Cisco Integrates ACI with FirePOWER Intrusion Prevention

Cisco is integrating its FirePOWER Next Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS) into its Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) architecture. The integrated ACI + firePOWER security solution, which will be available in June 2015, offers automated threat protection to combat emerging data center security threats. The idea is fine-grained control (including application level security), visibility and centralized automation all the way from...

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XO Interconnects with Microsoft Azure through Equinix Cloud Exchange

XO Communications (XO) introduced direct links to Microsoft Azure through the Equinix Cloud Exchange. XO now offers its customers dedicated connections to Azure at bandwidths of 200 Mbps, 500 Mbps and 1 Gbps in Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers in the Washington, D.C., area and Silicon Valley. Enterprises choosing 1 Gbps connectivity to the Azure platform also have the option of leveraging the XO Bandwidth on Demand service...

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AT&T Completes Acquisition of Nextel Mexico

AT&T completed its previously announced acquisition of Nextel Mexico from NII Holdings for $1.875 billion, less approximately $427 million of net debt and other adjustments. The deal includes spectrum licenses, network assets, retail stores and subscribers in Mexico. Earlier this year, AT&T acquired Mexican wireless provider Iusacell. AT&T will integrate Iusacell and Nextel into one company focused on bringing more choices, better service...

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Boingo Signs Sprint for Airport Wi-Fi

Boingo Wireless announced a multi-year Wi-Fi agreement for providing Sprint customers with access to seamless and secure Boingo Wi-Fi networks in 35 major U.S. airports. Sprint devices within proximity of a Boingo hotspot can automatically connect to the Wi-Fi network seamlessly, providing service at the fastest speeds available, be that cellular from Sprint or Wi-Fi from Boingo. The auto-authenticating Wi-Fi connections are available at no additional...

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Amdocs to Acquire Comverse's BSS Unit for $272 Million

Amdocs agreed to acquire a substantial majority of Comverse's business support systems (BSS) business unit assets for approximately $272 million in cash. Amdocs said it will maintain and support Comverse customers around the world. The acquisition geographically complements Amdocs' market focus by expanding and diversifying Amdocs' global customer base, particularly in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Europe, and including Europe's cable and satellite...

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Midcontinent Deploys Infinera DTN-X

Midcontinent Communications has deployed the Infinera DTN-X packet optical transport networking platform in its Upper Midwest service area of the United States to deliver cable television, high-speed Internet and telecom services to its customers. Midcontinent is one of the nation's largest independent telecommunications companies, with more than 300,000 residential and business customers in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin....

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IEEE 802.3 Amends Ethernet Standard for 4 x 25Gbps Lanes

IEEE announced the availability of 802.3bm, IEEE Standard for Ethernet Amendment: Physical Layer Specifications and Management Parameters for 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps Operation Over Fiber Optic Cables. The amendment reduces “lane count” for 100 Gbps applications (from 10 lanes at 10 Gbps each to four lanes at 25 Gbps each),  expands the reach for 40 Gbps services to 40 kilometers and expands Energy Efficient Ethernet capability to include optical...

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Video Set: More Changes coming to Ethernet Standards

In this set of four videos, John D'Ambrosia, Chairman of the Ethernet Alliance, discusses how new applications for Ethernet, including Internet of Things (IoT) and automotive Ethernet, are driving the need for more Ethernet speed standards. Fundamental changes in Ethernet architecture, including the adoption of 25G and 50G signalling at the chip level, suggest that future Ethernet standards will not simply follow the 10X leaps we've seen in the...

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HP Unveils Campus Switching Modules Optimized for SDN

HP unveiled new campus networking solutions and services including new switching modules powered by the 6th generation HP Networking ASIC, purpose built for SDN. HP says its new chip delivers more than four times the performance of competitive solutions and three times lower latency.Its two terabits per second backplane supports increased bandwidth and performance requirements including high speed wireless connectivity. The HP 5400R zl2 Switch...

