Netronome Introduces 10 Gigabit Flow Processing

Netronome Systems released its new line of 10 Gigabit network flow processors aimed at next generation network and security appliances. Such appliances must scale in processing capacity as enterprise networks grow from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps. They will also require greater intelligence, including security processing, application awareness and content inspection.


Netronome's network flow processing solutions deliver high-performance packet processing with intelligence, security and virtualization for millions of simultaneous flows through several unique features, including:

• Hardware-based flow processing with line-rate packet capture of network traffic, enabling lossless deep-packet inspection applications with granular application- and content-specific policy control.



• Flow-aware adaptive load balancing to exploit multicore CPU parallelism and an efficient zero-copy driver, combine to quickly and evenly distribute 10Gbps of network traffic, maximizing host CPU performance.



• Up to 40Gbps of total throughput for real-world traffic patterns, with variable packet sizes and protocol mixes, to support the increasing bandwidth requirements of enterprise and service provider networks.



• Less than 80 microseconds of delay, far exceeding industry standard requirements for latency in 1Gbps and 10Gbps in-line network and security appliances.



• High-availability network interfaces, including integrated bypass, necessary for resilient deployment in in-line network topologies.

"As networks evolve to 10Gbps and beyond, the packet capture, flow classification and application processing capabilities of network and security appliances must scale in parallel," said Jarrod Siket, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Netronome. "Our solution meets these requirements and avoids the time and cost associated with a custom design, by combining intelligent network flow processing with standard x86 servers."


Netronome's PCI-Express based solution for accelerating multicore x86 systems offers dense front-facing Ethernet I/O options specifically designed for the Kontron NCS2U IP Network Server. The 4-port 10GigE and 12-port 10/100/1000 interfaces provide high-performance and low-latency, with high-availability via software configurable integrated bypass support.
http://www.netronome.com

• In November 2007, Netronome Systems, a start-up based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania focused on high-performance packet analysis solutions. announced a technology licensing, sales and marketing agreement will Intel focused on its IXP28XX product line of network processors. Under the exclusive deal, Netronome is licensed to continue sales and support of the Intel IXP2805 and the Intel IXP2855 network processors in new designs. In addition, Netronome is developing a next-generation line of IXP-compatible, high-end network flow processors that combine the Intel IXP28XX technology with Netronome's flow management and deep packet inspection architecture. The network flow processors, which feature 16 microengines or cores, are designed for a variety of communications applications ranging from network switching and routing (L2-L3) to content and flow analysis for specialized network and security appliances (L2-L7). They will support scalable network performance at 10 Gbps and beyond, along with sophisticated packet and flow classification, in a highly programmable design environment that will provide users of the Intel IXP28XX product line with a path to higher performance and software scalability.

Read More

Motorola Adds B-3 Video Server for Adaptive Media Management

Motorola introduced its new B-3 Video Server, designed to address small- to medium-sized streaming sites. The new VOD server, which complements the Motorola B-1 solid-state on demand server, delivers premium support for video on demand (VOD), time-shifted TV, on demand ad insertion, network DVR (nDVR), and other advanced services. Available from early Q2 09, the B-3 scales from several hundred to more than 3,000 streams and can be configured as a standalone server with integrated content library, or as an edge server deployed alongside a B-1 .
http://www.motorola.com

Read More

Verizon Extends Enhanced Financing Options for Large-Business Customers

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009,

Verizon Business' corporate customers can receive accelerated, or "bonus," depreciation for certain equipment, including voice and data gear, ordered, invoiced and placed into service during 2009. Verizon Credit, Verizon's wholly owned financing subsidiary, will offer qualifying enterprises affordable and flexible financing terms and increased buying power as they look to accelerate their transition to advanced IP technology.
http://www.verizonbusiness.com

Read More

Motorola Offers 4.9GHz Wireless Broadband for Government

Motorola has expanded its Wireless Broadband portfolio with a new Point-to-Point (PTP) 49600 series wireless Ethernet bridge and a Point-to-Multipoint (PMP) 49400 series wireless network access solution that operate in the 4.9 GHz licensed band. The high availability solution is designed to provide public safety agencies and local governments with reliable, robust and secure wireless connectivity.


