Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Amazon Web Services to Launch in China

Amazon Web Services announced plans to launch cloud services from Beijing, China in early 2014.  China Net Center and SINNET will provide the infrastructure, network services, and CDN services.

In a blog posting, AWS cited a number of customers in China already, such as Qihu 360, Xiaomi, FunPlus Game, Mobotap, TCL, Hisense, Tiens, Kingsoft, Light in the Box,  NQ mobile, Papaya mobile, Madhouse, DerbySoft, Tap4fun, DeNA China, Boyaa interactive, Huan.tv, and Sungy Mobile Limited.

AWS China (Bejing) Regions will support a broad collection of services, in compliance with the country's legal and regulatory requirements, including:

  • Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)
  • Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS)
  • Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)
  • Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS)
  • Amazon DynamoDB
  • Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR)
  • Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC)
  • Amazon CloudWatch
  • AWS CloudFormation
  • Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS)
  • Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS)
  • Auto Scaling
  • Elastic Load Balancing
  • Amazon Glacier
  • Amazon Simple Workflow (SWF)
  • AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)
  • Amazon ElastiCache
  • AWS Storage Gateway
  • AWS Management Console
  • AWS Premium Support


http://aws.typepad.com/

European Commission and the 5G PPP Association Set Charter

The European Commission and the 5G PPP Association signed a contract to create a 5G public-private partnership (PPP). The 5G PPP will further develop 5G technology to prepare for the future standardization of the system and components that are expected to be deployed in the next decade.

The 5G PPP, which brings together a broad range of stakeholder from the communications technology sector, will deliver solutions, architectures, technologies and standards for the next generation communication infrastructures of the coming decade.

The EC said the total budget devoted by the public side to be EUR 700 million under the Horizon 2020 plan. Private sector players are expected to invest an equal EUR 700 million.

The 5G Infrastructure PPP is a contractual PPP and the European Commission will follow the rules of Horizon 2020 in terms of calls, selection, negotiation, contracting of project proposals as well as monitoring and payments of funded projects.

“This is an important milestone towards an industry-wide agreement on use cases, requirements and technologies for 5G,” said Dr. Werner Mohr, head of research alliances, NSN, who will chair the 5G PPP Association. “LTE and its continuous evolution will be sufficient until the end of the decade. However, after 2020 a new generation of technologies will be needed to address market demands. The industry and academia are working together to create a high-performance 5G environment.”

NSN is conducting research on the flexible use of spectrum and its propagation in new, higher bands, both for centimeter and millimeter wave. In addition, the company is working on system design for ultra-dense small cell deployments to deliver the high data rates and ultra-low latency that will be needed to support future use cases such as augmented reality and tactile Internet.

http://ec.europa.eu/research/press/2013/pdf/ppp/5g_factsheet.pdf 
http://www.networks-etp.eu
http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/

Huawei Plans US$600 Million Investment in 5G



Huawei plans to will invest a minimum of US$600 million in research and innovation for 5G technologies by 2018. The company predicts that the first 5G networks will be ready for commercial deployment starting in 2020 and will deliver peak data rates of over 10Gbps, 100 times faster than today's 4G networks. Eric Xu, rotating CEO of Huawei, said: "Innovation is a continuous journey. While we continue to evolve our existing 4G network capabilities,...



In June 2013, Huawei announced its participation in the METIS project, an initiative co-funded by the European Commission as an Integrated Project under the Seventh Framework Programme for research and development (FP7). METIS, which stands for Mobile and wireless communications Enablers for the Twenty-twenty Information Society, aims to explore the foundations for 5G wireless systems. Huawei said it is playing the leading role in the Radio Link Technology...

Ericsson: Expect 5G Network-Society Technologies by 2020



With 4G LTE rollouts now underway by dozens of operators worldwide, interest is building in what comes beyond the LTE-Advanced standards. Speaking at the Ericsson Analyst Forum in Santa Clara, California,  Ulf Ewaldsson, Ericsson's CTO, said 5G is just a research concept at the moment and any vendor claims about having the technology in the labs is hype.  5G research projects underway in Europe and China are seeking to outline the requirements...



Samsung Electronics is testing adaptive array transceiver technology operating in the millimeter-wave Ka band at a frequency of 28 GHz at a speed of up to 1.056 Gbps to a distance of up to 2 kilometers.  The company said the technology will be the core of future 5G networks. The new technology sits at the core of 5G mobile communications system and will provide data transmission up to several hundred times faster than current 4G networks.

CloudNFV Advances with Proof-of-Concept Acceptance by ETSI NFV ISG

The ETSI Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Industry Specifications Group (ISG) has accepted the first proof-of-concept application covering expected use cases.

CloudNFV, which was set-up by CIMI Corporation President Tom Nolle, submitted the NFV proposal on behalf of its members, which include 6WIND, Dell, EnterpriseWeb, Huawei, Overture, Mellanox, Metaswitch and Qosmos.

The CloudNFV POC leverages extensions to the ETSI NFV framework based on work by the TMF (GB942 and GB922) and the IETF (i2aex).  The project's top goal is "to demonstrate a framework for the application of NFV principles to actual service provider service creation, deployment and management practices." This includes four CloudNFV service processes:  NodeBuilder, ServiceBuilder, ServiceBroker, and ServiceManager.