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IBM Announces Two Breakthroughs for Quantum Computing

Researchers at IBM have demonstrated for the first time the ability to detect and measure the two types of quantum errors (bit-flip and phase-flip) that will occur in any real quantum computer. The researchers have also shown a new, square quantum bit circuit design that could scale to larger dimensions. “Quantum computing could be potentially transformative, enabling us to solve problems that are impossible or impractical to solve today," said...

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Telefónica Selects NetCracker for BSS in 7 Countries

Telefónica has selected NetCracker to transform its BSS platforms for wireless and fixed services in seven Latin American countries. This large-scale, multi-phase BSS and customer experience transformation program encompasses replacing existing billing systems and implementing new product catalog, ordering and omni-channel CRM platforms. The NetCracker BSS solution will support all customers and service offerings for seven LATAM operators. Financial...

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Broadcom Intros 5G WiFi Wave 2 Silicon

Broadcom introduced a new family of 5G WiFi Wave 2 solutions for enterprise wireless access points (APs). Broadcom's expanded portfolio includes the BCM43465 (4x4 11ac MU-MIMO) and BCM43525 (3x3 11ac MU-MIMO) for high-performance access points. Sampling is underway. The BCM43465 chip supports 2.2Gbps and four concurrent MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple input, multiple output) devices. MU-MIMO combined with 160MHz enables devices to fully utilize...

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SanDisk's New Fusion ioMemory PCIe Bring 61% Price Cut

SanDisk unveiled a new generation of its Fusion ioMemory PCIe application accelerators — comprised of SanDisk NAND flash, and Virtual Storage Layer (VSL) data access acceleration software that bring up to a 4x price performance improvement, with up to a 61 percent list price reduction over the previous generation Fusion ioDrive product. The Fusion ioMemory portfolio offers an array of form factors ranging from PCIe cards to mezzanine storage for...

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Alcatel-Lucent Selected for Algeria-Spain Undersea Cable

The Algerian Ministry of Post, Information Technology and Communications has awarded a contract to Alcatel-Lucent for the deployment of the Orval system, an over 560 km fiber-optic undersea cable that will link Oran in Algeria to Valencia, Spain. The 100 Gbps system, which is expected to come online in 2016, will deliver an ultimate design capacity of 20 Tbps. Alcatel-Lucent will be lead contractor in charge of designing and manufacturing the...

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Verizon Names Five Vendors for SDN

Verizon named five technology partners for its software-defined architecture: Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Juniper Networks and Nokia Networks. "Verizon and our key technology partners have always focused on providing high-performance networks for our customers, and with this SDN architecture we will continue to ensure our network and services meet the needs of our customers, today and in the future," stated Roger Gurnani, Verizon chief information...

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What Does SDN Need to Succeed? Citrix Responds...

SDN needs to become "business-defined networking," says Graham Melville, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Cloud Networking at Citrix. Businesses need an IT infrastructure that is more agile, consumes fewer resources, and capable of making intelligent decisions as network loads change.  Application intelligence should drive the way that the network is formed and the way paths are formed. Filmed at NetEvents' Cloud Innovation Summit 2015...

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Dell's 13th Gen PowerEdge Servers Pack 6 TB of RAM, Eight PCIe SSDs

Dell introduced its 13th generation PowerEdge servers including its most powerful PowerEdge R930 designed for demanding enterprise applications such as in-memory databases, customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Dell noted that the global x86 server market has grown more than 600 percent since it first introduced the PowerEdge portfolio roughly 20 years ago, while the non-x86 market has been on a constant...

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Cavium Demos 48-core, ARMv8-A ThunderX_NT Processor

At this week's Interop in Las Vegas, Cavium is demonstrating its 48-core, dual-socket capable ThunderX_NT family of ARMv8-A based processors with integrated security, networking and virtual flow accelerators. Cavium said its ThunderX_NT-based platforms are well suited for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) applications, such as virtual application delivery controller (vADC), virtual unified threat management (vUTM), virtual router (vRouter),...

