Facebook Deploys Infinera for Multi-Terabit European Network

Facebook has deployed an Infinera Intelligent Transport Network  to light the world's longest terrestrial optical network route, spanning 3,998 kilometers without any regeneration.

The network, which is capable of delivering up to eight terabits per second (Tbps) of data transmission capacity, stretches from Facebook's data center in Lulea, Sweden across major hubs throughout Europe. Facebook deployed the Infinera portfolio of products, which includes the DTN-X platform, to connect these hubs, harnessing Infinera’s unique FlexCoherent solution to deliver terabits of capacity on a single fiber across the continent.

Infinera said its DTN-X platform enables Facebook's European network to deliver 100G coherent transmission via 500 Gbps super-channels, with the ability to support 1.2 Tbps super-channels in the future. The high capacity super-channels are enabled by 500 Gb/s photonic integrated circuits (PICs) developed and fabricated by Infinera – the only supplier providing 500 Gb/s of transmission capacity from a single line card. PICs enable the DTN-X platform to integrate wavelength division multiplexing super-channel transmission with up to 12 Tbps of non-blocking optical transport network switching, providing seamless scaling as traffic requirements grow in the future. The DTN-X also features SDN-ready application programming interfaces that enable network programmability and automation of network operations to reduce both operational cost and service delivery times while facilitating new services.

"The Infinera Intelligent Transport Network makes it easy for us to rapidly grow network capacity while keeping operations simple,” said Niclas Comstedt, Director of Network Engineering at Facebook. “Once the equipment is in place we are able to turn up as many terabits as we need."

“I’ve worked closely with service providers around the world to test and deploy ultra-long-haul optical transport systems for over a decade,” said Steve Grubb, Fellow at Infinera. “The route we are announcing with Facebook is delivering multi-terabit capacity today and I believe this is the world’s longest 8 Tb/s capable route in production.”

"Facebook's deployment of the Infinera Intelligent Transport Network underscores the value Infinera brings to Internet content providers and datacenter operators around the world," said Tom Fallon, Infinera CEO. "Facebook is a classic example of how leading Internet content providers are building global networks that interconnect their datacenters to accelerate the delivery of high bandwidth, feature rich services worldwide.”

http://www.infinera.com/j7/servlet/NewsItem?newsItemID=447

• In June 2013, Facebook activated its major European datacenter in Lulea, Sweden, on the Fulf of Bothnia near the Arctic Circle. The facility is powered by locally-generated hydro power. 

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The CloudRouter Project Aims for Linux-based Routing at Scale

A beta version of The CloudRouter Project has been officially released.

The CloudRouter Project is an open source initiative for secure Linux-based open source routing and software-defined networking (SDN) in large-scale cloud environments, data centers, enterprises, and network operators. Backers of the project include CloudBees, Cloudius Systems, IIX, NGINX, and OpenDaylight.

It incorporates the latest release of OpenDaylight and will maintain a stable and up-to-date Linux distribution based on Fedora, including best-of-breed open source technologies. This provides DevOps for networks (NetOps) with the ability to easily deploy an integrated and hardened stack.

Key CloudRouter features include:

• Capability to run on public and private cloud infrastructures at scale with a fully-automated configuration system
• Container-ready, including support for Docker, Cloudius, OSv, and KVM images
• Secure connectivity using standards-based IPSec VPN, SSL or L2TP
• Monitoring and reporting with integrated network protocol analysis for network detail at a fine-grained level
• High availability and system redundancy with failover and synchronization

"With our peers in the industry, we hope to build a true open source community around the CloudRouter Project to really respond to industry demand for a secure, high-quality SDN and router distribution, something that's essentially non-existent today," said Jay Turner, CloudRouter Project Lead and Senior Director of DevOps at IIX. "As the industry moves to cloud computing, there needs to be a bridge from legacy architectures to SDN, hybrid clouds, and data center-to-data center connections. To accelerate the development of this bridge, the CloudRouter Project will initially focus on performance and security."

https://cloudrouter.org/

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The Weather Company Moves to IBM Cloud

The Weather Company will shift its massive weather data services platform to the IBM Cloud and integrate its data with IBM analytics and cloud services.

The global alliance with IBM enables The Weather Company, through its WSI B2B division, to integrate real-time weather insights into the business processes of other enterprises to improve operational performance and decision-making. Its forecasting system ingests and processes data from thousands of sources, resulting in approximately 2.2 billion unique forecast points worldwide, and averages more than 10 billion forecasts a day on active weather days.