With the PTP 49600 solution, customers can replace costly leased lines while reducing their operating costs or establish ad-hoc connectivity for disaster recovery, emergency services and special events. The PTP 49600 bridges can be deployed in harsh and challenging environments. By offering five-nines availability and latency of less than two milliseconds, PTP solutions are ideally suited to backhaul mission critical land mobile radio systems, such as Motorola's ASTRO 25, as well as traffic from video surveillance cameras, Motorola Mesh nodes or 4.9 GHz hot spots and command centers. The PTP 49600 solution is an IP-based radio delivering up to 150 Mbps and includes integrated T1/E1 ports to provide low latency and jitter for excellent voice quality, which is paramount for public safety and two-way radio system operators to support the critical nature of applications like 9-1-1 or disaster recovery efforts.


Motorola said the new PTP 49600 radios leverage time- and field-tested technologies to meet a range of public safety requirements like resistance to interference or fading as well as signal optimization for maximum data throughput, link quality and availability. Security features include an optional layer of security with FIPS-197-compliant AES encryption.


The PMP 49400 series of access points (AP) and wireless subscriber modules (SM) provides government agencies and municipalities operating in the 4.9 GHz licensed band with a solution for leased line replacement or enabling wireless video surveillance. By relying on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology, these broadband radios deliver near-line-of-sight (nLOS) coverage in locations where obstructions have previously limited wireless broadband access. The standard PMP 49400 Access Point configuration uses an integrated 90-degree antenna. In addition, the 400 series is also available as a connectorized solution, allowing operators of overlay, expanded or greenfield networks to choose the antennas they prefer. http://www.motorola.com

Read More

AT&T To Offer Wireless SmartMetering to Electric Utility Companies

AT&T plans to offer a residential SmartMetering machine to machine (M2M) service to electric utility companies. Specifically, AT&T will partner with SmartSynch, which already has smart grid solutions deployed at more than 100 utilities throughout North America. The solution offers a point-to-point configuration model in which each meter communicates directly with the utility over the AT&T wireless network.

Smart grids combine "smart meters", wireless technology, sensors and software so customers and utilities can closely monitor energy use and cut back when the availability of electricity is stretched to its limit. The companies said an IP-based smart grid model ultimately helps consumers understand the economics of their consumption patterns so they can make intelligent decisions about their power consumption. The smart grid technology will also help to enhance reliability and energy efficiency, lower power-line losses and provide utilities with the ability to remotely automate service, providing cost-savings for consumers.

Key benefits of the point to point smart meter solution to utility companies include:

• improved speed of deployment over traditional meshed networks



• the simplicity of an open standard, IP-based network



• the ability to communicate directly with each meter.

AT&T noted that it has invested significant resources in implementing security features on its global network and best practices that comply with national and international standards. AT&T has employed such practices in order to help secure network resources, data centers and customer facing network interfaces, in line with many of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) recommendations. In addition, AT&T offers security management services and business continuity and disaster recoveryhttp://www.att.com
http://www.smartsynch.com

Read More

NetQuest Introduces Quad Port NIC for Traffic Off-Load and Processing

NetQuest introduced its Aspen network interface card (NIC) adapter designed to capture, inspect, and forwarded out-of-band SONET/SDH traffic at up to OC48/STM-16.




As with all other NICs in the company's PINNICLE family of WAN/LAN NICs, Aspen is designed to optimize the performance of high-speed monitoring platforms by off-loading and pre-processing traffic for more efficient use by the host.


Specifically, Aspen provides support for line speeds up to and including OC48/STM-16 in ATM, Packet over SONET/SDH (POS), and TDM networks, as well as support for 1G traffic in Ethernet networks. Aspen sustains traffic flow at full line rates without packet loss, making it especially useful in such applications as intrusion detection, performance monitoring, and lawful interception. This unprecedented flexibility combined with the use of standard pluggable SFP transceivers make Aspen an obvious choice for system developers on a global basis.


The new Aspen adapter expands upon NetQuest's Tahoe NIC by increasing port density to four ports. The quad port can be configured to provide non-intrusive monitoring access for two full-duplex SONET/SDH lines, four Gigabit Ethernet lines, or a mix of line speeds and technologies on a single NIC.
http://netquestcorp.com

Read More

Tata to Manage SEACOM Cable Linking East Africa

Tata Communications has become an anchor tenant customer on the privately owned SEACOM cable system, enabling the company to provide fully integrated network services from South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya to its networks in Europe, Asia and India.

