Juniper Announces Open Compute Project Switch

Juniper Networks introduced an Open Compute Project (OCP) powered by its Junos software and Broadcom's Trident II silicon.

The Juniper OCX1100, which was developed by ODM partner Alpha Networks of Taiwan, is designed for top-of-rack deployments in hyperdense cloud data centers.  It offers 48 10GbE port and 6 40GbE uplink ports in a fixed configuration chassis. The OCX1100 runs an optimized version of Junos, based on Linux, which delivers the features required for deployment in L3 networks.

Some other highlights:

• Open, standards-based programmatic interfaces, including Python, which allows custom scripts and applications to interact with Junos.
• Support for native installation of tools in Junos, including Puppet and Chef, which enables automated programming and provisioning.
• Real time ephemeral table programming to Junos software development kits (SDK).
• Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) that enables disaggregation and loading of third-party network operating systems, freeing customers from vendor lock in.
• Commercial availability is expected in Q1 2015

Juniper said the real innovation with this offering is that for the first time a white box switch conforming to the Open Compute Project (OCP) hardware design has been combined with a carrier-class network operating system -- its Junos OS. The switch is aimed at large cloud builders, such as Web 2.0 and web-hosting companies. Juniper technical support services will back the hardware and software, lowering risk and increasing reliability for customers.

"The introduction of the OCX1100 is an example of Juniper Networks not only embracing the disruption brought on by emerging cloud technologies, but also moving the industry forward by providing the largest cloud providers with a viable option to create cost-effective and reliable large scale data centers. We remain committed to constant innovation and building open products that provide our customers with the technology they need today and in the future," stated Mike Marcellin, senior vice president, strategy and marketing, Juniper Networks.

"The rise of cloud and massive data centers presents an opportunity to fundamentally change enterprise business models -- if organizations can build cost-effective data centers that scale. Our partner, Juniper Networks, has met demands like this by delivering innovative technologies -- so I am not at all surprised to see them disaggregate the 'traditional' data center switch and become the first major networking provider to deliver a switch based on Open Compute Project guidelines," added - Martin Casado, senior vice president and general manager, Network and Security Business Unit, VMware

http://www.juniper.net/us/en/products-services/switching/ocx1100/

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Infonetics: LTE Rollouts to Peak in 2015

Rollouts of LTE networks are approaching a peak, according to a new report from Infonetics Research.

"In the mobile infrastructure market, the third quarter of 2014 was almost a carbon copy of last quarter, and we are now reaching the peak of plain LTE rollouts, which are so brisk in China that they are overshadowing strong activity in Europe, the Middle East, and Russia," notes Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research.

Some highlights:

• Operators are currently spending around $5.6 billion per quarter on LTE, and this has prompted Infonetics to raise its 2014 forecast for the global macrocell 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile infrastructure market to $45.4 billion, up from $43 billion the prior year
  
• Investments initially earmarked for 2015 have shifted to 2014, reinforcing Infonetics' prediction that the LTE market will peak in 2015
  
• The worldwide macrocell 2G/3G/4G mobile infrastructure market totaled $11.2 billion in 3Q14, up 0.4% sequentially, and up 10% year-over-year
  
• Nokia Networks moved into the #1 spot for LTE revenue in 3Q14, propelled by strong performances in the U.S. and China
  
• China continues to push LTE through the roof, but the rest of the world is also moving fast to LTE, with 331 commercial networks launch.

http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2014/3Q14-Mobile-Infrastructure-Market-Highlights.asp

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Ciena Builds a VNF Marketplace

Ciena introduced its new Agility Matrix software for enabling on-demand business models for Managed Services Providers (MSPs). The idea is to enable on-demand cloud experiences for carrier managed services. To pursue this opportunity, the company is establishing a new business division, called Ciena Agility, to be headed by Kevin Sheehan as vice president and general manager.

Ciena’s Agility Matrix is a virtual services platform that controls the acquisition, distribution, consumption and payment of virtualized network functions (VNF). Key components in the VNF Market, where third party VNFs can in instantiated, and Director, a management and orchestration engine. Enterprise users will be able to drag and drop VNFs items, such as encryption, firewalls, and VPNs, into a cart. Agility Matrix will then delivered these as managed services in a matter of minutes. VNF Market is a Ciena-operated cloud-based VNF distribution solution that allows providers to select and download validated VNFs in support of virtualized, on-demand enterprise services. For service providers, it offers a pay-as-you-earn, consumption-based model to deliver new services.

