Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Encompasses Cloud Opportunity

Hewlett-Packard confirmed the planned split of PC and printing businesses from its server, storage, networking and services group.

HP Inc. will consist of the the personal systems and printing markets.  It will pursue new opportunities such as 3D printing. Dion Weisler will be CEO of HP Inc. and Meg Whitman will be Chairman of its Board of Directors.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will pursue opportunities presented by cloud, big data, security and mobility in the "new style of IT." It will leverage the new HP Helion initiative as its model for integrated, OpenStack-enabled cloud services. HP Financial Services will provide financing and support for new business models enabled by technology. Meg Whitmans will serve as CEO of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Cathie Lesjak will be CFO.  Pat Russo will be Chairman on Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.

“Over the past three years, we have reignited our innovation engine with breakthrough offerings for the enterprise like Apollo, Gen 9 and Moonshot servers, our 3PAR storage platform, our HP OneView management platform, our HP Helion Cloud and a host of software and services offerings in security, analytics and application transformation,” continued Whitman. “Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will accelerate innovation across key next-generation areas of the portfolio.”

http://www.hp.com

• Patricia Russo previously was CEO of Lucent Technologies and led its historic merger with Alcatel.  She subsequently led the combined Alcatel-Lucent as CEO until resigning in 2008.

• In June 2014, HP introduced its Helion Network, a global, open network that promises a portfolio of services for enterprise customers and the ability to create a secure hybrid IT environment.
  The HP Helion Network will feature an OpenStack-based distributed cloud computing model. It will be hardware agnostic and HP promises that it will provide a unique commercial and operating model for service providers. HP hopes to attract a wide ecosystem of independent software vendors, developers, system integrators and value-added resellers.  It will also build on the HP CloudAgile Service Provider program, which has more than 115 service providers worldwide and 1,500 private cloud deployments. HP said its Helion Network will include companies such as AT&T, HKT, Intel and Synapsis.  HP expects to launch a pilot version of the Helion Network in Q4 2014.  General availability for HP Helion OpenStack and the HP Helion Development Platform is planned for the same time frame.

Read More

Cox Readies Gigabit Internet Service in Phoenix

Cox Communications is preparing to launch its gigabit internet service for residential customers in Phoenix later this month.

The service will be marketed under the brand name “G1GABLAST.”

“We are excited to deliver the choice of gigabit speeds to our customers,”said Cox Communications President Pat Esser. “Coupled with our 2,300 employees in the Valley and more than 20,000 nationwide, our latest investments and the deployment of the fastest speeds available are powering economic growth and development for businesses and residents of the communities we serve.”

G1GABLAST will be available in the Phoenix market for $69.99 per month when combined with Cox’s most popular service bundles.

http://www.cox.com/giglife

Read More

VCE Ships All-Flash Vblock Systems

VCE introduced new and updated Vblock Systems, including the first all Flash-based model.

VCE provides pre-integrated, pre-tested and pre-validated converged infrastructure solutions that are delivered and supported by VCE as a single product.

The new Vblock System 740 is powered by next-generation Cisco Unified Computing, Cisco Nexus ACI-Ready networking and EMC VMAX 3 storage.  The new Vblock System 540 is the industry’s first all-flash-based converged infrastructure system for consolidating mixed workloads like private clouds, databases and related business applications. The Vblock System 540 is powered by EMC’s XtremIO all-flash arrays and next-generation Cisco Unified Computing, Cisco Nexus ACI-Ready networking. It delivers breakthrough consolidation and agility benefits like instant, space-efficient, full-performance copy services for applications like SAP with many instances across multiple application landscapes.

“The IT industry continues to shift toward hybrid cloud computing models, which requires organizations to re-evaluate their approach for how to deliver IT services,” said Todd Pavone, executive vice president, product strategy and development, VCE. “Our new Vblock Systems, integrated solutions and technology extensions are a significant step forward in helping VCE customers prepare for the hybrid world, providing new options that help them simplify how they deploy and manage infrastructure while enabling innovation and operational efficiencies that can drive value back into their businesses.”

http://www.vce.com/

Read More

Marriott Strikes Back at FCC Fine for Wi-Fi Blocking

Marriott International issued a statement criticizing the $600,000 fine imposed by the FCC for blocking personal hotspot Wi-Fi signals at its Gaylord Opryland hotel.  Marriott argues that it has the right and responsibility to block rogue access point on its property because the could represent a security threat to its operations and to its customers.

Here's the statement:

"Marriott has a strong interest in ensuring that when our guests use our Wi-Fi service, they will be protected from rogue wireless hotspots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber-attacks and identity theft. Like many other institutions and companies in a wide variety of industries, including hospitals and universities, the Gaylord Opryland protected its Wi-Fi network by using FCC-authorized equipment provided by well-known, reputable manufacturers.  We believe that the Gaylord Opryland's actions were lawful.  We will continue to encourage the FCC to pursue a rulemaking in order to eliminate the ongoing confusion resulting from today's action and to assess the merits of its underlying policy."

http://news.marriott.com/2014/10/marriott-internationals-statement-on-fcc-ruling.html

Last week, the FCC imposed a $600,000 fine on Marriott Hotel Services for blocking customers' own Wi-Fi signals at the conference facilities of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

The FCC said its investigation revealed that Marriott employees had used containment features of a Wi-Fi monitoring system at the Gaylord Opryland to prevent individuals from connecting to the Internet via their own personal Wi-Fi networks, while at the same time charging consumers, small businesses, and exhibitors as much as $1,000 per device to access Marriott’s Wi-Fi network. This action was determined to be a violation of Section 333 of the Communications Act. The FCC investigation was prompted by a consumer complaint in March 2013.

