Intel Xeon Processor D Targets Microserver, Storage, Networking

Intel launched its first Xeon processor-based system-on-chip (SoC) and its third generation of 64-bit SoC for microserver, storage, network and the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Intel Xeon processor D product family, which is built on 14nm process technology, addresses low-power, high density infrastructure applications for the data center, cloud and telecommunication service providers. The SoC design combines industry standard x86 cores with two ports of integrated 10GbE Intel Ethernet and integrated I/Os (PCIe, USB, SATA and other general purpose I/Os) on a single package. It operates at a thermal design point near 20 watts and supports up to 128GB of addressable memory.

Some highlights:

• The Intel Xeon processor D product family deliver up to 3.4x faster performance per node1 and up to 1.7x better performance per watt when compared to the Intel Atom processor C2750, part of Intel’s second-generation 64-bit SoC product family.
• Launching 4- and 8-core microserver optimized SoCs today, with a more comprehensive portfolio of network, storage and IoT SoCs targeted for availability in the second half of this year.
• Initial products are optimized for hosters and cloud service providers for a variety of workloads such as dedicated web hosting, memory caching, dynamic web serving and warm storage. Future storage and network optimized products will target usages such as entry SAN and NAS appliances, edge routers and wireless base stations, as well as industrial IoT devices.
• There are more than 50 systems currently in design. Approximately 75 percent are network, storage and IoT designs. System providers currently designing microservers based on the Intel Xeon processor D family include: Cisco, HP, NEC, Quanta Cloud Technology, Sugon and Supermicro.
• Delivers advanced server-class reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features, including support for error-correcting code memory, combined with enhanced hardware-based Intel Virtualization Technology and Intel Advanced Encryption Standard-New Instructions (AES-NI).

“The growth of connected devices and demand for more digital services has created new opportunities for information and communication technology,” said Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group at Intel. “By bringing Intel Xeon processor performance to a low-power SoC, we’re delivering the best of both worlds and enabling our customers to deliver exciting new services.”

http://www.intel.com

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NTT DOCOMO Hits 4.5Gbps in 5G Outdoor Trial

NTT DOCOMO achieved a maximum data transmission speed of over 4.5 Gbps using the high-frequency 15GHz spectrum band in a 5G outdoor trial that was conducted last month with Ericsson.

DOCOMO said it its targetting deployment of a commercial 5G network by the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in July 2020.

In a separate indoor 5G trial with Nokia Networks on December 18, 2014 to verify beamforming, a technique for more stable high-speed data transmission using exceptionally higher frequencies in the 70GHz band, DOCOMO achieved data transmissions of over 2 Gbps.

DOCOMO also announced that it has agreed with its two newest partners, Huawei and Mitsubishi Electric, to conduct technical verifications of emerging 5G mobile communications technologies using various frequency bands, including lower than 6GHz and extremely high frequencies, called millimeter waves. In total, DOCOMO's 5G trials now encompass eight blue-chip mobile technology vendors, also including Alcatel-Lucent, Fujitsu, NEC and Samsung.

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/info/media_center/pr/2015/0302_03.html

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NTT DOCOMO Anticipates NFV Rollout Starting in March 2016

NTT DOCOMO is planning for a commercial deployment of network functions virtualisation (NFV) technology its mobile network in Japan from March 2016.

At last week's Mobile World Congress, DOCOMO confirmed that it is working on NFV with three ICT vendors—Ericsson, Fujitsu and NEC.

NTT said Ericsson composes the system that controls the virtualized hardware, whereas Fujitsu and NEC compose virtualized EPC software.

"NFV, which has finally moved into its commercial phase, is no longer just a pie-in-the-sky idea," said Seizo Onoe, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at DOCOMO. "Through multi-vendor initiatives with Ericsson, Fujitsu and NEC and other leading vendors in the NFV domain, we look forward to putting NFV to practical use and thereby helping to accelerate the transition to a new era for mobile networks."

