Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Vistapointe: Mobile Analytics and the Customer Experience




What's really interesting about Vistapointe is that they've developed a real-time, customer intelligence engine that leverages only necessary data to understand the customer experience and get a better handle on application security. Understanding the impact that applications are having on the network is essential, explains Andrew Coward, Principal Consultant at Kirin Solutions and Board Advisor at Vistapointe. http://vistapointe.net

0:40 -- Some Use Cases
2:18 -- Getting a Hold of Quality of Experience
4:15 -- Customer Care
5:24 -- Mobile App Security

Vistapointe, a start-up based in San Ramon, California with R&D in Bangalore, India, offers a cloud-based and embedded network intelligence solutions for mobile and enterprise Wi-Fi operators.

Cisco's Quantum Unites Analytics, Policy, SON and WAN Optimization

Cisco is introducing a "Quantum" product suite that integrates network analytics, policy control, Self-Optimizing Network (SON), and WAN orchestration capabilities to give network operators better tools for monetizing traffic.

Cisco said its goal is to identify data-in-motion revenue opportunities via a monitoring abstraction layer and then apply real-time or near real-time policy control via PCRF to ensure better subscriber services.

The wide range of technologies brought together in Cisco Quantum originate both in-house and through a number of acquisitions carried out by Cisco in recent months, including BroadHop (policy control), Intucell (Self-Organizing Networks), ThinkSmart Technologies (location data analysis using Wi-Fi), and Cariden (network planning, design and traffic management).

The Cisco Quantum suite includes:

  • Cisco Quantum Network Abstraction Suite: provides a real-time network abstraction layer for network data collection, aggregation and orchestration to augment available information in all network decision processes.
  • Cisco Quantum Policy Suite: offers a next-generation policy management solution that enables service providers to scale, control, monetize and personalize any service on any type of network through a flexible, interactive architecture that supports application-centric policy capabilities.
  • Cisco Quantum Analytics Suite: provides business and network analytics capabilities that enable both historical and real-time predictive policy decisions. It includes dashboards for data visualization and programmable interfaces to create system alerts in conjunction with policy.
  • Cisco Quantum Wide Area Network (WAN) Orchestration Suite: provides network management tools to simplify capacity and traffic management, increase network efficiency, and reduce operational costs for service providers, particularly in IP/MPLS (Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Label Switching) environments.


http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1137579

Cisco Extends Carrier Wi-Fi with 3G Plug-in, Mini ASR Edge Router

Cisco is looking to extend its considerable reach in campus and enterprise Wi-Fi by introducing licensed radio small-cell carrier capabilities.

The rollout includes:

  • Cisco 3G Small Cell Module for Cisco Aironet Access Points is Wi-Fi compatible and integrates licensed and unlicensed small cells with a plug-in 3G radio for ease of deployment.  Cisco said the upgrade slot on its latest Aironet APs could accommodate 4G radio plug-in, although this has not been announced so far. The 3G plug-in does not require a separate antenna as it uses the AP's antenna.
  • Cisco 3G Small Cell expands Cisco’s solution for enterprises with a channel to market for premises-based deployments.
  • Cisco ASR 901S is designed to enable wide-scale deployment of outdoor small cells by extending carrier-class small-cell routing to the outdoor installation pole to break the backhaul bottleneck.




Mandiant: China's Cyber Espionage Led by PLA Unit in Shanghai

A highly publicized report from Mandiant, a security consulting firm based in Arlington, Virginia, links cyber attacks on over 140 U.S. corporations to a specific unit of China's People's Liberation Army.

The report, called "APT1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units," details how it has the PLA's Unit 61398 systematically carried out spear-phishing attacks and stole confidential data from leading companies across multiple industries.  Mandiant claims the widespread attacks are on-going.  

In addition to describing the methodology of the attacks, the Mandiant report provides domain names, MD5 hashes of malware and X.509 encryption certificates associated with the attackers.

Some highlights of the widely-cited Mandiant report:
  • APT1 has systematically stolen hundreds of terabytes of data
  • APT1 is believed to have dozens, if not hundreds of human operators.
  • APT1 maintains an extensive infrastructure of computer systems around the world.
  • In over 97% of the 1,905 times Mandiant observed APT1 intruders connecting to their attack infrastructure, APT1 used IP addresses registered in Shanghai and systems set to use the Simplified Chinese language.
  • Mandiant observed APT1 establish a minimum of 937 Command and Control (C2) servers hosted on 849 distinct IP addresses in 13 countries. The majority of these 849 unique IP addresses were 
  • registered to organizations in China (709), followed by the U.S. (109). 

