Thursday, August 29, 2013

Verizon: 2013 State of the Enterprise Cloud Report

The number of virtual machines (VMs) deployed by enterprise customers has increased 35 percent since the start of 2012, according to a new "2013 State of the Enterprise Cloud Report released by Verizon.

The report, which draws upon Verizon data between January 2012 and June 2013, examines current cloud adoption and usage trends – in terms of how and why organizations are deploying cloud technologies.

Among the key findings is continual growth.  The Verizon data confirms that once an enterprise successfully deploys an application as a cloud-based service, the trend is to increase usage of processing, memory and storage on a continuing basis.

Verizon also finds that sixty percent of cloud applications are web-based and Internet facing. As familiarity with cloud services grows, enterprise go on to deploy back-office applications.

The eight page report is posted online.

http://www.slideshare.net/VerizonEnterpriseSolutions/2013-state-of-the-enterprise-cloud-report


NSN Delivers Quality of Experience for Beijing Mobile

Beijing Mobile, a branch of the leading Chinese operator, China Mobile, has selected Nokia Solutions and Networks to implement its Quality of Experience (QoE) solution -- an end-to-end approach that helps operators analyze, act upon and monetize the wealth of customer data available across their organization.

Specifically, NSN will collect fault, performance and configuration data from the network, to which it will add insights from its Serve atOnce Traffica system. This will allow Beijing Mobile to enhance customer satisfaction with voice, text messaging, web browsing, instant messaging and local social media services, such as Weibo. NSN will then develop a new service platform for the operator to address subscriber needs directly for a superior customer experience.

NSN's Customer Experience Managemen (CEM) draws customer insight data from multiple sources, including the network, service and device performance, real-time subscriber experience and operator services. It enables data collection and consolidation to improve the user experience.

"Beijing Mobile is responding to the needs of the ever-growing number of mobile internet users with a strategy that focuses on subscriber experience and ongoing O&M transformation instead of traditional network KPIs,” said Xue Rui, head of Delivery in Greater China region at NSN. “NSN helps operators understand the behavior of their subscribers better so that end user needs can be addressed quickly and directly with the new, sustainable customer service business model."

http://nsn.com/news-events/press-room/press-releases/beijing-mobile-improves-customer-experience-with-network-insights


ONF Picks Beijing Internet Institute as First International Certified Testing Lab

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) has selected Beijing Internet Institute (BII) as its first international certified conformance testing lab in Asia.

BII’s testing lab in China evaluates vendors’ networking products for interoperability, conformance, function, and performance. The company will expand its evaluation services by partnering with ONF to test SDN and OpenFlow conformance. The lab will also offer organizations the opportunity to receive OpenFlow certification of their products.


In addition, BII became a member of ONF to foster deployment and commercialization of SDN and the OpenFlow protocol amongst China’s service provider, data center, and enterprise markets.

“In support of ONF’s initiatives, we believe that the next generation of networking in China is SDN and the OpenFlow protocol,” said Liu Dong, director of BII. “Our goal is to help our service provider and enterprise users realize the benefits of this technology and demonstrate true conformance of SDN. We are honored to be named the second ONF-approved conformance testing center, as well as the first in Asia.”

“Conformance testing of commercial products is significant because it validates that the products are using the OpenFlow protocol and increases customer confidence in and acceptance of SDN,” said Dan Pitt, executive director of the Open Networking Foundation. “Having BII as the first ONF certified lab in Asia represents another significant milestone for ONF as it supports our efforts to accelerate the global adoption of open SDN. We welcome BII to our organization and look forward to increasing the awareness of the benefits of SDN on a global scale.”

https://www.opennetworking.org/openflow-conformance-testing-program
http://www.opennetworking.org

Arianespace Launches EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1

Arianespace successfully launched the EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1 satellite aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.

The satellite, which is jointly owned by Eutelsat Communications and the Qatar Satellite Company (Es'hailSat), is designed to serve broadcasters, businesses and public agencies in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia via capacity in the Ku and Ka-bands. It will replace the EUTELSAT 25C satellite at the key 25.5° East position to provide both superior geographic coverage and increased capacity to address dynamically expanding digital markets. Following EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1's entry into service Eutelsat will redeploy its EUTELSAT 25C to another location where it will pursue commercial service.  

http://www.eutelsat.com

EXFO Introduces 400 Gbps Test

EXFO introduced an integrated 400G line rate test solution for simulating real-life services at 400 Gbps link capacity while monitoring key QoS metrics.

EXFO's new IQS-610P-HS-400G test solution provides the ability to fill a 400 Gbps data pipe. It also provides the flexibility to configure up to four 100 Gbps client interfaces simultaneously with full traffic profiling, shaping and monitoring capabilities.

"In a highly competitive market, NEMs are striving to deliver high-speed transmission solutions that meet carriers' need for speed and optical reach while improving compensation for optical impairments," said Claudio Mazzuca, Vice-President of EXFO's Transport and Service Assurance Division. "Thanks to EXFO's powerful and open test architecture, NEMs and carriers have the assurance of knowing that their new 400G systems are proven capable of handling any of the demanding services that may be placed on them in the future. In addition, 400G development and early trials can be complex and cumbersome to perform without the proper test solution."

http://www.EXFO.com

DuPont Fabros Signs New Data Center Customers, Boosts Financial Outlook

DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT) confirmed a new lease totaling 6.83 megawatts with an existing super wholesale Fortune 50 customer for data center space at its Santa Clara, California facility ('SC1").  The company said its tenant leased 2.28 MW of critical load for a term of 5.3 years, bringing Phase I to 100% leased and 94% commenced.  The estimated GAAP return on investment of SC1 Phase I is 9.2%.  The same Fortune 50 customer also pre-leased 4.55 MW of critical load in Phase II of SC1, enabling DFT to begin development of 9.10 MW of critical load in Phase IIA of SC1.  Phase IIA is currently 50% pre-leased and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2014.

In addition, DFT announced:

  • One new lease in Piscataway, New Jersey ("NJ1") with a new Fortune 25 tenant for 2.28 MW of critical load with a lease term of 7.6 years.  The available critical load of NJ1 is now 52% leased and commenced, up from 39%.  The raised floor space is now 64% occupied up from 39% as this lease has a lower power density per square foot.
  • One new lease in Reston, Virginia ("VA3") with the same Fortune 50 customer referenced above for 2.60 MW of critical load with a lease term of 5.1 years.  VA3 is now 71% leased and commenced, up from 51%.

