AT&T Adds Alcatel-Lucent and Fujitsu to User-Defined Network Cloud

AT&T has added Alcatel-Lucent and Fujitsu Network Communications to its User-Defined Network Cloud program, which aims to transform not only the company's infrastructure but how AT&T does business.

The User-Defined Network Cloud will place customers at the center of the network with a modern, cloud-based architecture.

“The architecture and deployment teams are finalizing their planned introduction of this new architecture, which we expect to roll out later this year and early 2015,” said Tim Harden, president, AT&T Supply Chain. “We look forward to collaborating with Fujitsu and Alcatel-Lucent to achieve our next-generation network.”

AT&T also said that it anticipates announcing its next round of vendors to assist with this network deployment in the next few weeks. The company is not revising its previously announced capital expenditure as a result of this announcement. However, in the next five years, AT&T expects the User-Defined Network Cloud program to reflect a downward bias toward capital spending.

http://about.att.com/story/att_expands_its_user_defined_network_cloud_program_by_adding_alcatel_lucent_and_fujitsu.html

• In April, AT&T named Amdocs and Juniper Networks as two additional vendors in its User-Defined Network Cloud program.
  
• In February 2014, AT&T outlined its vision of a User-Defined Network Cloud that is open, simple, scalable and able to perform many functions.
  
  Speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, John Donovan, senior executive vice president of AT&T technology and network operations, said it envisions a multi-service, multi-tenant platform capable of adapting to traffic demands dynamically.  The end goal is to spur innovation by making it easier to adapt the network for new services.
  
  AT&T's Domain 2.0 supplier program, which will was announced in September 2013, will use these principles to build this new architecture based on Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN).
  
  AT&T also announced the first group of companies selected to work on the company’s strategy. Ericsson, Tail-F Systems, and Metaswitch Networks have been selected to begin further discussions on design and deployment. AT&T also selected Affirmed Networks to work on a virtualized Evolved Packet Core (EPC).  Ericsson will also work on integration and transformation services. Further selections will take place through the end of 2014.

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Docker Acquires a Strategic Developer of Container Orchestration Tools

Docker, Inc., the commercial sponsor of the Docker open source project, has acquired Orchard Laboratories, a software developer offering an application composition and orchestration tool for application containers.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

Orchard is an early Docker community member and creator of solutions on the Docker platform. Its Fig orchestration tool  is noteworthy in the ease with which a developer can compose and manage a multi-container Docker application.  After defining the application’s containers and their dependencies in a simple configuration file, the developer can - with a single command - automatically start all the components of the application, including containers, network connections, and storage dependencies.

Docker said the Orchard team and technologies accelerate its mission of delivering an open platform to build, ship, and run distributed applications.

“Our goal is to provide the best tools and experiences for developers creating web-scale applications that move frictionlessly between bare metal, virtualized, and cloud environments,” said Ben Golub, CEO, Docker.  “Orchard really stood out to us with their vision of what developers need and their delivery of well-designed services and products.”

http://www.fig.sh/
https://www.docker.com/

Docker is an open platform which can be used to build, ship, and run distributed applications on various clouds. The use of a container allows the same app to run unchanged on laptops, servers, data center VMs or the cloud -- similar to the concept of shipping container for the transportation industry.

Kubernetes is a container cluster management tool developed by Google. It builds on top of Docker to construct a clustered container scheduling service.

In June 2014, Docker 1.0 was officially released, marking an important milestone for this open platform which can be used to build, ship, and run distributed applications on various clouds.  Docker enables applications to be quickly assembled from components and eliminates the friction between environments.  It consists of the Docker Engine, the de facto container standard, and Docker Hub, a new cloud-based service from Docker Inc., the start-up company behind the open source Docker project and chief sponsor of the Docker ecosystem.

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IBM adds InfiniBand to SoftLayer for HPC in Cloud

IBM will begin offering Infiniband networking to connect bare metal servers in its Softlayer data centers.  The new option enables very high-speed throughput and low latency between servers in a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster.

IBM said the introduction on InfiniBand on SoftLayer will especially benefit customers who are leveraging fully supported, ready-to-run clusters complete with code name IBM Elastic Storage, IBM Platform LSF or Platform Symphony workload management.