NSN Expands Small Cell Portfolio and Accelerates Deployments with FlexiZone

Nokia Siemens Networks is introducing new Micro and Pico base stations for LTE and Wi-Fi designed to complement standard base station capacity in hot zones - areas of high subscriber density. The new Micro and Pico bases stations can be integrated into the company’s Flexi Zone architecture for mobile traffic hot zones.

Nokia Siemens Networks’ Flexi Zone supports up to 100 access points per hot zone while operating as a single base station from the network’s point of view. 

NSN said the unique architecture of Flexi Zone helps manage interference and significantly reduces the core network and maintenance demands of large small cell deployments while addressing street level challenges. The compact next generation Flexi Zone Micro and Pico can be operated as stand-alone base stations initially and then evolved into Flexi Zone Access Points in a Flexi Zone architecture, as hot spots grow into hot zones from areas covering a few cells to large indoor spaces like shopping malls and airports.

At next week's Mobile World Congress, NSN is also introducing new HSPA+ and LTE Femtocells for small cell coverage in enterprises and indoor public areas. The two new products feature plug-and-play deployment and provisioning to enable rapid ramp-up of new services, tap into new revenue streams, and capitalize on value-added enterprise services. The FAPe-hsp 5620 Femtocell for HSPA+ offers high output power for large coverage, while the FAPe-lte 7610 is the company’s first Femtocell Access Point for LTE.

The company is also enhancing services for Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) to include customer experience management capabilities to analyze traffic hotspots and ensure backhaul capacity. Services for HetNets includes hotspot analysis, optimization and small cell planning and deployment to help operators optimize their mix of macro and small cells. It now provides customer experience management capabilities to help operators understand the effect of traffic hotspots on the end user experience.

"To support the dramatic growth in mobile broadband demand, operators will need to significantly increase capacity in high-traffic areas by adding small cells that complement their macro network. Our complete small cell portfolio comprises a package of products and services to combine macro and small cells to provide the best coverage and capacity in all locations," said Bill Payne, head of the small cells business, Nokia Siemens Networks. “With these launches, we are extending our industry lead in small cells by offering a complete portfolio across both macro and small cell technologies that delivers the best return on operator investment.”

http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

LSI Introduces ARM-based Axxia 5500 Processors for 4G Base Stations

LSI introduced its ARM-based family of Axxia 5500 processors designed for multi-radio LTE base stations, cell site routers, gateways and mobile backhaul equipment.

The new processors combine up to 16 ARM Cortex-A15 cores with LSI specialized networking accelerators to optimize performance and power efficiency.  On-chip network accelerators deliver up to 50 Gbps packet processing, 20 Gbps security processing and 160 Gbps of Ethernet switching via 16 10G Ethernet interfaces. LSI plans to offer several versions with different core counts and throughput capabilities.  The chip design leverages ARM’s CoreLink CCN-504 low-latency interconnect in 28nm process technology.

LSI said its combination of networking expertise, specialized acceleration engines and Virtual Pipeline technology with ARM’s power-efficient processors and interconnect IP delivers communication processors that are uniquely suited for building intelligent, heterogeneous networks.

“The combination of ARM’s leading coherent interconnect, energy-efficient multicore processor technology and advanced physical IP in the LSI Axxia 5500 series delivers significant gains in performance density. This will enable highly efficient systems with new levels of software flexibility and scalability for heterogeneous networks,” said Ian Ferguson, vice president of Segment Marketing, ARM. “LSI and ARM enjoy a strong relationship, and we are working to meet the needs of customers who are focusing on building next-generation network infrastructure.”

http://www.lsi.com

Tilera Chips Packs 72 64-bit Cores, 100G Network I/O


Tilera introduced a processor packing 72 power-efficient cores, 100 Gbps I/O and four high-performance DDR3 memory controllers.  The design targets Big Data appliances, such as L2-7 networking and firewall platforms and high-throughput SDN equipment.

The TILE-Gx72 leverages Tilera’s iMesh-dimensional interconnect, DDC distributed coherent cache, and TileDirect direct-to-cache I/O. The new design doubles the performance of the company's TILE-Gx36 processor introduced a year ago.
Tilera said its silicon will be capable of performing network monitoring and analytics with 100% line-rate packet capture at 100 Gbps.