  • Acquired 15 acres of vacant land in Elk Grove Village, Illinois to develop a second data center facility.

  • Boosted its financial guidate, by increasing the low end from the prior range of $1.82 to $1.92 per share to $1.88 to $1.92 per share.  


"We have remained consistently focused on leasing our available inventory and are pleased to announce this significant execution towards our goal.  Our overall operating portfolio is now 94% leased and 93% commenced.  The newly acquired land in Chicago enables us to capture future demand in one of our best markets and expand upon our campus environment," commented Hossein Fateh, President and Chief Executive officer of DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc.

http://www.dft.com/data-centers

Huawei Cites Another Core Routing Win in Thailand

Huawei will provide its NE5000E 400G core routers for Total Access Communication Public Company Limited (DTAC), a large-scale mobile service provider in Thailand. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Huawei said its NE5000E core routers simplify DTAC's backbone networks, upgrade the existing 40G equipment to 400G, and implement networking between 100GE and 10GE by changing subboards, thereby protecting investments.

Gai Gang, president of Huawei's Carrier IP Product Line explained that "Rapid development of UMTS broadband and video services will generate tremendous traffic growth on backbone networks. Existing network architectures need to be upgraded. Now is the time to apply 400G technology. "

http://www.huawei.com

Vodafone Confirms Buyout Talks with Verizon

Vodafone confirmed that it is in discussions with Verizon Communications regarding the possible sale of Vodafone's 45% interest in Verizon Wireless.  Discussions are continuing.

Press speculation has valued the transaction at up to $120-130 billion.

http://www.vodafone.com/


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Juniper Plans VMware NSX for Switching, Routing and Security Products

Juniper Networks is expanding its partnership with VMware and now plans to include VMware NSX L2 Gateway integration and VXLAN routing capabilities across it access, aggregation, core and edge equipment.

Juniper Networks' VXLAN routing and gateway capabilities enable both intra- and inter-data center solutions and accelerate the transition to software-defined networking (SDN).

Specifically, Juniper is working closely with VMware to enable NSX L2 Gateway Services on its EX Series and QFX Series core, aggregation and access switching platforms, and MX Series edge routers.

VMware NSX L2 Gateway Services are expected to be generally available in mid-2014.

Juniper said hardware-accelerated VXLAN routing on its MX Series and EX9200 Series Switches will support multi-tenancy or business continuity/disaster recovery applications by routing traffic between virtual networks either within a single -- or across multiple -- data centers. Juniper is also working with VMware to extend development of its virtual security product portfolio to ensure future integration with VMware NSX and new security and networking application programming interfaces (APIs).

http://www.juniper.net
http://www.vmware.com

Citrix to Open NetScaler Control Center for VMware NSX

Citrix's NetScaler Control Center will gain support for VMware's new NSX network virtualization technology. This will provides automated deployment and configuration of NetScaler functionality within networks that will use the new VMware NSX network virtualization platform and other VMware virtualization technologies. Release dates have not yet been specified.

Citrix said its goal is to enable cloud administrators to programmatically insert NetScaler services into software-defined data centers built on VMware virtualization technologies.

Benefits include:

  •  Enable users to spin-up NetScaler services in their VMware-based cloud environments at the same time they are spinning up virtual servers, virtual storage and the larger virtual network

  • Allow self-service NetScaler configuration by users directly from the VMware vCloud GUI
  • Free users from dealing with the complexities of network topology and configuration, allowing them to focus solely on the NetScaler functionality that their applications need

  • Complement NetScaler Insight Center and NetScaler Command Center, solutions that deliver deep visibility and control to critical business applications and mobile services across public and private cloud environments

http://www.citrix.com
http://www.vmware.com

HP to Federate its SDN Controller with VMware NSX

VMware and HP have agreed to collaborate on automated, virtual data center network technology.

The companies plan to federate the HP Virtual Application Networks SDN Controller with the VMware NSX network virtualization platform.  This will provide a centralized view, unified automation, visibility and control of the complete data center network, improving agility, monitoring and troubleshooting.  The companies said their goal is to eliminate manual configuration of both the physical and virtual data center networks through interoperable automated orchestration of policies.

The HP Virtual Application Networks SDN Controller also will include support for VMware Open vSwitch Database (OVSDB) management protocol. This enables HP FlexFabric switches to participate in the automated provisioning of the virtual network, which will be delivered by VMware NSX network virtualization platform.

HP also introduced the HP FlexFabric 5930 switch with built-in intelligence based on VXLAN technology, extending network virtualization to the servers, and allowing customers to leverage their virtual and physical networks to work together as one entity.  This top-of-rack switch is expected in December 2013

The companies plan to bring their complete solution to market in the second half of 2014.

“Networks must be agile enough to enable the adoption of cloud and mobility while ensuring continuity,” said Bethany Mayer, senior vice president and general manager, Networking, HP. “Building upon our SDN leadership, the HP-VMware networking solution unifies visibility and automation of the physical and virtual network with a common control plane, enabling new application and service delivery in minutes rather than months.”

“Customers are adopting network virtualization to gain the necessary agility needed to realize the promise of virtualized and cloud data centers. To be successful, IT organizations need solutions to deliver common management of services and operations across the physical and virtual domains,” said Stephen Mullaney, senior vice president and general manager, networking and security business unit, VMware. “By collaborating with HP on a federated networking solution, we will help our joint customers create a unified network operations model that will radically simplify IT in the software-defined

http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-vmworld-hp-joint-082613.html#sthash.l48lBuvz.dpuf
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1461269#.Uh7OARvlZ8E

Ovum: Global Optical Networking Market Rebounds Decisively in 2Q13

After a slow start to the year and five preceding quarters of lackluster sales, 2Q13 global optical networking (ON) revenue grew decidedly, according to global analyst firm Ovum. Results of US$4.08 billion for 2Q13 were 29 percent higher than they were in 1Q13 and 7 percent higher than the year-ago quarter. Most significantly, annualized spending grew to US$14.9 billion.

