisecond response time and scale linearly to handle millions of IOPS. Its Reflex OS virtualizes appliance memory into a scalable coherent cache pool, optimizes data delivery through parallel I/O channels, and provides robust intelligent cache services. Initial products support NFS and include intuitive browser based management tools for comprehensive statistics and I/O profiling.



Gear6's CACHEfx centralized storage caching solutions are available now starting at $400,000.

http://www.gear6.com

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Microsoft and Partners Show Devices for MS Office Communicator

Microsoft and nine partners (ASUSTek Computer, GN, LG-Nortel, NEC, Plantronics, Polycom, SAMSUNG, Tatung Co. and ViTELiX) are showcasing a new generation of office devices designed for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. Microsoft is providing the device manufacturers with design specifications, helping to assure that these new phones and devices will work easily with its unified communications platform.



Microsoft said its goal is to connect the workplace phone to e-mail, instant messaging, real-time presence information, conferencing, VoIP and mobile communications.



"Today's office phone is marooned on an island, separate from the rest of the communications tools that information workers rely on to do their jobs," said Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division. "By weaving the business phone together with e-mail, instant messaging, presence, conferencing and the productivity software people use most, we are putting voice communications back into business."http://www.microsoft.com

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Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park Selects Alvarion's Mobile WiMAX

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has selected Alvarion's 16e-based all-IP 4Motion OPEN WiMAX solution to provide Mobile WiMAX services across the campus in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The mobile WiMAX network will co-exist with the current Wi-Fi network. The deployment will serve two purposes on the campus, both providing wireless services over WiMAX and allowing the institute to conduct Mobile WiMAX research. After the network is deployed, Alvarion will provide professional technical assistance to aid the research and development of WiMAX services over the new network. Financial terms were not disclosed.



Alvarion said it continues to contribute to the "M-Taiwan" project, which aims to provide ubiquitous broadband throughout the island nation. The main goals of the M-Taiwan initiative include elevating Taiwan to being one of the top five countries in the world for Internet penetration, while becoming one of the top ten countries in the world for low online access fees. In addition, the project is aimed at improving the broadband and wireless infrastructures in the country's remote areas to help bridge Taiwan's digital divide.

http://www.alvarion.com

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Nokia Strengthens Ties with China's Largest Mobile Phone Distributor

Nokia signed a strategic partnership agreement with China Postel Mobile Communication Equipment Co., Ltd. (China Postel), China's largest mobile phone distributor. China Postel is expected to purchase mobile devices from Nokia to the value of approximately USD 2.5 billion in 2007. In addition, both parties have agreed to deepen strategic ties, especially with regard to network channel development, as the two companies make significant bilateral resource investments.



China Postel has been the leading distributor on the China mobile phone market for eight consecutive years, with a market share of over 30% in 2006. Since the collaboration between Nokia and China Postel began in 1998, China Postel has distributed over 37 million Nokia mobile phones across China. http://www.nokia.com

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