Another subsidiary company, Tata Communications Transformation Services Limited (TCTS), has been awarded the network administration, operations and maintenance contract of the cable supporting 1.28 Tbps of capacity.


Tata Communications operates the landing point in Mumbai while Neotel will manage the landing point in South Africa. As result of this, the company can provide seamless connectivity between the SEACOM cable system and the Tata Communications global network, along with Neotel's converged network in South Africa.


"Prior to the development of this cable system a majority of East Africa relied on small and expensive satellite circuits to meet their international network requirements," said Brian Herlihy, President of SEACOM, Ltd. "We are pleased to be collaborating with Tata Communications in our ongoing effort to meet the rapidly increasing demand for increased bandwidth and connectivity throughout this region of the world."


Through SEACOM, Tata Communications is able to expand the reach of the Tata Global Network (TGN) to destinations on the East Coast of Africa. Additionally, the SEACOM cable system strengthens Tata Communications world-class IP and MPLS services, which are primed for significant growth in the rapidly growing region. SEACOM and Tata Communications are planning for the system to be ready for service by June 2009.
http://www.tatacommunications.com
http://www.seacom.mu

Read More

ChaCha Secures $12 Million and Reduces Costs

ChaCha, which offers a free SMS-based mobile search service, wit has closed an equity financing round of $12 million. These investments will provide ChaCha with the additional capital it needs to expand its local and national advertising sales activities, including a newly opened New York office.


ChaCha's free mobile answers service leverages human guides to provide answers, for free, to any question, anytime, anywhere. Users don't need a Web-enabled phone, special browsers or codes. Mobile customers simply text 242242 or call 1-800-2-ChaCha (1-800-224-2242) on their mobile phones, ask their questions and receive concise, relevant answers via text messaging.


ChaCha reports that they now deliver 30 million impressions per month and have had approximately 3.6 million users since the SMS answers service launched in January 2008. The company said it generates 70 percent of Google's SMS search volume.


In addition, Palm, H&R Block, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and the Obama Campaign have partnered with ChaCha to run interactive and engaging SMS ad campaigns.


ChaCha also announced it is streamlining and restructuring itself to preserve its cash. The company is reducing headcount, overhead, and expenditures.
http://www.chacha.com

Read More

Zhone Renews Credit Facility With Silicon Valley Bank

Zhone Technologies has renewed its credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank. The facility provides working capital financing of up to $20.0 million to support borrowings and letters of credit. Zhone has renewed this facility every year since 2003 on substantially similar terms. http://www.zhone.com

Read More

OneChip Photonics Secures $19.5 Million for Integrated FTTH Transceiver

OneChip Photonics, a start-up based in Ottawa, has secured $19.5 million in venture capital financing for its high-performance optical transceivers -- based on monolithic Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) in Indium Phosphide (InP).


The company says its breakthrough approach will remove the cost and performance barriers that have been impeding the ubiquitous deployment of FTTH. OneChip Photonics is taking a new approach with its breakthrough PIC technology. OneChip is monolithically integrating all the functions required for an optical transceiver onto a single, Indium Phosphide (InP)-based chip. All active and passive components of the chip -- including the Distributed-Feedback (DFB) laser, Optically Pre-Amplified Detector (OPAD), Wavelength Splitter (WS), Spot-Size Converter (SSC), and various elements of passive waveguide circuitry -- are, uniquely, integrated in one epitaxial growth step, without re-growth or post-growth modification of the epitaxial material.


Currently, the company is developing these low-cost, high-performance transceivers for Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) and Optical Line Terminals (OLTs) in Ethernet PON (EPON) and Gigabit PON (GPON) networks.


Investors include BDC Venture Capital, DCM, GrowthWorks Canadian Fund and Morgenthaler Ventures.
http://www.onechipphotonics.com

Read More

Altera Ships Industry's Highest Density Transceiver FPGAs

Altera announced silicon availability of the industry's highest density transceiver FPGA.


As the second member of the Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA family to ship, the EP4SGX530 is 60 percent larger than the largest transceiver FPGA on the market. The device offers 530K logic elements (LEs), up to 48 transceivers operating at up to 8.5 Gbps, 20.3 Mbits of RAM and 1,040 embedded multipliers. Stratix IV GX devices target numerous applications in the communications, broadcast, test, medical and military markets.