“As more and more companies migrate their toughest workloads to the cloud, they’re now demanding that vendors provide high speed networking performance to keep up,” said SoftLayer CEO Lance Crosby. “Our InfiniBand support is helping to push the technological envelope while redefining how cloud computing can be used to solve complex business issues.”

InfiniBand delivers high transfer speeds of up to 56 Gbps.

http://www.ibm.com/cloud

IBM Chalks up Gains from Softlayer Acquisition

Monday, July 14, 2014

One year after acquiring Softlayer for $2 billion, IBM reported continued gains in its cloud leadership positions in terms of new enterprise customers and the launch of differentiated services.

IBM said the hybrid cloud model is catching on with new enterprise customers such as Macy’s, Whirlpool, Daimler subsidiary moovel Gmbh, Sicoss Group and others. Clients can maintain on-premise control of key applications and data while moving other workloads – so-called systems of engagement with customers and partners -- to the cloud for quick access to data, expansion of new services and cost reductions. The company says nearly half of its top 100 strategic outsourcing clients,  who are among the world's largest enterprises, are already implementing cloud solutions with IBM as they transition to a hybrid cloud model.

IBM now has over 1,000 business partners signed on to offer their services on SoftLayer, ranging from leading global players such as Avnet, Arrow Electronics and Ingram Micro, to cloud-based services and solution providers like Mirantis, Assimil8, Silverstring, Clipcard, SilverSky, and Cnetric Enterprise Solutions.

SoftLayer is expected to play a pivotal role in delivering IBM's rich data and analytics portfolio.  Already more than 300 services within the IBM cloud marketplace are is based on SoftLayer.

In June, IBM opened the first of two new Softlayer Cloud Services data centers designed and dedicated for U.S. government workloads and compliant with Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) and Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements.

The first of the new data centers is located in Dallas, Texas  Later this year, IBM anticipates activating a companion center in Ashburn, Virginia.  Each of the high-security data centers will have initial capacity for 30,000 servers.  They will be connected by an isolated, robust private network with 2 Tbps of capacity.

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Level 3 Wins Department of Homeland Security LAN Contract

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has selected Level 3 Communicatios to deliver local area network (LAN) managed services for the agency within the National Capital Region (NCR) under the Washington Interagency Telecommunications System (WITS) 3 contract. Specifically, Level 3 will deliver a combination of managed voice, audio and video conferencing, transport, Ethernet and IP within the NCR.

Under the contract, Level 3 will deliver an end-to-end solution for the DHS that will connect nearly 60 DHS sites, including the recently consolidated DHS headquarters at St. Elizabeths. The project includes installation of cabling and equipment, network design, engineering, monitoring and management.

Level 3 said this multi-year, multi-million dollar contract represents a significant shift in how public agencies approach information technology (IT) infrastructure procurement and management, particularly as Network as a Service (NaaS) models gain greater traction to help the government.  Level 3 will be one of the first telecommunications providers to deliver a fully outsourced NaaS solution for a federal government agency.

"Today, federal agencies are facing increasing pressure to keep pace with explosive demands for actionable data and remote access to information, while also managing significant budget constraints as a result of sequestration," said Edward Morche, senior vice president of East Region Enterprise and Government Markets for Level 3 Communications. "This new operating environment is compelling government IT leaders to think differently and seek outsourced solutions, where previously they may have dedicated internal resources to solving problems we address every day at Level 3. We are proud to take a leadership position in providing the level of service, flexibility and experience necessary to meet a broad range of needs for the DHS."

http://www.level3.com/government

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Crehan Research: Growth in Faster Data Center Switches

Strong growth in faster, more expensive Ethernet data center switches will offset steep price declines in each of these high-bandwidth segments, according to a recent Data Center Switch Long-Range Forecast Report from Crehan Research Inc.

The firm forecasts that competition and other factors will lead to significantly lower per-port pricing on 10, 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet switches, spurring stronger adoption of these technologies and resulting in relatively stable overall Ethernet data center switch average selling prices.