Ciena is working with several leading virtual appliance vendors, including BlackRidge Technology, Brocade, Certes Networks, Silver Peak and Spirent Communications.

Ciena expects the Agility Matrix solution to be generally available in the second calendar quarter of 2015.

The new Ciena Agility business division is dedicated to delivering network control and application software technologies, including the company's SDN Multilayer WAN Controller and its applications, as well as all future SDN and NFV development. The new business division includes dedicated resources for software development, product line management, product marketing, service and support, sales and business development.

“We are transforming raw capacity into capability that delivers on-demand network-based services in a manner that mimics the ease and instantaneous nature of an online shopping experience. The new Ciena Agility division is organized to quickly respond to the market demand for these customer-driven software solutions,” stated Kevin Sheehan, vice president and general manager, Ciena Agility.

http://www.ciena.com/products/agility/

• Kevin Sheehan previously served as president of Overture Networks.

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Telco Systems Releases EdgeGenie Orchestrator

Telco Systems introduced three SDN/NFV products:

• EdgeGenie Orchestrator -- enables service providers to deliver CE 2.0 services end to end with the required resiliency, QoS and monitoring. EdgeGenie Orchestrator is an orchestration module that manages Distributed NFV deployments including virtual machine initiation, configuration and maintenance, service attachment and chaining, and virtual network function resilience. It also provides an OpenFlow southbound interface as well as NETCONF and YANG support, enabling simple SDN implementation and integration with other network devices.
  
• vSMU TelcoApp -- provides virtualized approach to service-level assurance with accurate prediction of end-user experience at for the Ethernet/IP/TCP/UDP layers. vSMU enables rapid virtualization of software agents on edge devices without the need to deploy hardware. It provides accurate service-level measurements and accurate reports of TCP throughput as experienced by service providers’ business customers. EdgeGenie Orchestrator enables quick deployment of vSMU on Telco Systems’ CloudMetro devices and rapid execution of tests, allowing service providers to certify and guarantee end-customer Ethernet service level upon handover.
   
• vTunnel TelcoApp -- a virtual Tunnel (vTunnel) providing encryption for service providers’ business customers for their inter-office, office-to-cloud and hybrid-cloud connections.

“We continue to advance the cause of intelligent and flexible networks with our growing ecosystem of certified and practical SDN and Distributed NFV applications that give our service-provider customers the ability to expand their service offerings quickly and very cost-effectively,” stated Moshe Shimon, VP of Product Management and Marketing at Telco Systems. “SDN & NFV constitute a bold step in network advancement and we are dedicated to providing our customers with a trouble-free, manageable transition to this valuable way of planning and managing networks.”

http://www.telco.com

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Freescale Acquires Zenverge for 4K Transcoding

Freescale Semiconductor has acquired Zenverge, a leading developer of advanced HD content processing ICs. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Zenverge’s transcoding technology enables the conversion of one media stream into multiple streams, each individually formatted and optimized for the specific internet connected device or platform where it will be displayed. Among the supported formats planned is the Ultra HD (HEVC) standard, which features outstanding 4K resolution while delivering up to 50 percent bandwidth savings due to highly advanced data compression. As part of the agreement, key members of Zenverge have joined Freescale. Zenverge is based in Santa Clara, California.

Freescale said the acquisition will significantly enhance its content processing, storage and interoperability capabilities for a range of Video Internet of Things applications and markets.

“This acquisition extends Freescale’s reach into both display- and media-centric processing at a time when both the volume and density of internet content is growing rapidly,” said Lees. “Zenverge is a recognized leader in the secure optimization, unification, storage and distribution of rich digital content. The company’s highly advanced technologies present growth opportunities for Freescale in new markets, while providing compelling and highly differentiated functionality for future generations of many popular Freescale product portfolios.”

http://www.freescale.com
http://www.zenverge.com/

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2015 Advertising Info for Converge! Digest

2015 advertising information for the Converge! Digest email newsletter and website has been posted.

Promotional placements include newsletter inserts, website banners and paid video productions. This publication reaches key influencers in the networking and telecom sectors worldwide.

Our 2015 editorial program offers continued coverage of cloud developments, networking technologies and protocols, silicon storage systems and all other innovations for wired and wireless infrastructure. Areas of particular focus include 5G, virtualization, cloud exchanges, data center consolidation, LTE-Advanced, NFV, OpenStack, OpenDaylight, SDN, VoLTE and 802.11ac Wi-Fi . We will also be expanding our Blueprint contributed article series on next generation network architecture.