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Oracle Launched Evolved Communications Application Server

Oracle is introducing an Evolved Communications Application Server for service providers that supports enhanced Single Radio Voice Call Continuity for delivering Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services even when widespread LTE network coverage isn’t available. Communication Service Providers can configure and extend out-of-the-box VoLTE and Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) applications without coding or having to rely on costly vendor customization, enabling...

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Microsemi Completes Acquisition of Vitesse

Microsemi completed its previously announced acquisition of Vitesse Semiconductor for $5.28 per share in cash. Vitesse offers a portfolio of high-performance semiconductors, application software, and integrated turnkey systems solutions for carrier, enterprise and Internet of Things (IoT) networks worldwide. Key markets include network infrastructure for mobile access/IP edge, enterprise cloud access, and industrial-IoT markets. Vitesse is headquartered...

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VeloCloud Partners With Japan's Net One Systems on SD-WAN

VeloCloud Networks, a start-up offering a subscription-based, virtualized WAN service for enterprises that aggregates multiple access lines (cable modem, DSL, LTE) into a single secure connection, announced a partnership with Net One Systems, a leading networking solutions provider and cloud builder and broker in Japan. The partnership represents VeloCloud’s foray into the Japan market as part of a larger strategy of entering into the broader Asian...

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Dell SonicWALL TZ Analyzes Encrypted SSL Traffic

Dell introduced new SonicWALL TZ Series firewalls with the ability to analyze encrypted SSL traffic, and an integrated wireless controller. The new TZ firewalls, which are aimed at small businesses and large, multi-site distributed organizations, leverages multi-core security processors for high-performance Unified Threat Management (UTM). The company cites intrusion prevention speeds of up to 1.1Gbps. Offering 1GbE network interfaces in a compact...

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China Telecom Reports Dip in Q1

China Telecom reported 1Q2015 operating revenues of RMB81,453 million, representing a decrease of 2.1% over the same period of last year. Service revenues were RMB72,704 million, representing a decrease of 0.4% over the same period oflast year.  EBITDA was RMB24,525 million, representing a decrease of 2.2% over the same period of last year. China Telecom added 3.20 million net mobile users in Q1, giving it a total base of 189 million. The carrier...

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Metaswitch Picks Radisys’ vMRF for Clearwater IMS

Metaswitch Networks has selected Radisys’ virtualized Media Resource Function (vMRF) to power its cloud-based IMS solution. Radisys’ vMRF, pre-integrated with OpenCloud’s Rhino Telecom Application Server, is being resold by Metaswitch as part of its Clearwater IMS solution that helps service providers accelerate the transformation of their network and communication services. “Mobile operators are embracing IMS as the foundation of their LTE networks...

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Performance Scalability for NFV - Procera & Intel

The scalability that is required in carrier networks for NFV to succeed is huge.  If you don't solve the performance requirements, you will not meet the expectations of customers. In this video, Procera Networks' Cam Cullen and Intel's Renu Navale talk about their partnership and the success achieved in benchmarking NFV performance.  Working with Intel's Network Builders program, Procera has demonstrated its PacketLogic/V virtualized...

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Lightower to Acquire Fibertech, Extending Footprint

Lightower Fiber Networks agreed to acquire Fibertech Networks, a leading provider of fiber-optic based network services throughout mid-size cities in the eastern and central regions of the United States, for $1.9 billion in cash. The combined company will own and operate over 30,000 route miles of fiber network providing access to nearly 5,000 wireless towers and almost 13,000 on-net service locations, including commercial buildings, data centers,...

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OpenCloud Connect - Faster Standards for Cloud Services

Sebastien Jobert, co-chair of the Open Cloud Committee for OpenCloud Connect, provides an update on the forum and its ambition for faster development of standards for cloud services. OpenCloud Connect, which was previously called Cloud Ethernet Forum, is a global industry alliance founded to address the need for scaling and enhancing current network technologies to meet the stringent demands of delivering cloud services. OpenCloud Connect is working...