“Despite the onslaught of data center traffic and unprecedented network demands, high-speed data center switches thus far have been too expensive to drive widespread adoption, but this is about to significantly change,” said Seamus Crehan, president of Crehan Research. “Aside from continual cost reductions and port-density improvements, price drops are being driven by factors such as increased competition in the data center switch market (including numerous recent entrants), low-priced white box and merchant operating system offerings, and the price negotiating power of some of the very large, hyper-scale public cloud vendors,” he said.

Crehan’s report forecasts that as a result of market migration to higher speed switches, Ethernet data center switch revenues will reach approximately $14 billion by 2018, with revenue growth slightly exceeding shipment growth. More specifically, the firm forecasts strong upcoming adoption of 10 Gigabit Ethernet for data center server access, and 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet for data center uplink, aggregation and core deployments.

With its most recent Server-Class Adapter & LAN-on-Motherboard (LOM) Long-Range Forecast Report, Crehan predicted that 10 Gigabit Ethernet will finally eclipse one Gigabit Ethernet by 2016 to become a majority of total shipments, closely following the mass adoption of Grantley-based servers.

http://www.CrehanResearch.com

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Dell'Oro: 802.11ac and Cloud Management Drive Enterprise WLAN Sales

Enterprise-class Wireless LAN market revenues are forecast to exceed $6.7 billion in 2018, over 70 percent greater than 2013 revenues, according to a newly released market forecast report by Dell'Oro Group.

Key trends include the continued growth of both 802.11ac access points and faster-than-market growth of cloud-managed Wireless LAN systems.  The overall WLAN market is expected to reach $12.2 billion during this time period.

"At this point, 802.11ac Enterprise-class access points represent a greater portion of the overall market than 802.11n did in the previous cycle," said Chris DePuy, Vice President at Dell'Oro Group.  "The higher-speed 802.11ac devices are being priced at a lower premium to the slower 802.11n devices these intend to replace.  We expect next year, we will see new types of 802.11ac devices that support so-called 'wave 2' or 'multi-user MIMO' capabilities which will offer even faster throughput."

The report contains a forecast of cloud-managed equipment and services.  Also included in the report are estimates on total SP WiFi units and revenue forecasts.

http://www.DellOro.com

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AT&T Sees Growth in Postpaid Mobile as 80% Now on Smartphones

AT&T reported Q2 revenues of $32.6 billion, up 1.6% YoY, and operating expenses of $27.0 billion, compared with $26.0 billion a year earlier. Earnings came in at $0.68 (diluted) compared to $0.71 diluted EPS in the year-ago quarter. Excluding significant items, EPS was $0.62 versus $0.67 a year ago.

"The quarter was marked by several transformative moves to grow our wireless, broadband and video services,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. “We announced our intent to acquire DIRECTV, which will improve our video position and our ability to bundle broadband, mobility and video services nationally. Our move to simple pricing and no-device-subsidy plans is repositioning the wireless business model, resulting in our best postpaid net adds in nearly five years and our lowest-ever postpaid churn. And our Project VIP investments continue to drive impressive growth in U-verse and strategic business services.”

Some Wireless Operational Highlights

• Total wireless revenues, which include equipment sales, were up 3.7 percent year over year to $17.9 billion. 
• AT&T added 1,026,000 postpaid subscribers in the second quarter, the strongest postpaid net gain in nearly five years. Total wireless subscribers increased by 634,000 in the quarter, led by postpaid net adds and 175,000 connected device net adds. These gains were offset somewhat by a net loss of 405,000 prepaid subscribers, due to declines in session-based tablets and the expected second-quarter reduction in Cricket subscribers as the company begins its integration of Leap Wireless. 
• AT&T added 1.6 million postpaid smartphones in the second quarter. 
• At the end of the quarter, 80 percent, or 54.6 million, of AT&T's postpaid phone subscribers had smartphones, up from 73 percent, or 49.5 million, a year earlier. 
• Smartphones accounted for 92 percent of postpaid phone sales in the quarter. 