Some highlights from Ovum:

  • ZTE had its strongest quarter ever, solidifying its position behind Huawei as the second-ranked ON vendor. 
  • Annualized spending in Asia-Pacific, at over US$6bn, hit an all-time high. 
  • Demand in North America was also up significantly, benefitting Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ciena, and Fujitsu. 
  • Growth in 100G remains a particular bright spot as annualized revenues exceeded US$1.6bn for the first time ever. 
  • Ovum is forecasting modest two percent growth this year to US$14.9bn.
  • Annualized revenues for CPO gear surpassed US$6bn for in the quarter (42 percent of total ON spending) and 100G port shipments in 2Q13 grew 61 percent, surpassing US$1.6bn for the 4-quarter period. 
  • ROADM and OTN switching were also up strongly from the year-ago quarter. 

“We always expect an uptick going into the second calendar quarter. However, sales of over US$4bn help dispel some of the fear generated by the slow start in 1Q13,” says Ron Kline, network infrastructure analyst at Ovum.  “100G revenue growth is pumping a lot of enthusiasm— and revenue— into the market and increasing the revenues for converged packet optical (CPO) and optical transport network (OTN) switching gear.”

“We’ve been hearing operators say ‘no more SDH/SONET spending’ for years. This is misleading, because what they really mean is no more spending for platforms specific to just that technology. They are eager to deploy CPO products that provide Ethernet and SDH/SONET on a converged platform,” said Kline.

http://ovum.com/press_releases/us14-9bn-global-on-market-rebounds-decisively-in-2q13/


ADTRAN Unveils Total Access 900e Gen 3 Business Gateway

ADTRAN released its Total Access 900e Gen 3 series of Ethernet and Multi-T1 IP Business Gateways, which are purpose-built for carrier SIP/MGCP VoIP networks.

ADTRAN’s next generation Total Access 900e series combines robust routing and voice features for highly reliable and cost-effective services ranging from SIP trunking to hosted PBX. The updated line offers higher performance, more memory and more features, enabling carriers to support advanced routing protocols, Quality of Service (QoS) and traffic delivery. The third generation Total Access 900e features:
  • 66 percent increase in router performance, enabling higher bandwidth applications and services at 100 Mbps
  • Instant high-speed Ethernet connectivity with an additional routed Gigabit Ethernet interface
  • Hardware-based encryption that provides secure service delivery, without impacting high-performance services
  • Enhanced flexibility in hardware configuration, including optional Foreign Exchange Office (FXO) interfaces.
“As carrier experts continue to choose ADTRAN for their network, we have raised the bar on the performance and features of the Total Access 900e to address new applications and capabilities needed to take high-performance networks to the next level,” said Chris Thompson, director of product management for ADTRAN. “The Total Access 900e third gen delivers higher bandwidth, more security and supports additional services and applications to satisfy the needs of tomorrow’s fast-paced and high-bandwidth business environment, at no additional cost.”

Dell’Oro: Microwave Transmission Revenue Grew 13% in 2Q2013

The point-to-point Microwave Transmission equipment market grew 13 percent in the second quarter 2013, according to a newly published report by Dell’Oro Group.

Dell'Oro finds that four vendors comprised more than two thirds of the microwave equipment market at nearly 70 percent.  Huawei managed to capture the most market share in the second quarter by growing its revenue 41 percent sequentially; the highest growth rate among the top four vendors.

“The microwave market turned in its highest growth rate since the second quarter 2012 but nevertheless fell short of historical revenue levels as use of microwave systems for mobile backhaul remained low,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President of Microwave Transmission research at Dell’Oro Group. “We do, however, anticipate that this sub-billion dollar market trend will reverse during the remainder of the year as mobile operators drive their LTE network expansion into additional geographic regions where using microwave systems will be preferred over laying additional fiber,” Yu added.

http://www.DellOro.com

24/7 Mid-Atlantic Network Launches Transport Services with Ciena

24/7 Mid-Atlantic Network, a new carrier backed by a Baltimore based investment group, is preparing to launch high-speed transport and Ethernet services between Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Ashburn, Virginia.  The network is based on the Ciena 6500 Packet-Optical Platform.

24/7 Mid-Atlantic plans to offer 24-hour turn-up guarantee on 10G services.  Along with its long-haul assets, 24/7 has deep metro assets in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., with thousands of near-net buildings and extensive reach throughout the data center community in Ashburn, Virginia.


"We are thrilled to enter into the lit services market.  Coupled with our Colocation and Dark Fiber Services this is the next logical step to offer additional value to our customers," said Sean Baillie, Chief Revenue Officer at 24/7.  "Across the data center, wireless, enterprise, cable, and government sectors we see high-capacity bandwidth needs continue to grow.  Our customers have specific requirements: flexible service options, fast quote turnaround, competitive pricing, and rapid installations.  The Ciena 6500 Platform enables us to meet these demands now and into the future.  Our competition will have some work to do to keep up with us in how nimbly we operate."

The network will be operational in December 2013.

http://www.247MidAtlantic.com
http://www.ciena.com


Procera Lands Multi-Million Order from Top 5 Mobile Operator in Latin America

Procera Networks confirmed the receipt of an initial multi-million dollar order from a Tier 1, top 5 Latin American mobile network operator (MNO). Initial revenue is expected to be recognized in the second half of 2013.

The operator will use Procera's PacketLogic Intelligent Policy Enforcement (IPE) to providefine-grained, subscriber-aware analytics and advanced policy-based services on their LTE network. Procera's IPE system is 3GPP-compliant and equipped with standard interfaces, allowing for scalability to support tens of millions of subscribers in 3GPP MNO networks.

"The Latin American mobile market is a high growth region for policy enforcement solutions," said Paul Gracie, senior vice president of global sales and services at Procera. "The mobile operators are looking to gain better insights into the changing nature of their subscriber's mobile consumption and Procera delivers the most scalable solution for analytics and enforcement, enabling MNOs to optimize Capex while offering sticky new services that decrease churn and increase revenue generation."

http://www.proceranetworks.com


VMware Hires Former Microsoft CIO

VMware announced the appointment of Tony Scott to the role of senior vice president and chief information officer (CIO).  He will be responsible for critical technology systems supporting the company’s worldwide business operations.

Scott previosuly served as corporate vice president and chief information officer of Microsoft, where he was responsible for security, infrastructure, messaging and business applications for all of Microsoft, including support of the product groups, the corporate business groups, and the global sales and marketing organization. Before joining Microsoft, Scott served as senior vice president and chief information officer of The Walt Disney Co., and chief technology officer at General Motors Corp.

http://www.vmware.com/

Russia's Scartel to launch VoLTE with Huawei

Huawei reports that Scartel, a Russian mobile operator, has successfully implemented VoLTE (voice over LTE) with its SRVCC (Single Radio Voice Call Continuity) solution. Following implementation of the solution, Scartel is now technologically capable of supporting voice calls on its LTE network.

