IBM and Pure Storage Announce Patent and Cross-License Agreements

Pure Storage has acquired over 100 storage and related technology patents from IBM and the companies have signed a patent cross-license agreement.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

“This transaction significantly increases the number of Pure’s patents, creating a more robust and strategic patent portfolio that will allow our customers to benefit even more from our focus on advancing storage innovation,” said Joe FitzGerald, vice president, Legal for Pure Storage.

“This agreement with Pure Storage demonstrates the value of IBM’s patented inventions and our dedication to encouraging innovation by licensing access to our extensive patent portfolio  IBM's extensive R&D investment and the industry's largest storage array patent portfolio are key drivers behind our flash storage leadership,” said Dr. William LaFontaine, General Manager, Intellectual Property, for IBM.

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/44199.wss

• In April, Pure Storage, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, closed a $225 million Series F funding round, at a pre-money valuation of over $3 billion, to support its all-flash enterprise storage array strategy.  The round included contributions from previous public market investors including T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Tiger Global and new investor, Wellington Management Company. The round also included participation from prior venture capital investors Greylock Partners, Index Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures. The new funding brings the company’s total capital raised to $470 million to date.

• Pure Storage offers all-flash enterprise arrays for high performance workloads, including server virtualization, desktop virtualization (VDI), database (OLTP, real-time analytics) and cloud computing.  The company's approach combines proprietary data deduplication and compression technologies with affordable multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory.

Read More

TierPoint Acquires Another Data Center -- its 6th Acquisition

TierPoint has expanded its national data center footprint with the acquisition of Philadelphia-based Philadelphia Technology Park, which operates a 25,700 sq. ft. data center within the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  The data center is an SSAE 16 Type II audited facility with N+1 power delivery systems.

The acquisition is the sixth for TierPoint, LLC, previously known as Cequel Data Centers. With its prior acquisitions - including facilities in Dallas, Spokane, Seattle, Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Baltimore - TierPoint now owns and operates more than 141,000 square feet of raised-floor, data center space.

http://www.tierpoint.com/news/tierpoint-acquires-philadelphia-technology-park

• Earlier this month, Cequel Data Centers, the parent company of TierPoint, announced today that it has been acquired by an investor group comprised of management and experienced investors across the communications infrastructure industry. The investor group includes Chairman Jerry Kent, RedBird Capital Partners, The Stephens Group, Jordan/Zalaznick Advisers, Inc., and Thompson Street Capital Partners. Terms were not disclosed.

Read More

Huawei Announced Metro WDM Contract with China Mobile Sichuan

China Mobile has selected Huawei to deploy WDM-based full-service metropolitan bearer networks in over 10 cities across Sichuan Province, including the capital, Chengdu. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Sichuan Mobile estimates that the bandwidth demand from its metro aggregation sites will exceed 100G over the coming three years. The project to deploy full-service metropolitan bearer networks uses Huawei's Packet Optical Transport System (POTS).

"The 'WDM/OTN to the edge' idea advocated by Huawei perfectly matches China Mobile's strategic plan to deploy full-service metropolitan bearer networks. They focus on future readiness, providing protection for bandwidth investment, and facilitating fixed mobile convergence," said Jack Wang, President of Huawei's Transmission Network Product Line.

http://pr.huawei.com/en/news/hw-346337-ict.htm

Read More

NTT Com Bolsters its WideAngle Managed Security Services

NTT Com Security (formerly Integralis) announced improved threat detection and analysis functionality for its Managed Security Services (MSS) platform delivered under the WideAngle brand.

The enhancements, which include Time Based Analysis Intelligence and a Correlated Log Analysis (CLA) service, will provide significantly improved detection rates of up to 500% of unknown security threats for NTT Com Security customers worldwide. They will also enable better correlation of threat intelligence from different sources and between security and non-security devices, including authentication servers, web proxy servers, databases and networks devices, as well as conventional security devices like firewalls, IPS and anti virus.

Additional functionality includes Enhanced Packet Capture (PCAP) support for IDS/IPS vendors, delivering improved analysis and fewer false positives to customers. In addition, newly developed Intelpacks – sets of algorithms implemented within the MSS analysis engine – provide tailored detection and ensure organisations stay up to date with the very latest attack methods and tools.

http://www.ntt.com/aboutus_e/news/data/20140618.html

• NTT Communications acquired Integralis AG in 2009 for its IT security expertise.

Read More

Facebook Hit by 30 Minute Outage

On June 20th, Facebook experienced a global outage lasting approximately half an hour.  The company later cited a faulty update to its software, which it identified immediately and reversed.

The outage was believed to be the longest for the company in several years.

http://www.facebook.com

Read More