OIF and ONF to Test Transport SDN with Global Carriers

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) will begin testing Transport Software Defined Networking (SDN) in several global carrier lab environments, including China Mobile, China Telecom, TELUS and Verizon. Consulting carriers and research institutions participating in the demonstration include KDDI R&D Laboratories, Orange and China Academy of Telecommunications Research. Testing gets underway this month.

OpenFlow extensions for optical transport developed in the ONF Optical Transport Working Group are being prototyped in the demo along with Service Request and Topology APIs from application to controller. The framework of the demo is application-based bandwidth-on-demand between data center sites, also referred to as cloud-bursting. This real-world use case will illustrate prototype deployment of Transport SDN technology, common interfaces required, needs for interoperability and any operational challenges.

“Verizon has been involved with SDN from its genesis and, as this technology evolves, we look forward to a better understanding of its deployment and operation. As one of the carriers involved in the trial and a hosting lab, Verizon fully supports the OIF and ONF and their collaborative efforts to advance the industry development in this area to achieve the expected benefits of SDN, such as increased network programmability, application aware networking and simplified service development.” Chris Emmons, director, Network Systems, Implementation and Planning, Verizon.

http://www.oiforum.com/public/Global_Transport_SDN_Demo_2014.html

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IBM's Softlayer Offers Hourly Bare Metal Servers

IBM's SoftLayer unit introduced hourly pricing for new bare metal servers that can deployed in under 30 minutes at its data centers in Dallas, San Jose, Washington D.C., London, Toronto, Amsterdam, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Bare metal servers provide the raw performance of physical servers. The new hourly bare metal servers are single tenant servers connecting directly to SoftLayer’s private global network.

Softlayer said its new servers can stand alone or integrate with all other SoftLayer bare metal, virtual, storage, and networking services, all in one seamless global platform.

“We have always focused on providing customers the right balance of performance, commitment, and cost,” said Marc Jones, CTO for SoftLayer. “As businesses deploy more powerful workloads in the cloud, there is increased demand for performance with even shorter demand cycles. Our new hourly bare metal servers are designed to hit the sweet spot of how much power they need, how long they need it, at price points that make sense.”

http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers

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KDDI to Invest US$270M in New Data Centers in Tokyo, Osaka

KDDI will invest US$270 million (28 billion yen) in building two new TELEHOUSE data centers in Tokyo and Osaka. The company cites a growing demand for data center space in Japan.

TELEHOUSE OSAKA 2 and TELEHOUSE TOKYO Tama 3 are scheduled to open in August 2015 and February 2016 respectively. TELEHOUSE Osaka 2, in the center of Osaka city, will offer 700 racks of tenancy space with up to 30kVA (designed) per rack. Both facilities will offer high-density colocation services enabling the hosting of heavy load IT infrastructure. TELEHOUSE Tokyo Tama 3 will be located on the existing Tama data center campus, 30km from the Tokyo city center in a highly guarded surrounding. The five storey building will offer 1,300 racks of tenancy space with up to 42kVA (designed) power supply to racks, the highest in Japan and 5 times industry average, with a designed PUE 1.31 making it one of the most energy efficient data centers in Japan.

These additional facilities will take the total amount of global TELEHOUSE data center space to 371,000 sqm provided by 46 sites across 13 countries/territories and 24 major cities.

http://www.telehouse.jp/en/
http://www.kddi.com

• Telehouse is a subsidiary of KDDI Corporation.

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COSMOTE Romania Picks ZTE for LTE

COSMOTE Romania, the largest multinational mobile operator in the Balkans, picked ZTE to upgrade its existing 2G/3G network and build a new LTE network in southern Romania. The deal is expected to require construction of more than 3,000 base stations, reinforcing ZTE's leading place in the European LTE market. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Based in Greece, COSMOTE Group has its major operations in South Eastern European countries, including Greece, Albania and Romania. Deutsche Telekom is the largest of its shareholders, holding 40 percent of shares in Greece’s OTE Group.

In 2012, COSMOTE Romania won the auction for the 25M 1800M and 10M 2600M LTE spectrums and planned to launch LTE services in the hope of better customer experience and competitiveness.

In 2010, ZTE successfully completed a UMTS project for COSMOTE Romania.

http://www.zte.com.cn

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