SRVCC enables LTE voice call handover in 2G/3G networks.

Huawei provides an end-to-end network solution for Scartel that covers the radio access network, Circuit Switch (CS) core network, IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), Evolved Packet Core (EPC), and Huawei’s Ascend P1 smartphone.

http://www.huawei.com


  • Earlier this month, MegaFon announced plans to acquire Scartel for approximately US$1.8 billion.

Vodafone Hutchison Australia Upgrades Oracle Network API Platform

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA), which serves more than 6 million subscribers, has implemented Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper 5.0 to enhance network and application programming capabilities and grow customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

VHA is in the middle of a multi-year network upgrade, working to improve its NaaS infrastructure to help increase network reliability, reduce customer churn and create new revenue streams. The company is focused on improving key performance metrics – including subscriber growth and customer satisfaction – to help grow market segment share.

Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper enables VHA to reduce operational costs through a virtualized deployment of the new platform and by integrating the service exposure capabilities with VHA’s existing business support system (BSS) environment.

“In today’s highly competitive Australian telecommunications market, innovation and a differentiated customer experience are key to growing the subscriber base. We are pleased to help Vodafone Hutchison Australia upgrade to Oracle Communications Services Gatekeeper 5.0 to integrate the technology infrastructure of its new acquisitions, improve service offerings and solidify its position in the industry,” Bhaskar Gorti, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications.

http://www.oracle.com

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

VMware Readies vCloud Hybrid Service in U.S. for September Launch

VMware's vCloud Hybrid Service will be commercially available in the U.S. starting in September.

VMware vCloud allows users to migrate VMs on demand from their "internal cloud" of cooperating VMware vSphere hypervisors to a remote cloud of VMware vSphere hypervisors.

The service is hosted in three U.S. data centers: Santa Clara, California, Sterling, Virginia, and Las Vegas, Nevada.

VMware has formed a partnership with Savvis (see below) to accelerate adoption of vCloud Hybrid Service.

Two classes of service will be offered:

vCloud Hybrid Service Dedicated Cloud will provide physically isolated and reserved compute resources with pricing starting at 13 cents an hour for a fully protected, fully redundant 1 GB virtual machine with 1 processor.

vCloud Hybrid Service Virtual Private Cloud will offer multitenant compute with full virtual private network isolation. Virtual Private Cloud pricing starting at 4.5 cents an hour for a fully protected, fully redundant 1GB virtual machine with 1 processor."

"Since its debut on May 21, VMware vCloud Hybrid Service has experienced great momentum and success with an over-subscribed Early Access Program, acquiring a strategic beachhead of customers taking full advantage of the ability to extend their applications to the cloud," said Bill Fathers, senior vice president and general manager, Hybrid Cloud Services Business Unit, VMware. "With the new data centers and important new capabilities, we're executing quickly against our vision of a hybrid cloud service that is completely interoperable with existing infrastructure and enables new and existing applications to run without compromise."

Since announcing and pre-releasing vCloud in May, VMware has added the following new capabilities:

Direct Connect: customers can connect their data center network directly to vCloud Hybrid Service over private dedicated networks. Direct Connect will be available in October with a list price of $75 per port per month for a 1GB connection and $250 per port per month for a 10GB connection.

Disaster Recovery as a Service: automatically replicates applications and data to vCloud Hybrid Service, providing rapid automated recovery in the event of an outage.

Cloud Foundry Platform as a Service: provides full support for the open source Cloud Foundry distribution and Pivotal CF. Cloud Foundry allows customers to avoid the complexity of re-architecting of applications to make them run well on public clouds, and avoids lock-in to proprietary cloud APIs.

VMware Horizon View Desktop-as-a-Service: Customers will be able to run Horizon View Desktops on vCloud Hybrid Service, and rapidly deploy new desktops without the expense and effort of procuring and managing physical hardware.

VMware also noted that it is working with channel partners, including CDW, SHI, Presidio, ePlus, and Insight.

http://www.vmware.com


Savvis and VMware Partner on vCloud Hybrid Service

Savvis and VMware announced a partnership focused on VMware vCloud Hybrid Service, which allows users to migrate VMs on demand from their "internal cloud" of cooperating VMware hypervisors to a remote cloud of VMware hypervisors.

Savvis, which is the enterprise IT infrastructure arm of CenturyLink, is deploying instances of VMware vCloud Hybrid Service within its North American data center footprint in 2013 and 2014. Savvis will offer complementary, secure low-latency network services for VMware vCloud Hybrid Service customers using the CenturyLink global network.

VMware has also agreed with Savvis to be its hosting partner in the U.S. and Canada.

"Savvis is proud to expand our VMware partnership to integrate our offerings with VMware vCloud Hybrid Service," said Jeff Von Deylen, president of Savvis. "Customers using VMware vCloud Hybrid Service will benefit from our broad portfolio of network, colocation, managed hosting, managed services and cloud services to enable custom IT solutions. Hybrid cloud customers are looking for the kind of secure, low-latency network connectivity solutions that Savvis and CenturyLink can provide."

"Building on VMware's longstanding relationship with Savvis, this alliance will enable new and existing business applications to run seamlessly both on- and off-premises," said Bill Fathers, senior vice president and general manager, Hybrid Cloud Services Business Unit, VMware. "Customers can gain new data center locations for vCloud Hybrid Service and complementary network, colocation, hosting and managed services from Savvis to accelerate their move to cloud."

Savvis noted it long history of technology integration with VMware. In the past year, Savvis:

Launched the Savvis Cloud Ecosystem, which focuses on innovative technology partners using VMware's vCloud API.

Announced the global availability of Savvis Cloud Data Center, which is based on the latest version of VMware vCloud Director orchestration platform.

Joined the Cloud Foundry advisory board, which was recently established by Pivotal, to help guide the Cloud Foundry ecosystem as it fosters a platform for developers in an open and innovative community.

http://www.savvis.com/vmware
http://www.vmworld.com


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6IBbWSjYg4&hd=1


Brocade Unveils Layer 2 Gateway for VMware NSX

Brocade announced a new network virtualization gateway for bridging logical networks with physical resources using the VMware NSX network virtualization platform in order to provide a unified data center. The gateway involves the integration of VMware NSX with Brocade's VCS Fabric technology.