Stratix IV GX FPGAs incorporate up to four hard intellectual property (IP) cores for PCI Express Gen1 and Gen2 (x1, x4 and x8), and also support a wide range of protocols including Serial RapidIO, 40G/100G Ethernet, XAUI, CPRI (including 6G CPRI), CEI-6G, GPON, SFI-5.1 and Interlaken.
http://www.altera.com/pr/stratix4

Read More

Korea Exchange Deploys Ciena's Optical Service Delivery

The Korea Exchange (KRX) has deployed Ciena's optical service delivery platforms as part of its data center consolidation efforts. The solutions provide high-performance connectivity in KRX's data center architecture to ensure the delivery of time-sensitive applications and reliable business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) services, while reducing overall network bandwidth consumption. Financial terms were not disclosed.


Ciena noted that its optical service delivery solutions use compression and dynamic bandwidth assignment to allow a variety of applications, such as Storage Area Networking (SAN), Disk Mirroring, Remote Backup, Mainframe, LAN, Clustering, and Network Attached Storage (NAS) to share a single WAN connection. In addition, its ON-Center Network and Service Management Suite enables KRX to provision new connections easily and rapidly, modify and review service parameters, view real-time performance and health metrics graphs, track historical usage of MAN/WAN bandwidth, and perform other important operational tasks via a simple point-and-click interface.
http://www.krx.co.krhttp://www.ciena.com

Read More

Symmetricom to Supply Timing for Next Gen GPS

Symmetricom has been awarded a contract from ITT Corporation Space Systems Division valued at a minimum of $4 million to supply timing for GPS IIIA, the next generation Global Positioning System (GPS) Space System program. Under the award, Symmetricom will deliver its Model 9552 Ovenized Quartz Master Oscillators over three years, including developing, qualifying and delivering flight oscillators for the first two space vehicles.


The Model 9552 is a high performance oven-controlled quartz crystal oscillator that produces a highly stable, low noise reference frequency output. It is particularly suited to space applications and can be used as the on-board frequency reference for a satellite or ground station. The oscillator will produce the output frequency for the GPS IIIA Navigation payload by means of steering from the on-board Atomic Frequency Standards.
http://www.symmetricom.com

• GPS III will improve position, navigation and timing services for military troops and civilian users worldwide with anti-jam capabilities that will yield superior system security, accuracy and reliability. The new satellites will also interoperate with Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system.



• The U.S. Air Force announced last May that Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to build GPS III. Under the $1.4 billion contract, Lockheed Martin along with ITT and General Dynamics will produce the first two GPS IIIA satellites with first launch projected for 2014. The contract also includes options for up to 10 additional spacecraft.



• Symmetricom customers who utilize precision GPS technology will benefit from the GPS III satellite system as increased transmission power along with new civilian frequencies and signals will increase both accuracy and coverage.

Read More

Vitesse Introduces Transceiver for 10G FTTH

Vitesse Semiconductor introduced a 10 Gbps transceiver integrated circuit (IC) that supports both burst and continuous mode operation required for next-generation 10G-EPON Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) system deployments.


The new VSC8479-01 supports both XFI and SFI module interfaces, making it suitable for XFP and SFP+ host applications. It is the first 10G transceiver to meet and exceed the 10G-EPON IEEE P802.3av/D3.0 Draft standard for burst-mode performance. In addition to 10G-EPON system applications, the VSC8479-01 supports data rates ranging from 9.95 Gbps to 11.35 Gbps specifically for multi-rate applications including: 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE); 10G Fibre Channel (10G FC); OC-192 SONET/SDH; and optical transport networks (OTN). http://www.vitesse.com

Read More

ClariPhy Launches Single-Chip CMOS CDR for 10 Gbps Impairments

ClariPhy Communications, a fabless semiconductor company specializing in high speed communications ICs, introduced its 10 Gbps clock and data recovery (CDR) integrated circuit (IC) with maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE). The all-digital single-chip CMOS IC provides electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) of impairments inherent to optical fiber.


ClariPhy said MLSE (also referred to as maximum likelihood sequence detection or MLSD) is known to be the theoretically optimal EDC architecture, which evaluates a sequence of received data samples to determine the most likely correct transmitted sequence. MLSE is used ubiquitously in lower speed communications applications such as hard disk drives and voice band modems, but only ClariPhy has delivered MLSE at 10 Gbps data rates in CMOS, thereby achieving maximum performance while leveraging CMOS cost and power trends following Moore's Law.