IBM and WSI will deliver new cloud services to businesses in three key ways:

• Watson Analytics for Weather: IBM and WSI will enable easy integration of historical and real-time weather data in business operations and decision making with IBM analytics platforms such as Watson Analytics. The companies will jointly develop industry solutions for insurance, energy & utilities, retail and logistics among others.
• Cloud and Mobile App Developer Tools: Entrepreneurs and software developers will be able to rapidly build mobile and web apps that take advantage of WSI data combined with data from operational systems, connected devices and sensors using advanced analytics through Bluemix, IBM’s cloud application development platform.
• Business and Operational Weather Expertise: Thousands of consultants from across IBM Global Business Services will be trained to combine WSI data with other sources to more effectively interpret industry pain points, providing clients new insights that solve business problems.

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/46446.wss

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Charter to Acquire Brighthouse for $10.4 Billion

Charter Communications, the fourth largest cable operator in the U.S., agreed to acquire Bright House Networks for $10.4 billion. Bright House is the sixth largest cable operator in the United States, and serves approximately 2 million video customers in central Florida including Orlando and Tampa Bay, as well as Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, and California.

Tom Rutledge, President and CEO of Charter Communications said, "Bright House Networks provides Charter with important operating, financial and tax benefits, as well as strategic flexibility. Bright House has built outstanding cable systems in attractive markets that are either complete, or contiguous with the New Charter footprint. This acquisition enhances our scale, and solidifies New Charter as the second largest cable operator in the US. I look forward to working with the Bright House team, whom we have known for years, in delivering great products and services to grow our market share."

Steven Miron, Chief Executive Officer of Bright House Networks said, "We are excited about our transaction with Charter. At Bright House Networks, we are very proud of what we have achieved - from the quality of our infrastructure to the level of service our employees provide to customers every day. We share the same vision for the future of our business as Tom and the Charter leadership team, which is to gain market share by offering customers competitive products and excellent service at a tremendous value. Also, our family has known and worked with Tom Rutledge for more than 20 years. Tom managed cable systems that were part of our partnership with Time Warner Cable prior to the formation of Bright House Networks. We think the combination with Charter gives our employees, our customers and Advance/Newhouse the strongest prospects for the future."

https://www.charter.com/
http://brighthouse.com/

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Tanium Secures $52 Million in Funding for Endpoint Security

Tanium secured an additional $52 million in venture funding from Andreessen Horowitz for its security and systems management solution.  The additional funding is a follow-up to Andreessen Horowitz’s initial financing of $90 million Tanium in May 2014.

Tanium, which was founded in 2007 and is based in Emeryville, California, said its system and help enterprises achieve "15-second visibility and control over every endpoint, even across the largest networks." Its system is designed to to detect and remediate threats and issues across millions of endpoints in seconds.  The company said it ended 2014 cash flow positive, debt free, with total cash in excess of $100 million.

“Tanium's magic innovation uniquely positions the company at the modern crossroads of systems management and security. Tanium's platform reimagines these categories and adds a new level of value and capability to forward-leaning IT teams,” said Steven Sinofsky, partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

“We started Tanium in 2007 with the goal of re-inventing how organizations secure and manage their endpoints, which have quickly become the most business critical – and vulnerable – IT assets. With Tanium, even the world’s largest organizations can achieve 15-second visibility and control over every endpoint, even across the largest networks,” said Orion Hindawi, co-founder and CTO at Tanium.

http://www.tanium.com/

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Zayo Extends 100G Wavelengths in London, Paris, AMS, Frankfurt

Zayo announced an extension of its 100G wavelength network in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris.

The company said it has recently completed a project that involves the consolidation of a large number of legacy point-to-point wavelength connections into single coherent 100G lineside capacity.  This moves it towards a fully integrated, seamless long haul platform, increasing spectral efficiencies and reducing physical footprint and power requirements.

“This extension of our London metro network will enable us to be more efficient and provide a significantly reduced port cost for our customers,” said Leeland Pavey, chief operations officer for Zayo Europe. “Extending our 100G capability so we can offer this capacity to our customers is important for Zayo.”

http://zayo.com/services/wavelengths

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Rogers launches VoLTE across Canada

Rogers Communications activated Voice over LTE (VoLTE) across Canada. The LG G3 Vigor is the first smartphone supported.  More VoLTE-ready devices are expected this year.

"We know our customers lead busy lives and their smartphones help them stay in touch with family and friends. Now customers making voice and video calls will benefit from clear sound quality and the same lightning fast LTE speeds for calls that Rogers delivers to surf the web or stream from your mobile device," said Raj Doshi, executive vice-president, Rogers Communications. "VoLTE will help our customers enjoy rich, multimedia voice services and we are proud to be the first Canadian carrier to offer it."

http://www.rogers.com/VoLTE

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