Wireline Highlights

• Total second-quarter wireline revenues were $14.6 billion, down 0.9 percent versus the year-earlier quarter and up 0.2 percent versus the first quarter of 2014. 
• Total U-verse revenues grew 24.8 percent year over year. 
• Revenues from residential customers totaled $5.7 billion, an increase of 3.0 percent versus the second quarter a year ago. Continued strong growth in consumer IP data services in the second quarter more than offset lower revenues from legacy voice and data products. 
• U-verse, which includes high speed Internet, TV and voice over IP, now represents 62 percent of wireline consumer revenues, up from 51 percent in the year-earlier quarter. Consumer U-verse revenues grew 24.5 percent year over year. 
• U-verse TV added 190,000 subscribers in the second quarter to reach 5.9 million in service. 
• U-verse high speed Internet had a second-quarter net gain of 488,000 subscribers, to reach a total of 11.5 million. 
• Total revenues from business customers were $8.7 billion, down 2.9 percent versus the year-earlier quarter but stable sequentially. 
• Business service revenues declined 2.3 percent year over year but were essentially flat versus the first quarter of 2014. 
• Overall, declines in legacy products were partially offset by continued double-digit growth in strategic business services. Revenues from these services, the next-generation capabilities that lead AT&T's most advanced business solutions — including VPNs, Ethernet, cloud, hosting, IP conferencing, VoIP, MIS over Ethernet, U-verse and security services — grew 13.5 percent versus the year-earlier quarter. 

http://about.att.com/story/att_second_quarter_earnings_2014.html

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XO Deploys Infinera for 100G Nationwide

XO Communications has deployed the Infinera DTN-X packet optical transport networking platform across its nationwide network.

The multi-terabit Infinera DTN-X platform supports 100G services also enables XO to deliver high-performance cloud, data and video applications nationally. The Infinera DTN-X platform features single-card, 500Gbps FlexCoherent super-channels, enabling XO to rapidly deliver more than nine terabits per second of transmission capacity on a single fiber.

"The rapid growth of network traffic from mobile data, Internet video and cloud-based services puts tremendous stress on all areas of the XO network infrastructure," said Steve Nocella, XO Communications’ CTO. "The Infinera Intelligent Transport Network will enable XO to rapidly, and cost effectively grow network capacity for 100G services, and will also allow us to better meet the bandwidth requirements of our customers."

"Across the board, we are seeing accelerated bandwidth growth, driven primarily by new applications and Cloud infrastructure, which in turn is driving demand for scalable multi-terabit solutions," said Dave Welch, Infinera’s President. "The Infinera Intelligent Transport Network helps position XO with an infrastructure designed to accommodate their growth while enabling support for 100 Gbps and other high-performance services for their customers both today and tomorrow."

http://www.infinera.com
http://www.xo.com

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Infinera Posts Q2 Revenue of $165 Million, up 20% YoY

Infinera reported Q2 2014 revenue of $165.4 million (GAAP) compared to $142.8 million in the first quarter of 2014 and $138.4 million in the second quarter of 2013. GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 42.5% compared to 40.9% in the first quarter of 2014 and 37.3% in the second quarter of 2013. GAAP net income came in at $4.8 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, compared to net loss of $(4.4) million, or $(0.04) per share, in the first quarter of 2014, and a net loss of $(10.0) million, or $(0.09) per share, in the second quarter of 2013.

"We continued the strong momentum from our solid first quarter results delivering record quarterly revenue, an expanded gross margin and significant earnings growth in the second quarter. We had record 100G port shipments as we experienced excellent DTN-X deployments across a broad base of customer verticals. We were pleased to add four new invoiced DTN-X customers this quarter, including a new customer to Infinera, allowing us to further capitalize on the 100G technology cycle with this new footprint" said Tom Fallon, Infinera’s Chief Executive Officer.

http://www.infinera.com

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Alcatel-Lucent Chalks Up Another Core Router Win

Turk Telekom has deployed Alcatel-Lucent's 7950 Extensible Routing Platform (XRS) to provide core routing for its growing base of more than 13.5 million access lines and 7.4 million ultra-broad band subscribers.  

Turk Telekom initially deployed the 7950 XRS in three major locations in Istanbul and in Ankara to address the growing need for capacity for residential and business customers and consolidation of existing core routers.

Alcatel-Lucent noted that its 7950 XRS is now in use with more than 24 major service providers worldwide.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

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