The Brocade VDX switch family, running VCS Fabric technology, serves as the foundation for the new gateway. It can be deployed as a single switch or as a highly resilient fabric of switches, such as for connecting mission-critical applications and storage data. Tunnel connections are translated into IP connections for bare metal servers running non-virtualized applications, physical storage devices or specialized hardware running network services.  VXLAN support is integrated within the Brocade VDX custom ASIC, enabling high gateway performance.

"Today's introduction of the Brocade VCS Gateway for VMware NSX advances the capabilities of our VCS Fabric technology by unifying physical and virtualized resources within the data center," said Jason Nolet, vice president, Data Center Networking, at Brocade. "The Brocade VCS Gateway for VMware NSX provides our joint customers with an essential element for ensuring consistent and seamless connectivity between virtualized workloads and physical resources within the data center."

"Our collaboration with Brocade has resulted in an integrated solution that can deliver an agile, scalable network infrastructure," said Hatem Naguib, vice president, cloud networking and security, at VMware. "Brocade and VMware are helping customers integrate physical and virtual networks that can be viewed and managed as a single unified infrastructure. This will help customers radically simplify IT through a new network operations model."

Brocade anticipates launching its VCS Gateway for VMware NSX in Q4 2013.

http://www.brocade.com
http://www.vmware.com


In September 2012, Brocade has expanded its set of VDX fabric switches for the data center with a new VDX 8770 model designed for enterprises and service providers striving to both simplify and scale-out their data center infrastructure.

The modular Brocade VDX 8770 Switch is built to support the largest data centers with highly virtualized environments. The Ethernet fabric enables faster virtual machine (VM) migrations through zero-touch VM discovery, VM mobility and VM port configuration migration. Using VCS fabrics, Brocade said its customers can manage dozens of switches as a single logical device. New switches will self-provision when they are connected to the fabric. 

The Brocade VDX 8770 enables a single VCS fabric to scale up to 8000 switch ports with up to 384,000 VMs attached to the fabric. This is 20 times the scalability of the leading competitor, according to Brocade. The Brocade VDX 8770 also delivers the industry's lowest port-to-port latency at 3.5 microseconds across all 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), 10 GbE and 40 GbE ports -- half the latency of the nearest competitor.

The Brocade VDX 8770 is built with a 4 Tbps backplane, enabling the chassis to support future technologies such as dense 100 GbE. Brocade said the VDX 8770 is also engineered for emerging Software-Defined Networking (SDN) architectures, with flexible hardware support for network virtualization through technologies such as VXLAN overlay networking.


Trend Micro and VMware Collaborate on Virtualized Data Center Security

Trend Micro and VMware are collaborating on security for the software defined data center.

The companies will integrate Trend Micro's Deep Security with VMware NSX platform for network virtualization.  Trend Micro's Deep Security integrates anti-malware, Web reputation and firewall in addition to intrusion prevention, integrity monitoring and log inspection to protect mission-critical applications and data. The platform utilizes agentless and agent-based protection to automatically secure virtual servers and desktops, as well as private and public clouds.

"As VMware launches its next-generation VMware NSX™ network virtualization platform, Trend Micro is excited to work alongside to create a comprehensive security backbone that protects the data center of the future," said Kevin Simzer, senior vice president, marketing and business development, Trend Micro. "This relationship will help simplify and automate how security is deployed, delivering reliable protection that easily scales to the needs of each customer."

http://www.TrendMicro.com
http://www.vmware.com

EMC and VMware Join Forces on Software-Defined Storage

EMC and VMware agreed to collaborate on new server-based storage infrastructure for software-defined data centers.

The collaboration initially will focus on the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) and small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) markets, where customers typically use vSphere singularly across a broad set of workloads.

The companies building a number of development labs focused on product definition, compatibility testing, and the optimization of EMC, VMware and third-party technologies.

"EMC and VMware together are defining a new class of highly integrated storage infrastructure to reduce cost and complexity in VMware environments for SMBs and SMEs.  A best-of-breed offering based on the combination of VMware Virtual SAN™ with EMC's market leading storage hardware and software portfolio will help expand the market opportunity for both companies," stated Jeremy Burton, Executive Vice President, of Product Operations and Marketing, EMC Corporation.

http://www.EMC.com
http://www.vmware.com

Huawei Supplies Core Routers to Saudi Arabia's Mobily - 400G Line Cards

Mobily, a leading mobile broadband service provider in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), activated a new IP core based on the Huawei NE5000E core router.

Huawei said the deployment represents the first commercial installation of 400 Gbps linecards, which support flexible networking of 100GE ports, 40GE ports, and 10GE ports. In addition, power consumption of the 400G line card is within 1 W/G.

Mobily's new 400G IP core capabilities will support its UMTS/LTE, video, teleconferencing, machine-to-machine (M2M), and cloud computing services.

"We aim to bring leading-edge technology and infrastructure offerings to our customers," said Mr. Nasser AL Nasser, Chief Operation Officer, Mobily. "The new 400G IP core provides excellent performance and scalability, and will allow Mobily to continue to develop its services over the coming years."

"We are pleased to join Mobily in deploying the world’s first 400G IP core network," said Zha Jun, president of Huawei Fixed Network Business Unit. "Rapid development of mobile broadband and video services will generate tremendous traffic growth for backbone networks. Now is the time to apply 400G technology. Huawei is leading the development in 400G technology and fully understands carriers' network reconstruction requirements. Huawei can and will systematically improve network performance, expand bandwidth capacity, and eliminate bandwidth bottlenecks to help carriers build future-ready backbone networks."

As a leader in global IP technologies, Huawei carrier IP products and solutions are serving China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, and other world-wide leading carriers such as Orange S.A, Telefonica, and SingTel. According to data from Ovum, Huawei had the highest growth rate in the global IP market in Q1 of 2013.

http://pr.huawei.com/en/news/hw-279158-mobily.htm#.Uh07jxuN-M4


In September 2012, Huawei unveiled the industry's first and highest-capacity 480 Gbps router line card, enabling a capacity of 15.4 Tbps for its high-end core router with 48x10GE, 12x40GE, or 4x100GE line-rate forwarding per slot.  Huawei will offer various daughter cards with 10GE/40GE/100GE ports for flexible configuration.
Huawei said the capacity is achieved using its third-generation programmable, custom Solar 3.0 ASICs with Smart Memory and Intelligent Frequency Adjustment (IFA) technologies. The company said it is able to achieve a record-low energy use of 0.71 W/g for the line card.