The approved PoC application is sponsored by Sprint and Telefonica.

The CloudNFV PoC is already being hosted in Dell’s Cloud in Santa Clara, California.  The group intends to publish the results of specific tests along with recommended additions and modifications.

http://blog.cimicorp.com/?p=1553
http://www.cloudnfv.com/CloudNFVPoCAsApproved.pdf
http://www.6windblog.com/from-huaweis-parking-lot-to-poc-approval-in-just-eight-months/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=from-huaweis-parking-lot-to-poc-approval-in-just-eight-months

Amazon's CloudFront CDN Gets Country-Specific Restriction Capability

Amazon Web Services has enhanced its CloudFront CDN with the ability to restrict content based on the geographic location of the viewer.  Publishers can now choose to whitelist or blacklist specific countries where their content may be viewed.  This is useful for dealing with geographic licensing terms for online media or software distribution.  AWS said the geographic restriction is now a native feature of CloudFront instead of requiring a third-party geo-location product.

http://aws.typepad.com/
http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/

Cisco Offers Desktop as a Service (DaaS) for Cloud Providers

Cisco introduced a Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solution that enables enabling cloud providers to offer their customers a either a VMware or Citrix virtual desktop subscription service using the Cisco Unified Computing System and the Cisco Unified Data Center architecture.

The Cisco DaaS solution delivers up to 252 virtual desktops on a single UCS blade server while supporting end user applications that require high-quality rendering of immersive, 3D graphics.  Cisco is also adding new UCS Solution Accelerator Packs for Desktop Virtualization that provide simplified ordering.

"Many organizations are looking for ways to achieve the benefits of desktop virtualization without the need to install and maintain equipment or make capital investments," said Satinder Sethi, Vice President, Engineering.  "Not only is Desktop as a Service a great solution for a growing number of companies, but Cisco's offering is uniquely architected to help cloud service providers achieve rapid time-to-market while economically scaling their business."

"Desktone by VMware and Cisco have developed a complete and proven blueprint for enabling service providers to offer a Desktop as a Service solution for delivering Windows desktops and applications as a cloud service based on VMware Horizon View." said Peter McKay, Vice President and General Manager, End-User Computing, VMware. "Our mutual customers such as Logicalis, Quest, Netelligent, Dimension Data, Adapt and ANS are utilizing our unique architecture that includes multi-tenancy, self-service provisioning, multi data center management, multi-desktop model support, grid-scale, and security to deliver Desktop as a Service and provide differentiated value added services to their customers".

http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1300895

MADA Kuwait Selects DragonWave for Microwave Backhaul

MADA Communications Kuwait has selected DragonWave as its single-source microwave backhaul supplier for its multi-million dollar network deployment.

DragonWave’s Horizon Compact and Quantum products allows MADA’s network to achieve multi-gigabit speeds with minimal latency. MADA provides high capacity Wireless Broadband nationwide in Kuwait for both corporate and residential customers.

MADA is relying exclusively on the DragonWave solution for its microwave backhaul for this component of the network. DragonWave's Horizon Quantum, which delivers from 2 to 4 Gbps per link, offers dual-channel capability in a split-mount system that increases spectral efficiency, capacity, nodal intelligence and operational simplicity. In addition, the Horizon Quantum’s integrated switching provides aggregation and restoration in a single unit.  Horizon Compact is a high-capacity, packet microwave system that integrates the radio and modem into a single outdoor unit, eliminating rack congestion and minimizing collocation space. Horizon Compact’s 800 Mbps capacity per link, Hitless Automatic Adaptive Modulation, and ring/mesh support mean maximum performance and throughput, as well as sophisticated remote management and troubleshooting features.

http://www.dragonwaveinc.com

NSN Confirms LTE Contract with China Telecom

NSN has secured a contract with China Telecommunications as a major partner for its nationwide LTE rollout.

Under the contract, NSN will implement its innovative Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Stations. The company will also provide network launch optimization, implementation supervision and care services in order to use resources most efficiently and to guarantee the highest network quality possible. In addition, the agreement covers NSN’s intelligent network management system, NetAct, for comprehensive management of the operator’s multi-vendor network. With NSN’s support, the introduction of a 4G network will enable China Telecom to deliver a superior customer experience to its subscribers.

China Telecom is a new customer for NSN’s mobile broadband business. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.nsn.com

KDDI Picks Ericsson for LTE-RAN and EPC

Ericsson confirmed that KDDI has selected it as one of the prime vendors to deploy its LTE system and Evolved Packet Core network.

Under the contract, Ericsson will provide a LTE radio access network based on RBS6000 as well as the Evolved Packet Core. The radio access network is based on LTE FDD. In addition to network solutions, Ericsson will provide related services such as network rollout and systems integration. Financial terms were not disclosed.

http://www.ericsson.com

Alcatel-Lucent Names Tim Krause its Chief Marketing Officer

Alcatel-Lucent appointed Tim Krause as Chief Marketing Officer, reporting to company CEO Michel Combes.  Krause will be responsible for the company's global marketing efforts as well as external communications.

Most recently, Krause served as Senior Vice President, in charge of the AT&T customer team. He has over 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, having held various positions in engineering, product line management, product strategy, and marketing in Alcatel. He has been a Director of Telecommunications Industry Association and  served as a Director of 2Wire.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com