Media Kit is here:
http://www.convergedigest.com/p/media-kit-2015.html

Our 2015 Event Calendar is now online as well.

Please contact us to discuss these opportunities.

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HP's Haven Delivers Cloud-based Analytics

HP introduced Haven OnDemand, a new web service that leverages its Helion cloud for delivering Big Data analytics.  The new cloud services lets customers analyze all forms of data, including business data, machine data, and unstructured human information.

HP is  supporting a range of flexible consumption models, including a managed virtual private cloud Haven platform offering developed in partnership with HP Enterprise Service.  The company also announced that it will embed its unique Haven assets deeper into the HP Software application portfolio with new offerings that leverage Big Data analytics.

"To succeed in today's marketplace, businesses must be able to leverage all forms of data, at high speed and in context, in order to capitalize on emerging opportunities and manage risk and costs," said Robert Youngjohns, GM and EVP, HP Software. "With today's announcement, we are making our unique Big Data platform more accessible and adaptable than ever before, giving customers, partners, and developers an unmatched set of assets that can help them create winning, data-driven businesses."

http://hp.com/haven

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Clouditalia Deploys 100G with Coriant hiT 7300 Platform

Clouditalia, a provider of integrated telecommunications and cloud services throughout Italy, has deployed Coriant's hiT 7300 Multi-Haul Transport Platform to deliver 100G capacity in major network sites, including Rome, Milan, Bologna, and Pisa. Clouditalia will leverage Coriant's advanced technology to enhance its end-user service offerings, including fixed and wireless telecommunications, data center connectivity, and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

"The connectivity needs of our enterprise customers continue to evolve as media-rich applications and cloud services become increasingly critical to their business success," said Bernardo Marzucchi, Chief Technology Officer, Clouditalia. "With the ability to seamlessly increase service capacity and advance the flexibility of our optical fiber infrastructure, the Coriant solution will allow us to keep pace with our customers' bandwidth demands and deliver the advanced services that help them become more competitive in the market."

http://www.coriant.com

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Akanda Hires Former Senior Principal Architect at Yahoo!

Akanda, a start-up offering an open source Network Function Virtualization (NFV) platform for cloud service providers, appointed Mark McClain as founding Chief Technology Officer. McClain joins Akanda from his former position as Senior Principal Architect at Yahoo! where he contributed to the strategic planning and architecture expansion of the company’s OpenStack platform implementations. Prior to Yahoo!, McClain held Senior Developer positions at DreamHost, Pictage and SignPost Networks. McClain is also a member of the OpenStack Technical Committee and currently a core member of OpenStack Neutron.

http://www.akanda.io

• In November, Akanda, a start-up incubated with DreamHost since 2012, launched out of stealth mode to deliver an open source Network Function Virtualization (NFV) platform for cloud service providers.  The platform is already in use by 500+ tenants at Dreamhost and supporting 1,000s of VMs in its cloud compute service. DreamHost is now spinning-off the solution into Akanda, a start-up whose mission will be to accelerate open source NFV for cloud operators. 
  Akanda's NFV implementation provides OpenStack integrated L3 network virtualization on a VMWare NSX L2 overlay. It interfaces with the OpenStack Neutron REST APIs and includes a sophisticated management and orchestration platform to monitor, configure, and manage virtualized routers. In the future, Akanda will be extended to virtualize additional network functions, including load balancing and firewalls, and will feature pluggable backends to alternative L2 overlays.
  
  
  The company said intends to work collaboratively with all emerging open source communities and NFV projects including OpenStack Neutron, OPNFV and OpenDaylight.

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Telenor and TeliaSonera Plan JV in Denmark

Telenor and TeliaSonera agreed to merge their Danish operations into a new joint venture where the parties will own 50 percent each.

The new company will have a combined mobile subscriber base of around 3.5 million for a combined mobile subscriber market share of approximately 40%, revenues of more than DKK 9 billion.

The companies said the merger will likely yield annual efficiency gains of above DKK 800 million, with full effect from 2019.

“Competition in Denmark is intense and we face continued pressure on revenue growth and profitability, making consolidation inevitable. By combining the assets and customer bases of Telenor and TeliaSonera in Denmark, the joint venture will become a robust operator. We will be able to offer our customers a high-quality network with outstanding connectivity and the best customer experience in Denmark,” says Kjell Morten Johnsen, EVP and Head of Telenor Region Europe.

http://www.telenor.com/

• TDC currently holds about 41% share of the mobile subscribers in Denmark.

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