“The TILE-Gx72 rounds out our processor portfolio, complementing our 9, 16 and 36-core TILE-Gx processors and is offering a remarkable range of processing performance,” said Devesh Garg, president and CEO of Tilera. “Customers demand ever-increasing levels of performance and performance-per-watt to stay competitive and they simultaneously want to reuse their software and hardware investments across their product portfolio.  The TILE-Gx72 brings an unprecedented amount of compute to customer designs, and leverages thousands of open source libraries and the growing Linux ecosystem.”

Martin Cooper Awarded Charles Stark Draper Prize

Martin Cooper, who led the Motorola team that developed the first mobile phone in 1973, was named as one of the recipients of the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the highest honor of the National Academy of Engineering.

Cooper famously placed the first portable, cellular call on April 3, 1973 from outside a press conference in New York City to a landline at Bell Labs in New Jersey.  The call used the Motorola DynaTAC, which weighed 2.2 lbs., had 35 minutes of talk-time and a battery life of 20 minutes.  

"Long before we messaged people in real-time, had instant maps for anywhere, or streamed movies on our smartphones, Martin Cooper and his team laid the foundations of mobile phone technology," said Iqbal Arshad, SVP, Global Product Development, Motorola Mobility."When we look at everything that's been accomplished thanks to the hard work of Martin and his team, we can't think of anyone more deserving of this honor."

http://www.motorola.com

http://nae.edu/Activities/Projects/Awards/DraperPrize/67245.aspx

Other recipients of the Charles Stark Draper prize this year include Joel S. Engel, Richard H. Frenkiel, Thomas Haug, and Yoshihisa Okumura, all of who were recognized for their contributions to communications.

DOCOMO Tops 10M LTE Subscribers, 4K LTE Base Stations

NTT DOCOMO has surpassed the 10 million subscriber milestone for its Xi (pronounced crossy) LTE mobile service.  Subscribers reached one million in December 2011 and then quickly topped five million in August 2012.

NTT DOCOMO commercially launched its LTE service on December 24, 2010.

DOCOMO supports its LTE customers with a wide variety of advanced devices, including 32 smartphones, six tablets and seven data terminals so far.

DOCOMO currently has also 4,000 base stations supporting at least 75 Mbps downlinks. This number is expected to jump to 10,000 by June.  The company also plans to introduce a 150 Mbps downlink service before March 2014.

http://www.nttdocomo.com/pr/2013/001629.html

Cavium Advances TurboDPI Software for its OCTEON Processors


Cavium introduced TurboDPI II software for its OCTEON II processors.  The software includes up to nine major DPI functional modules.  Cavium's design ensures that data is only scanned once by the OCTEON's built-in hardware HFA DPI engines, and then the results are passed to the appropriate module.

The company said its TurboDPI II enables market-leading DPI performance and speeds up time to market for Enterprise Cloud, Data Center and 3G/4G/LTE Wireless equipment manufacturers.

"In the last two years, our TurboDPI product line has been taken up by a number of Tier 1 players in the 3G/4G infrastructure and Enterprise Markets," said YJ Kim, Vice President, Infrastructure Processor Division, Cavium. "Now with nine DPI modules, TurboDPI II provides new functionality for the Cloud and Data Center markets and will help service the ever growing demand for more fine grained network, application visibility and security."

http://www.cavium.com

Maxim and Freescale Partner on LTE Picocell

Maxim Integrated and Freescale Semiconductor are planning to to showcase an LTE/3G picocell base station at next week's 2013 Mobile World Congress.

The picocell base station design integrates a Freescale BSC9132 multi-core baseband processor and Maxim MAX2580 small cell RF transceiver to deliver LTE/3G coverage with 1W+ antenna output. The LTE/3G picocell brings together a Freescale BSC9132 base station SoC card, a Maxim MAX2580 RF transceiver card, RF power amplifiers, and network management cards—all in a passively cooled enclosure and weighing in at 6.8kg. 

NSN Names Samih Elhage as CFO


Nokia Siemens Networks named Samih Elhage as its chief financial officer. Elhage, who was previously the company’s chief operating officer, will continue to report to CEO Rajeev Suri as a member of the company’s Executive Board. Elhage replaces Marco Schroeter, who leaves Nokia Siemens Networks with immediate effect.

Before joining Nokia Siemens Networks in March 2012, Elhage served as a senior advisor to leading private equity and global management consulting firms.  Prior to these advisory positions, until August 2010, Elhage held a number of leadership roles at Nortel, including president of Carrier Voice over IP and Applications Solutions, and vice president of Corporate Business Operations.

http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com