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Dell Intros New Open Data Center Switches

Dell Networking introduced three new open switches for data centers and featuring support for the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) to allow for a zero-touch install of all pre-qualified operating systems, including Dell Networking OS9 and third party options. Dell said the rollout reinforces its strategy to pursue open architectures in the new era of software-defined data centers. "These advancements are another example of Dell helping...

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Open Switches for SDN Data Centers

Arpit Joshipura discusses Dell's pursuit of open architectures and its newly launched switches for software-defined data centers, saying the disaggregation of hardware and software allows for faster innovation from all sides. Dell is introducing new switches with port speeds from 1G to 100G.  The openness allows for Dell's own OS or third-party implementations such as Big Switch, Cumulus and IP Infusion. Filmed at NetEvent's Cloud Innovation...

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Facebook Adds Video Calling to Messenger

Facebook is adding video calling in Messenger, enabling face-to-face calling on iOS or Android devices. The service is initially available in Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the UK, the US and Uruguay. http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/04/introducing-video-calling-in-messenger/ Last week, Facebook disclosed that it served 936 million daily active users...

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Apple Confirms $2 Billion Investment in European Data Centers

On its quarterly conference call, Apple confirmed plans to invest $2 billion on data centers in Ireland and Denmark. These will be Apple's largest data centers in the world and will be 100% powered by renewable energy. The company notes that 100% of it U.S. operations and 87% of global operations are running on renewable energy. http://www.apple....

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CloudBridge Debuts Virtual WAN Link Aggregation

Citrix announced its "CloudBridge Virtual WAN Edition", which allows enterprises to create a virtualized WAN by bonding multiple network services such as MPLS, broadband, mobile and satellite Internet links together to maximize WAN capacity and reliability. The Citrix CloudBridge Virtual WAN constantly assesses the performance of paths within the virtualized WAN to instantaneously and automatically adapt to changing network conditions. The solution...

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Thoma Bravo Completes Acquisition of Riverbed

Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, and Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investor department of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, completed their previously announced acquisition of Riverbed Technology. The acquisition is valued at approximately $3.5 billion, with Riverbed stockholders receiving $21.00 per share in cash. “With this acquisition now complete, our team can begin to move forward with the strategic initiatives...

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Freescale Intros White Box SDN with Advantech

Freescale Semiconductor introduced its new SDN switching platform powered by its QorIQ multicore processors and designed to bring intelligence, agility and security to the network’s edge for the secure Internet of Tomorrow. The white box solution, which was developed in conjunction with Advantech, leverages Freescale’s 24-core, server-class QorIQ T4240 processor and VortiQa Open Network software. The platform couples the QorIQ processors with standard...

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Apigee Completes IPO - NASDAQ: APIC

On Friday, Apigee, a start-up based in San Jose, California, completed its initial public offering (IPO) of 5,115,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $17.00 per share. Apigee is now traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "APIC." The company's Apigee Edge API platform helps enterprises to build mobile and digital initiatives using APIs, apps and data. Apigee Insights delivers big data predictive analytics....

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ZTE Reports Rise in Q1 Profits

ZTE reported first-quarter 2015 net profit RMB 883 million (US$142 million), up 41.9% year over year. Basic earnings per share climbed to RMB 0.24, while revenue rose 10.2% to RMB 21 billion. Operating revenue from telecommunications software systems, services and other products increased by 23.4% in the first quarter, as ZTE recorded strong growth from video and network terminal products, in addition to services. Revenue from Carriers’ Networks...

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Windstream Completes Spinout of Network Assets Division into REIT

Windstream completed its previously-announced, tax-free spinoff of select telecommunications network assets into a new company, Communications Sales and Leasing (Nasdaq:CSAL), an independent publicly traded real estate investment trust (REIT). In addition, Windstream also announced the near completion of a one-for-six reverse stock split of Windstream's shares. "Today's successful spinoff will significantly advance our commitment to deliver value...