ClariPhy design provides significantly greater tolerance to chromatic dispersion (CD), polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and nonlinear distortion, impairments that are prevalent in telecom networks. Furthermore, at less than two watts, the power dissipation of the single-chip CMOS CL1012 is lower than alternative multi-chip implementations of MLSE utilizing silicon germanium process technology.


The CL1012 CDR with MLSE is manufactured in a 65 nm CMOS process and assembled in a 10×10 mm2 flip chip BGA package.


ClariPhy is headquartered in Irvine, CA, and has an office in Silicon Valley and a design center in Cordoba, Argentina. ClariPhy's investors include Norwest Venture Partners, Onset Ventures, Allegis Capital and Pacific General Ventures.
http://www.clariphy.com

Read More

Zeugma Closes $9 Million for its Service Delivery Router

Zeugma Systems, a start-up based in Vancouver, has closed approximately $9 million as a part of its Series C funding round. This round brings total funding to date to $50 million.


The company's flagship Zeugma Services Node (ZSN) is a service delivery router (SDR) that enables service providers to rapidly prototype and launch revenue-generating services. The hardware platform integrates routing, subscriber, and service management in a single chassis powered by high-performance, multi-core packet processors. A set of Smart Series applications run within the Zeugma Open Application Sandbox (OAS) to provide granular choices for defining basic and advanced broadband services. Zeugma Smart Series applications include SmartVideo, SmartMeter, SmartVOIP, and SmartMonitor.


Investors in the company include Granite Ventures, Ventures West, Vertex Venture Capital, GrowthWorks Capital Ltd., Yaletown Venture Partners, BC Advantage Funds, and GTD Capital. The company will use the funding for global expansion of its customer-facing sales and support activities as well as for continued R&D.


"A significant opportunity is emerging for systems that allow broadband service providers to monetize and meter the traffic -- especially streaming internet video -- already traversing their networks. The rapid acceptance we've received is clear validation of the ability of Zeugma's technology and products to deliver this capability while also performing essential broadband aggregation and subscriber management functions. Zeugma's innovative technology, coupled with partnerships with internet video players, application developers, and other vendors, are causing BSPs to rethink edge network architectures," stated Zeugma CEO Andrew Harries.
http://www.zeugmasystems.com

• Zeugma Systems is led by Andrew Harries, co-founder, President and CEO and who previously co-founded Sierra Wireless Inc.; Siegfried Luft, founder, CTO and formerly a senior development executive at Redback Networks; Jeff Dillabough, VP Engineering, formerly at PMC-Sierra; Tom Meehan, VP product management, previously at Redback Networks; Wayne Shackelford, SVP Worldwide Sales, who formerly led sales at several startups and at Newbridge Networks USA; and Kevin Walsh, VP of Marketing, who previously was VP of Corporate Marketing at Calix.



• The name Zeugma refers to an ancient city located in the Gaziantep Province of Turkey that was named for the bridge of boats, or zeugma, which crossed the Euphrates there. During the Roman Empire, the city held strategic importance due to its location on the Silk Road.

Read More

AirWalk Introduces 1xEV-DO Enterprise Femtocell

AirWalk Communications, a start-up based in Richardson, Texas, introduced its EdgePoint PRO compact enterprise femtocell.


The unit acts as a cellular access point and plugs directly into an existing broadband connection to extend 3G CDMA services for voice and data. The 1xEV-DO EdgePoint PRO has a clustering feature that assures soft handoff between multiple units and the macro network. A single EdgePoint PRO supports up to 28 users with 200mW of power. It is available in 1xRTT or 1xEV-DO Rev. A, and it is available as a wall mount or rack mount unit. EdgePoint PRO integrates the base transceiver station (BTS), base station controller (BSC), packet control function (PCF), and operations and maintenance (O&M).


"Operators are showing remarkable interest in EdgePoint PRO because it is an affordable and reliable solution for cellular-challenged indoor settings where the macro network simply cannot accommodate coverage requirements," said Serge Pequeux, president and CEO of AirWalk. "EdgePoint PRO can contribute to cellular usage by extending seamless service into the enterprise. In-building minutes of use are offered at a fixed rate while supporting additional enterprise voice and data applications."http://www.airwalkcom.com

• In 2008, AirWalk introduced its residential and small office femtocell, the EdgePoint.

Read More