“Consumers who purchase cellular data plans should be able to use them without fear that their personalInternet connection will be blocked by their hotel or conference center,” said Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc. “It is unacceptable for any hotel to intentionally disable personal hotspots while also charging consumers and small businesses high fees to use the hotel’s own Wi-Fi network. This practice puts consumers in the untenable position of either paying twice for the same service or forgoing Internet access altogether,” he added.

Read More

Broadcom Intros 40GbE gearbox PHY

Broadcom introduced the first quad port 40GbE gearbox PHY supporting 20 Gbps input/output (IO) designs and engineered for high density switch environments..

The new 28nm device (BCM82764), which is optimized as a companion device to Broadcom's new StrataXGS Tomahawk Switch Series, is a high density gearbox physical layer transceiver (PHY) that converts 20 Gbps signals to multiple lanes running at 10 Gbps. Using Broadcom's companion PHY, customers have the option to provide legacy 40GbE ports while taking advantage of the full bandwidth of the switch.
Key Features

• 19 x 19mm small form factor package specifically designed to interconnect with QSFP modules
• Ultra low-power dissipation under 1 watt per port
• Features four 2 x 20 Gbps to 4 x 10 Gbps bidirectional SerDes
• Three-dimensional internal eye mapper on each line-side and system-side receiver
• Supports standard Ethernet and HiGig data rates
• 10G Ethernet pass through mode
• Sampling is underway

"The introduction of Broadcom's StrataXGS Tomahawk Switch Series and companion quad-port gearbox PHY once again demonstrates our ability to bring a cohesive solution to market," said Rajiv Ramaswami, Broadcom Executive Vice President and General Manager, Infrastructure & Networking Group. "Our new 40G Ethernet gearbox facilitates extremely large switch radixes while using minimal power and real estate, providing a very attractive option for system designers developing next generation cloud scale networking equipment."

http://www.broadcom.com

In September, Broadcom introduced its next-generation, StrataXGS "Tomahawk" switch, packing 2 Tbps of switching performance in a single chip that is capable of supporting 32 ports of 100 Gigabit Ethernet, 64 ports of 40GE/50GE or 128 ports of 25GE.

The new chip, which represents the 7th generation of Broadcom Ethernet switching silicon, is designed for the programmable fabrics needed in next-gen, cloud-scale data centers. 

The StrataXGS Tomahawk Series is powered by more than 7 billion integrated transistors in 28nm. It supports new 25GE and 50GE protocol standards, and is the first chip to scale to 32-ports of 100G on a single device.

Significantly, Tomahawk implements Broadcom's FLEXGS and Smart-Flow technology, enabling the switch to be software configured for specific policies while preserving deterministic latency. The new design brings a 12X increase in application policy scale compared to previous generation switches, along with increased flexibility of packet lookups and key generation, and rich load balancing and traffic redirection controls. This supports an extensive suite of user configurable functions for flow processing, security, network virtualization, measurement/monitoring, congestion management and traffic engineering.

Read More

CenturyLink Bundles Microsoft Office 365 with Voice/Data Services

CenturyLink is now offering cloud-enabled Microsoft Office 365 for businesses at no extra charge with its business voice and data bundles and managed services bundles for new small and midsized business customers.

"CenturyLink has transformed from a traditional network communications provider to an integrated provider of end-to-end, fully managed information technology and cloud solutions for businesses of all sizes," said Thuy Ha, director, business marketing, CenturyLink. "Businesses already trust us for ultra-fast, fiber-based Internet and advanced voice service, and now CenturyLink is a one-stop-shop for the mission-critical productivity applications in Office 365."

http://www.centurylink.com/office365

Read More

EZchip Lowers Guidance Citing Weaker Carrier Spending

EZchip Semiconductor trimmed its financial guidance for the third fiscal quarter of 2014, saying it now expects revenue to be in the range of $19 million, approximately 14% lower than the $22 million range guidance previously provided.

“In the third quarter of 2014 we have seen weakness in orders as well as inventory adjustments across most of our key customers that are serving the carrier networking equipment space. We believe this is a temporary slowdown, caused primarily by a weaker carrier spending environment that the market is currently going through,” said Eli Fruchter, CEO of EZchip Semiconductor. “Looking further out, carrier spending is forecasted to resume growth and with it our corresponding sales into this market. Concurrently, we are making good progress with our NPS which expands our reach to new markets, primarily data centers, NFV and SDN. Our pending acquisition of Tilera, which is expected to close during Q4, subject to US regulatory approvals, will further diversify the market segments and customers we serve and provide additional growth opportunities.”

http://www.ezchip.com

Read More

Pica8 Adopts ONIE Network Switch OS Bootloader

Pica8 has adopted the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE), which has been accepted by the Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation an industry standard network boot loader for installing software on network switches.

Pica8 said ONIE is accelerating the widespread adoption of bare metal switches by making it much easier for customers to buy and deploy standards-based network hardware. ONIE comes pre-loaded on bare metal switches from leading switch manufacturers, and as such, it dramatically reduces the overall capital and operating cost of network switches.

“Our goal is to enable choice in selecting network hardware and software, and PicOS supports bare metal switches from major original device manufacturers,” said Steve Garrison, Vice President of Marketing at Pica8. “By supporting ONIE, we make it easier than ever for our customers to integrate PicOS onto the bare metal switches of their choice.”

The ONIE ecosystem includes supporters from the switching, software, and silicon manufacturing sectors.

http://www.pica8.com

Read More