London Internet Exchange Expands to Virginia

The London Internet Exchange (LINX) will establish a new, neutral, multi-site Internet Exchange in EvoSwitch's new WDC1 data center in Manassas, Virginia.  The Exchange, called LINX USA, will be run by LINX and be closely modeled after their Exchange in London, currently one of the largest exchanges for Internet traffic worldwide.

EvoSwitch's WDC1 data center in northern Virginia is the first of three data centers in the region to reach an agreement with LINX for its initial footprint as a multi-site Internet Exchange (IXP).

"Before we launched into the north Virginia market, we already knew we wanted a strong, neutral Internet Exchange partner to provide our customers with best-in-class peering services," said Eric Boonstra, CEO of EvoSwitch. "The North American market for network interconnection services has developed very differently from Europe. In Europe, carrier-neutral data centers work closely with neutral IXPs to provide a layer of transparent peering services that are available from multiple, competing data centers in the same market. We feel that we are ideally positioned to leverage our partnership with LINX here in the US. Over time, it will provide our network and content provider customers with real choice on where to colocate, because their peering needs can be met from anywhere in any given metro market."

"EvoSwitch approached us early November 2012 with the idea to bring the powerful IXP model that LINX represents to the USA," said John Souter, CEO of the London Internet Exchange. "Out of those conversations, and in close collaboration with Open-IX since it was formed early 2013, we are now close to launching LINX USA in north Virginia. There is a strong demand for a change in the way networks interconnect across the United States. Neutral, multi-site IXPs where peers are members with a clear say in running the Exchange as stakeholders, provide real choice. They add resilience in the network, reduce latency and ultimately lower the cost of exchanging Internet traffic, which in the end stimulates growth which benefits all."

The London Internet Exchange (LINX), which is one of the largest in the world, provides peering to over 475 members from 58 countries. The LINX London network currently handles over 1.6 Tb/sec of peak traffic and covers more than 80% of the global routing table.

EvoSwitch also operates the AMS1 data center in Amsterdam.

https://www.linx.net/
http://www.evoswitch.com/

Violin Memory Files for IPO

Violin Memory, a start-up offering memory-based storage systems, filed its registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the proposed initial public offering of its common stock. The number of shares to be sold and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined.

Violin Memory plans to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "VMEM."

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities, and BofA Merrill Lynch will act as lead joint book-running managers for the offering.  Barclays is acting as a book-running manager.   Baird and Pacific Crest Securities will act as co-managers.

http://www.violin-memory.com/


  • Earlier this month,  Earlier this month, Violin Memory introduced its next generation 6264 flash Memory Array that delivers 64TB of capacity in a mere 3U footprint.  The storage array combines the company's flash controller technology with Toshiba’s latest generation of 19nm flash technology, enabling twice the density and three times the economics of its predecessor while significantly reducing power consumption.

    “Competitive architectural approaches based on SSDs short change the actual performance capabilities of flash memory,” said Don Basile, CEO of Violin Memory. “As semiconductor process geometries shrink, flash memory gets slower and more error-prone. Violin’s unique flash management IP enables us to increase performance and capacity in the same footprint while ensuring the data resiliency required in Tier 1 enterprise storage deployments. Our goal is to deliver memory storage at the cost of legacy disk.”
  • Violin Memory was founded in 2005 and is based in Mountain View, California.


Cox Offers Access to 150,000 Wi-Fi Hotspots across U.S.

Customers of Cox Communications' Preferred, Premier or Ultimate High Speed Internet service now have access to 150,000 indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi hotspots.

CableWiFI is the nation's largest WiFi network made possible by a collaboration of cable companies.  More hotspots are expected to be added before the end of the year as the integration with other cable operators continues, adding major business and travel destinations such as Los Angeles and New York City to the list of cities available to eligible Cox customers.

"Cox recognizes that our customers want quick access to information and entertainment anytime, anywhere.  That's why we are committed to delivering a fast, reliable connection to the Internet when and where our customers need it," said Len Barlik, executive vice president and chief product officer. "Not only are we providing our customers access to nearly 150,000 WiFi hotspots throughout the country, we are also making it convenient and simple for customers to locate and logon to these hotspots."

http://www.cox.com/hotspots

Telx Appoints New CEO

The Telx Group appointed Chris Downie as its new CEO.  Downie has served as the President and Chief
Financial Officer of Telx since 2007.  Prior to joining Telx, Downie served as CFO, COO and ultimately Principal Executive Officer for Motient Corporation, a leading satellite services company.

http://www.telx.com


  • Telx operates 20 data centers in North America, including six facilities across the New York / New Jersey Metro area, two facilities in Chicago, two facilities in Dallas, four facilities in California (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and two in Santa Clara), two Pacific Northwest facilities (Seattle and Portland), and facilities in Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix and Charlotte, N.C. 

Monday, August 26, 2013

VMware Refines its Software-Defined Data Center Strategy


One year after unveiling its architecture for software-defined data centers, VMware is updating the portfolio with four new products aimed at driving virtualization in networking, security, storage, availability, management and automation. Significantly, the announcement leverages technology from Nicira, which VMware acquired one year ago for over $1 billion.

The company said its goal is to provide agility and control for building and operating private, hybrid and public clouds.

The announcement coincides with the tenth annual VMworld conference, which is underway this week in San Francisco.

The product announcements include:

VMware NSX – a network virtualization platform that will deliver the entire networking and security model in software, decoupled from networking hardware. VMware said its approach to network virtualization enables data center operators to treat their physical network as a pool of transport capacity that can be consumed and repurposed on-demand.

VMware NSX integrates elements of Nicira NVP and VMware vCloud Network and Security into one unified platform, delivering the entire networking and security model (Layer 2 – Layer 7) in software. In addition, the VMware NSX virtual networks support existing applications, unchanged, on any physical network infrastructure.

Some other notes: VMware NSX services are integrated with the hypervisor kernel, enabling scalabilty by adding more server nodes. The company said its architecture can handle as much as 1 TB per second of network traffic per cluster of 32 hosts.