Anders Lindblad, Senior Vice President, Head of Business Unit Cloud and IP at Ericsson, said: "Ericsson is delighted to partner with DOCOMO to contribute to an advance effort for commercialization of NFV. By providing a platform for execution and orchestration of cloud services, we will contribute to enabling the realization of a virtualized network in a multivendor environment led by DOCOMO."

Jiro Otsuki, Corporate Executive Officer, EVP, Head of Network Business Group, Service Platform Business, Fujitsu Limited, said: "We at Fujitsu are delighted to be able to participate in the cutting-edge initiative to implement DOCOMO's network virtualization technology. We are moving forward on partnerships with DOCOMO and a range of other vendors, utilizing our technological capabilities that have a track record of support for the commercialization of mobile networks. Moreover, Fujitsu will provide the virtualization technology that paves the way for international standards so as to contribute to realizing the next generation of mobile networks."

Shunichiro Tejima, Executive Vice President of NEC, said: "NEC is delighted to be selected by DOCOMO as a partner for the development of their industry-leading network functions virtualization technology. NEC will aim towards the early realization of DOCOMO's virtualized EPC, while ensuring that telecom carriers around the world can fully reap the benefits of network virtualization by providing an open virtualization-based mobile core technology. In this way, NEC will continue helping telecom carriers to provide advanced communication services."

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp

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IBM Softlayer Launches OpenPOWER Bare Metal Servers

IBM SoftLayer will offer OpenPOWER-based bare metal servers as part of its portfolio of cloud-based services. The servers are aimed at data-intensive workloads on public and private clouds.

To develop the SoftLayer bare-metal server, IBM and SoftLayer worked closely with fellow OpenPOWER Foundation members TYAN, a provider of advanced server/workstation platforms, and Mellanox Technologies, a leading supplier of InfiniBand and Ethernet solutions.

"The new OpenPOWER-based bare metal servers make it easy for users to take advantage of one of the industry's most powerful and open server architectures," said Sonny Fulkerson, CIO at SoftLayer. "The offering allows SoftLayer to deliver a higher level of performance, predictability, and dependability not always possible in virtualized cloud environments.”

http://www.softlayer.com/press/release/2963/softlayer-to-offer-openpower-servers-to-help-clients-better-manage-workloads-in-the-cloud

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Coriant and Fujitsu Resolve Litigation

Coriant and Fujitsu Limited have now resolved all of their pending claims, counterclaims and appeals against each other, in a confidential settlement agreement. The patent and intellectual property claims concerned Tellabs, which was acquired in December 2013 by Marlin Equity Partners, a global investment firm. The stipulations of dismissal will be filed in the trial and appellate courts.

http://www.coriant.com

Coriant introduced a compact packet optical transport platform optimized for service enablement at the edge of metro networks, including Data Center Interconnect (DCI), flexible business services, mobile backhaul, and SONET/SDH 

• In January 2008, Fujitsu Network Communications announced a patent infringement lawsuit asserting that Tellabs' products infringe four of Fujitsu's U.S. patents covering optical communication technologies. The accused products include the Tellabs 7100 Optical Transport System, Tellabs 5500 series and Tellabs 6300 series.  Later that year, Tellabs filed a countersuit against Fujitsu.

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Freescale Supports Linaro OpenDataPlane for SDN

Freescale Semiconductor announced support for the OpenDataPlane (ODP) standard, a common programming model for software-defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV).

Specifically, Freescale will support ODP APIs for both ARM and Power Architecture versions of its QorIQ multicore processors. The ODP APIs offer a common abstraction interface for hardware-based acceleration functions such as IPSEC and traffic management, which are implemented in Freescale’s QorIQ multicore processors and engineered to support optimal network performance and security.