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Marvell Trims Guidance

Marvell Technology announced preliminary financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2016, saying it now expects revenue to be below the company's previous outlook. Marvell now expects first quarter of fiscal 2016 revenue to be in the range of $710 million to $740 million, compared to the previous expectation of $810 million to $830 million. The cited weaker than previously expected PC and storage markets and lower than expected emerging...

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Pica8 Enables Label BGP on White Box Switches

Pica8 announced support for Labeled BGP on bare-metal, white box switches -- a new network overlay solution with applications for service providers and cloud data center operators. Pica8 said the approach will appeal to many large enterprises who are pursuing a VXLAN / VMware model for multi-tenant services, workload mobility and overlay networking within their data centers. The new capability, which is part of Pica8’s latest SDN release (PicOS...

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Google Project Fi Aims for Seamless Connections Between Networks

Google announced Project Fi -- its effort to define "the future of communications" by building a virtual mobile network service leveraging Wi-Fi the cellular infrastructure of carrier partners. For its U.S. launch, Google has confirmed T-Mobile and Sprint as partners. Key points: No contracts. User phone numbers live in the cloud, enabling talk and text with your number on just about any phone, tablet or laptop.  Talk, text, Wi-Fi tethering...

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Equinix Commits to 100% Clean and Renewal Data Center Energy

Equinix committed to a long-term goal to use 100% clean and renewable energy to power its global platform, which now includes data centers in over 33 markets on five continents. Equinix aims to deliver carbon-neutral data center and interconnection services. In 2014, Equinix consumed over 2,200 gigawatt hours of energy across its global data center platform. In a blog posting, David Rinard is Senior Director of Global Sustainability & Procurement...

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Procera to be Acquired by Private Equity Firm for $240 Million

Procera Networks has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by private funds managed by Francisco Partners Management, a technology-focused private equity firm, in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $240 million. Under the deal, Francisco Partners will acquire all outstanding shares of Procera’s common stock for $11.50 per share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 21% over the closing price of Procera’s common stock...

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F5 Names Manny Rivelo as New CEO

F5 Networks appointed Manny Rivelo as its new President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of F5’s Board of Directors effective July 1, 2015. He succeeds longtime CEO, John McAdam, who will become Chairman of the Board of Directors upon his retirement on July 1st. Al Higginson, who has been on the F5 Board of Directors since 1996, and has served as Board Chairman since 2004, will remain on F5’s Board as Lead Independent Director. Previously,...

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ARRIS to Acquire Pace for $2.1 Billion

ARRIS Group agree to acquire Pace plc., a supplier of networking equipment for cable operators, for US$2.1 billion (£1.4 billion) is stock and cash. Under the agreed upon terms, Pace shareholders will receive £1.325 of cash and a fixed exchange ratio of 0.1455 New ARRIS shares for each Pace share, reflecting aggregate consideration as of April 21, 2015 of £4.265 per share, representing a 28% premium to the Pace closing share price as of April 21,...

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IBM Opens 2nd Softlayer Data Center in the Netherlands

IBM SoftLayer has opened a second cloud data center in the Netherlands, located in Almere, just outside of Amsterdam. The new data center is securely connected by private network to all SoftLayer data centers around the world. The new facility helps meet the rapid growth of IBM Cloud by doubling its SoftLayer capacity in the region, and provides even more options in the country and region for redundant data storage and geographically isolated...

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Ixia Demos Native 100GbE Interface Security Test

Ixia demonstrated its "PerfectStorm" 100GbE - an application and security testing platform that supports 100GbE native interfaces. A demo at this week's 2015 RSA Conference uses the new hardware for Juniper Networks' SRX5800 Services Gateway to demonstrate carrier-grade, next-generation firewall technology scaling to Two Terabits per second (2 Tbps) of workloads. Ixia said its PerfectStorm scales to nearly a terabit of application traffic in a...

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