VMware Virtual SAN a new technology that extends VMware vSphere to pool compute and direct-attached storage. VMware Virtual SAN will deliver a virtual data plane that clusters server disks and flash to create high-performance, resilient shared storage designed for virtual machines. It also uses a distributed architecture to enable storage services to scale out linearly with the needs of the application. Essentially, VMware said it has redefined the role of the hypervisor to deliver virtualized compute and storage services with I/O performance comparable to mid-range storage arrays while leveraging the economics of direct-attached storage.  VMware Virtual SAN provides a policy-drive control plane for server-side solid state disks (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs).

VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 – the latest release features new and enhanced product functionality to help customers build and operate a vSphere-based private cloud using the software-defined data center architecture.  The VMware vCloud Suite is built on the foundation of VMware vSphere. Enhancements include better ability to detect and recover from application or operating system failure, a flash read cache that virtualizes server-side flash, and a low-latency sensitivity feature.  VMware is also now supporting Apache Hadoop and Big Data workloads on VMware vSphere 5.5.

VMware vSphere with Operations Management 5.5 – which combines vSphere virtualization platform with insight to workload capacity and health. These tools help with capacity planning, monitoring and maintenance.

"New products such as VMware NSX and VMware Virtual SAN will fundamentally redefine the hypervisor and its role in the data center. Along with the recently introduced VMware vCenter Log Insight, these products represent the next wave of innovation at VMware. We continue to evolve the software-defined data center architecture to address IT’s critical needs - enabling them to build infrastructure that is radically simpler and more efficient while delivering the agility and flexibility to support the velocity of their businesses," stated Raghu Raghuram, executive vice president, Cloud Infrastructure and Management, VMware.

http://www.vmware.com/software-defined-datacenter/index.html

In July 2012, VMware acquired Nicira, a start-up focused on software-defined networking (SDN) for approximately $1.05 billion in cash plus approximately $210 million of assumed unvested equity awards.
Nicira, which was based in Palo Alto, California, developed a software-based Network Virtualization Platform (NVP) that creates a distributed virtual network infrastructure in cloud data centers that is completely decoupled and independent from physical network hardware. The company says its technology "decouples and isolates virtual networks from the underlying network hardware, like server virtualization decouples and isolates virtual machines from the underlying server hardware."

Nicira's NVP software is implemented at the network edge and managed by distributed clustered controller architecture. The system forms a thin software layer that treats the physical network as an IP backplane. This approach allows the creation of virtual networks that have the same properties and services as physical networks, such as security and QoS policies, L2 reachability, and higher-level service capabilities such as stateful firewalling. These virtual networks can be created dynamically to support VM mobility anywhere within or between data centers without service disruption or address changes. 


Sprint Launches Ethernet Wave Service

Sprint announced the availability of Ethernet Wave Service for business customers, promising secure, always-on wireless and wireline connectivity with maximum data security and privacy.

Sprint Ethernet Wave Service is now available in 88 U.S. markets and expansion will continue through 2014. As a fixed, point-to-point 100 percent dedicated high-speed connection, it offers 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GigE), 40GigE and 100GigE speeds. The secure, always-on connectivity with 24x7 network monitoring helps to ensure the service is available when needed and is performing optimally. Sprint is offering flat-rate pricing.

Sprint’s Ethernet Solutions portfolio also includes Ethernet access, which is available today in 149 U.S. markets and 81 countries around the globe.

Sprint said its Ethernet Wave Service is enabled by its Network Vision initiative, which uses a Ciena 6500-based architecture for delivery of 10GigE, 40GigE and 100GigE wavelengths. Sprint is leveraging Ciena’s WaveLogic 3 coherent optical processors to scale its existing infrastructure to speeds of 100G, with the ability to scale to 400G links in the future.

“While Carrier Ethernet is becoming a ubiquitous service provided locally and globally, Sprint’s Ethernet Wave Service offers businesses the flexibility, higher speeds and scalability needed for emerging applications,” said Mike Sapien, principal analyst with Ovum Research. “It is just as important that these services are backed by service level agreements that will deliver end-to-end performance requirements with the high-speed, high-bandwidth transport service. Sprint already has a strong market reputation in service management from our survey data, and the addition of new Ethernet transport options and additional coverage will complement their solutions portfolio.”

Mike Fitz, vice president of wireline for Sprint, added, “We’re deploying new network technologies designed to meet the speed and capacity demands of today’s business-critical applications and to allow businesses to simplify network operations through familiar Ethernet technology. Leveraging the investment in state-of-the-art converged packet-optical transport technology as part of our Network Vision, we are enhancing our industry-recognized wireline network to carry a suite of powerful, higher speed bandwidth Ethernet services. Our customized approach to solving business challenges and proven success in offering managed network solutions makes us uniquely positioned to successfully support high-performance Ethernet services.”

http://www.sprint.com
http://www.ciena.com

Earlier this month, Sprint and Ciena announced two milestones in speed and capacity on Sprint’s network:

  • Sprint has deployed one of the longest 100 Gbps circuits in the United States with a live transmission that required no signal regeneration over a distance of 2,100 km, or 1,304 miles, between Chicago and Fort Worth, Texas. The 100 Gbps link uses Ciena WaveLogic 3 coherent optical processors on the 6500 Packet Optical Platform
  • Last month, the companies successfully completed a live 400Gbps trial on Sprint’s network in the Silicon Valley area using existing Sprint fiber infrastructure and Ciena’s 6500 with WaveLogic 3 cards. The high-capacity link operated without error. The companies said this demonstrated the viability of using 400Gbps channels alongside existing channels carrying live customer traffic. 
As announced in 2012, Sprint is upgrading its optical backbone network with Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform as part of its Network Vision initiative.


Ciena has been a strategic supplier to Sprint since 1998.

AT&T Expands Coverage of 45 Mbps U-verse Internet Service

AT&T has expanded its U-verse Internet service, offering speeds of up to 45 Mbps downstream and up to 6 Mbps upstream, coverage to 40 new markets across 15 states.