“As a founding member of the Linaro Networking Group, Freescale applauds the introduction of ODP version 1.0,” said Nikolay Guenov, director of product management for Freescale’s Digital Networking group. “Freescale and its QorIQ platforms are in solid alignment with ODP, which is the optimal open-ecosystem standard for meeting the performance and efficiency requirements our customers demand.”

http://www.opendataplane.org
http://www.freescale.com

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Altiostar and Wind River Collaborate on NFV C-RAN

At last week's Mobile World Congress, Altiostar and Wind River announced a highly scalable Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) cloud radio access network (C-RAN) solution that can be deployed using readily available standard Ethernet transport.

The Altiostar solution utilizes the NFV-enabling Wind River Titanium Server software platform for its software-intensive intelligent eNodeB. It runs on the Intel Xeon processor, which gives it the high performance needed for hyperscale workloads while minimizing the footprint.
Wind River Titanium Server is a carrier grade NFV infrastructure software solution that uses Wind River Linux, real-time Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), carrier grade plugins for OpenStack, Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK), and accelerated vSwitch technologies, and is optimized for Intel architecture.

"Current C-RAN architecture requires expensive and hard-to-deploy dark fiber or WDM in the last mile to carry CPRI frames. Additionally, exploding data consumption is creating tremendous network capacity shortfall. Carriers are eager to find disruptive solutions to address these challenges," said Ashraf M. Dahod, president and CEO of Altiostar.

"The Altiostar solution uses standard Ethernet-based fronthaul to build the cloud RAN. By working with industry leaders like Wind River and using Intel technology, we were able to get to market faster with an NFV C-RAN solution that enables the rapid introduction of new services and capacity, while driving down the total cost of ownership."

"In order for the telecom industry to successfully achieve NFV, the delivery of virtualized services at carrier grade levels of performance and reliability is absolutely critical," said Paul Senyshyn, vice president and general manager of networking solutions at Wind River. "Wind River Titanium Server delivers an NFV infrastructure that gives Altiostar's solution the carrier grade virtualization required to allow service providers to easily and quickly achieve goals such as reducing costs while introducing new high-value services through NFV."

http://www.windriver.com

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Akamai Acquires Xerocole

Akamai Technologies acquired Xerocole, a provider of recursive DNS functionality.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

Xerocole's intelligent recursive DNS technology was designed to provide carriers with security, speed, and the ability to dynamically and flexibly set DNS policy and user preferences.

Akamai said the deal enables it to expand its DNS product portfolio beyond the company's existing 

Authoritative DNS products to more completely meet the needs of customers and network partners.

"We see this acquisition as an important investment in engineering talent and technology that is intended to complement our DNS product portfolio and strategy," said Rick McConnell, Akamai's President of Products and Development. "We believe that Xerocole has some of the best DNS experts in the industry and that recursive DNS has strategic value to the Akamai Platform and to each of our business units. Xerocole's technology is expected to strengthen our value to our major carrier and network partners."

http://www.akamai.com 

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ZTE Chooses Freescale’s SoC for LTE-A Base Stations

ZTE has selected Freescale's QorIQ Qonverge B4860 baseband system-on-chip (SoC) for its next-generation LTE-Advanced macro base stations.

Freescale’s B4860 product is built on the QorIQ Qonverge platform and combines 64-bit, multi-thread Power Architecture CPU cores, StarCore digital signal processor technology, a powerful MAPLE-B baseband acceleration platform and DPAA networking acceleration to provide cost-effective, best-in-class performance and connectivity. The B4860 balances this performance with exceptional power efficiency, plus the future-proofing flexibility to support LTE, LTE-Advanced, WCDMA and 3GPP standards.

“As 4G mobile devices continue to proliferate, and demand for wireless connected devices for the Internet of Things drives even greater demand for ubiquitous bandwidth, wireless carriers are increasingly looking to base station OEMs for higher capacity and throughput,” said Tareq Bustami, Digital Networking Vice President, Freescale Semiconductor.

http://www.freescale.com

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