AT&T's expansion of faster U-verse Internet speeds is part of the company's Project Velocity IP (VIP), a three-year investment plan announced last fall to expand and enhance its IP broadband networks. AT&T plans to upgrade top tier U-verse speeds to up to 100 Mbps in the future.

http://www.att.com


  • On November 7, 2012, AT&T unveiled Project Velocity IP (VIP) -- its plan to invest $14 billion over the next three years to significantly expand and enhance its wireless and wireline IP broadband network. The plan adds $8 billion for wireless initiatives and $6 billion for wireline initiatives.  It also makes a distinction between areas where the company believes are better served wirelessly rather the through a traditional copper network or deploying a fiber infrastructure.
  • Total capital spending is now expected to be approximately $22 billion for each of next three years. The company said a stronger balance sheet has provided it the financial footing to invest. AT&T is also increasing its quarterly dividend 2.3 percent and is predicting EPS will grow by mid-single digits for the next 3 years with opportunity for stronger growth going forward.
  • The Project VIP plan includes an upgrade for U-verse to speeds of up to 75Mbps and for U-verse IPDSLAM to speeds of up to 45Mbps, with a path to deliver even higher speeds in the future.
  • In the 25 percent of AT&T's wireline customer locations where it's currently not economically feasible to build a competitive IP wireline network, the company said it will utilize its expanding 4G LTE wireless network -- as it becomes available -- to offer voice and high-speed IP Internet services. The company's 4G LTE network will cover 99 percent of all in-region customer locations. AT&T's 4G LTE network offers speeds competitive with, if not higher than, what is available on wired broadband networks today. 
  • Gigamon Enables Multi-tenant Visibility

    Gigamon announced the latest release of its GigaVUE H Series software, Version 3.1, offering enhancements to Flow Mapping as well as support for role-based access control and advanced workflows for independent and concurrent monitoring policy configurations. This provides the ability to virtualize the Visibility Fabric.  The company said these new capabilities will enable enterprises to offer Visibility as a Service to internal IT tenants, who will gain the power to dynamically change monitoring and traffic visibility policies on a per-organization or per-tenant basis without impacting other departmental monitoring polices and while maintaining compliance and privacy.

    "The notion of multi-tenancy has made its way from the public cloud space into enterprise IT infrastructure as well," said Shehzad Merchant, Chief Strategy Officer at Gigamon. "This solution enables network administrators and services teams to virtualize the Visibility Fabric and offer Visibility as a Service to the different IT departments."

    The GigaVUE H Series 3.1 software update is targeted for availability for current and future GigaVUE H Series customers on September 30, 2013.



    Radisys and Telum Attach an eNodeB in Russia to EPC in California

    Radisys and Telum, which supplies military and professional radio communications systems in Russia, successfully integrated Radisys’ Compact Evolved Packet Core (EPC) with Telum’s compact LTE base station (eNodeB).

    For the interoperability test, Radisys’ Compact EPC was deployed remotely in San Diego, California and integrated with Telum’s eNodeB in Moscow, Russia, showcasing the ability to integrate an eNodeB remotely from the EPC. The test demonstrates how equipment, based on industry 3GPP standards, can interoperate in a private LTE network.

    The companies said aerospace and Defense (A&D) and public safety contractors are turning to private LTE networks using carrier-grade quality and proven, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology as LTE offers numerous advantages for private networks, including higher speeds and lower latency. The all-IP network is standards-based, allowing the military to take advantage of a large ecosystem of vendors for the radio and core networks, keeping network costs affordable and enabling interoperability. In addition, A&D contractors can leverage the broad availability of LTE smart phones in the market, replacing the clunky and expensive handsets associated with legacy private networks.

    “We are pleased to partner with Radisys, its product exceeded our expectations not only in terms of ease of integration of the solution with an eNodeB to deliver an end-to-end LTE network, but also due to the impressive performance,” said Pavel Boyko, CEO, Telum LLC. “Radisys’ Compact EPC perfectly complements our high-performance compact eNodeB and allows us to deliver outstanding end-to-end private LTE infrastructure solutions that meet the bandwidth and quality of service needs of our customers.”

    “Telum is exactly the kind of partner that we seek to enable the adoption of LTE for private networks,” said Keate Despain, vice president and general manager, Platforms, Radisys. “Radisys’ solutions are already deployed in LTE networks by two of the top ten U.S. defense contractors, and we are in development with three of the top 20 contractors in A&D and public safety around the world. Our field-proven LTE technology enables faster deployment times and industry-leading performance, and we look forward to continuing to work with Telum as they serve this growing market.”    

    http://www.radisys.com
    http://www.telum.ru/en
     

    Lifeline Data Centers Builds Four Megawatt Solar Array

    Lifeline Data Centers is planning to install a 4 megawatt solar power array at its Eastgate data center campus in Indianapolis, Indiana. Project completion is expected by April 2014.

    “I am very proud that Lifeline Data Centers is one of the first large independent data center facilities in the country to be largely powered by solar energy,” stated Lifeline co-owner Alex Carroll.

    The company noted that it now joins the likes of Apple, eBay, Facebook, and Cisco in the adoption of solar power as a clean and renewable data center power source that reduces dependence on the commercial power grid.

    http://www.lifelinedatacenters.com

    Fusion-io Debuts Flash-Optimized ioVDI Software

    Fusion-io introduced a software set for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) acceleration using flash in data center servers.

    The company said its ioVDI software eliminates complicated VDI configurations with a simple server deployment model that delivers persistent desktop performance at a cost similar to stateless desktops. Fusion-io claims its software streamlines data requirements closest to the application at the VM level, consistently delivering less than 200 milliseconds of application latency and averaging at only 10 milliseconds. Without ioVDI, application latency can be as much as over 1800 milliseconds, with average latency at around 600 milliseconds.


    Fusion ioVDI will be available as stand-alone software and as an integrated solution featuring ioVDI software and Fusion ioCache virtualization acceleration platforms integrated into servers from Fusion-io Original Equipment Manufacturers.

    "With ioVDI software, enterprises can finally deliver a virtual desktop experience that is just as responsive as physical hardware," said Vikram Joshi, Fusion-io Chief Technologist and Vice President. "Writing data creates a storage bottleneck in virtual desktop infrastructure that is uniquely solved by ioVDI software. Using highly optimized algorithms, ioVDI fetches data from server-side flash, intelligently offloading most reads and up to 80% of the writes from primary storage to ensure ample storage resources for applications delivered virtually. Making efficient use of CPU and I/O resources with ioVDI allows for hundreds of desktops to be hosted on a single server without compromising end-user experience, which is absolutely critical to the success of VDI."

    http://www.fusionio.com