OpenStack Kilo Adds Support for NFV, Bare Metal Provisioning

The latest "Kilo" version of OpenStack released last week emphasizes the growing stability of core services, better driver compatibility and an extension of the platform to fit workloads with bare metal and containers.

"The ability to scale and operate efficiently is critical when you want to offer large data center footprint via services for mission-critical workloads. OpenStack Kilo delivers a robust set of enhancements and tooling to deploy and operate compute, storage and networking resources at scale. Kilo is the most robust, fully production hardened release of OpenStack, and we’re looking forward to putting it to work," said Subbu Allamaraju, chief engineer, cloud, eBay Inc.

Key New Features in OpenStack Kilo:

• Nova Compute: Kilo offers new API versioning management with v2.1 and microversions to provide reliable, strongly validated API definitions. This makes it easier to write long-lived applications against compute functionality. Major operational improvements include live upgrades when a database schema change is required, in addition to better support for changing the resources of a running VM.
  
• Swift Object Storage: Erasure coding provides efficient and cost-effective storage, and container-level temporary URLs allow time-limited access to a set of objects in a container. Kilo also offers improvements to global cluster replication, storage policy metrics and full Chinese translation.
  
• Cinder Block Storage: Major updates to testing and validation requirements for backend storage systems across 70 options ensures consistency across storage choices as well as continuous testing of functionality for all included drivers. Also, users can now attach a volume to multiple compute instances to enable new high-availability and migration use cases.
  
• Neutron Networking: The load-balancing-as-a-service API is now in its second version. Additional features support NFV, such as port security for OpenVSwitch, VLAN transparency and MTU API extensions. Additional architectural updates improve scale for future releases.
  
• Ironic Bare-Metal Provisioning: Kilo sees the first full release of the Ironic bare-metal provisioning project with support for existing VM workloads and adoption of emerging technologies like Linux containers, platform-as-a-service and NFV. Users can place workloads in the best environment for their performance requirements. Ironic is already used in production environments including Rackspace OnMetal.
  
• Keystone Identity Service: Identity federation enhancements work across public and private clouds to support hybrid workloads in multi-cloud environments.
  
• For technical details or more information on specific project updates, see the complete Kilo release notes. Top contributing companies to the Kilo release include Red Hat, HP, IBM, Mirantis, Rackspace, OpenStack Foundation, Yahoo!, NEC, Huawei and SUSE.

https://www.openstack.org/news/view/43/openstack%C2%AE-kilo-release-balances-stable-core-with-support-for-innovative-services

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HP Supports OpenStack Kilo for Cloud Computing

HP made multiple technical contributions to the OpenStack Kilo release, including new converged storage management automation and new flash storage technologies to support flexible, enterprise-class clouds.

HP said its storage contributions to the OpenStack Kilo release focus on two strategic goals: supporting application-centric, automated, converged storage management; and, helping make environments that use Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) server virtualization technology truly enterprise-ready.

These contributions enable the following new capabilities:

• Evaluator Scheduler—improves management productivity and increases resource efficiency by automatically assigning storage resources to meet incoming requests based on workload requirements.
• Adaptive Flash Cache—reduces the overall cost of delivering I/O-intensive workloads in cloud environments by allowing “flash caching”—the use of flash capacity as a virtual extension to storage system DRAM cache.
• Thin Deduplication with Express Indexing—drives up capacity utilization and increases the life of flash drives used for virtualized workloads by 75 percent via data compaction using inline, block-level deduplication.
• Manila files services—allows HP 3PAR StoreServ Storage to serve both block and file workloads in open cloud and hybrid environments using a single, cost-optimized pool of storage that occupies one third less space.

“Enterprises today struggle with the ‘all-in-one’ cloud model because they don’t use a single operating system or database software or management tool,” said Eileen Evans, HP Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Software, Cloud, and Open Source. “HP’s approach is to support a flexible hybrid cloud infrastructure with open source technologies as its core DNA, and this includes a commitment to supporting OpenStack technology at the storage layer.”

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1970852#.VUb2qSH49_A

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DOCOMO's +D Initiative Aims for Co-Creation of New Services

NTT DOCOMO outlined a medium-term vision to widen the scope of its business and collaborate with new partners for valued-added networking services.

Under the +d (pronounced "plus d") initiative, DOCOMO will share its extensive business assets with partner companies for streamlined collaboration. Services co-created through such efforts will be branded with unified names that begin with the letter "d." DOCOMO will strive, together with its partners, to empower customers in ways that enable them "to realize more affordable, enjoyable and convenient lives."

The alignment of service brands under the "d" banner will include a unified docomo Point system (dPOINT), a docomo Premier Club membership program, a Docomo credit card service (dCARD), and a common docomo customer ID (dACCOUNT).  Docomo is hoping this approach can be adopted in a variety of fields, including medicine, agriculture, education, local governments, etc.

In view of its 2020 planning, Docomo expects its forthcoming 5G deployments will pave the way for partners to develop innovative services around its platform.

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/corporate/ir/library/presentation/index.html
https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/info/media_center/pr/2015/pdf/20150428_attachment01.pdf

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Concurrent Intros Software-defined Storage based on Ceph and Linux

Concurrent, which specializes in high-performance Linux and storage solutions, introduced a software-defined storage solution featuring an open-source Ceph-based object storage that supports the more demanding performance requirements of mission-critical applications.

Concurrent’s storage platform offers modular scaling, open hardware integration, on-the-fly capacity upgrades, and self-healing capabilities. Support is included for the latest disk drive and solid state storage technologies to enable ultra-high density configurations and scalable storage complexes reaching exabyte capacity levels. The system also includes an intuitive system dashboard and support for industry standard open interfaces such as OpenStack Swift, Amazon S3, HTTP, and FTP for easier installation, integration, and maintenance.

Concurrent’s object storage solution is powered by Concurrent’s open source, real-time Linux operating system, RedHawk, which boasts extremely low-latency operation, advanced tuning capabilities, and real-time determinism for guaranteed results. RedHawk and its associated optimization tools improve application performance by unleashing the untapped potential of commercial x86-based hardware platforms.

“Concurrent serves industries and customers that demand uncompromising performance, reliability, and flexibility,” said Derek Elder, President and CEO of Concurrent. “With our core Linux and storage expertise, we have developed a no-compromise software-defined storage architecture that satisfies the mission-critical performance requirements of a wide range of markets. With several large customers already signed up to deploy our new object storage solution, we are off to a great start and we look forward to continued progress as we approach the broader market.”

http://www.ccur.com/storage/

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Infonetics: Virtualized Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to Take Off

The market for deep packet inspection (DPI) solutions deployed as a virtual network function (VNF) will grow at a 66 percent compound annual growth rate from 2014 to 2019, according to a new report from Infonetics.

SERVICE PROVIDER DPI MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

• The FCC has released its net neutrality rules in the US, but the issue is far from resolved and court challenges are underway; regulations in Western Europe are under reevaluation as well and the topic is rearing its head in emerging markets
• The focus of the deep packet inspection market is shifting toward use cases such as video optimization, granular charging, network security and content connectivity
• In machine-to-machine (M2M) applications, DPI technology is being used to enable better identification of traffic generated by connected devices and mitigate its impact on the network
• Sandvine and Allot are neck-and-neck in the race for the DPI market share lead, followed by Cisco and Procera.

“As operators evaluate likely targets for virtualization as part of a larger network functions virtualization strategy, DPI is a clear target, though ongoing concerns around performance and capacity will constrain the market for virtualized DPI in the short term,” said Shira Levine, research director for service enablement and subscriber intelligence at Infonetics Research, now part of IHS.

http://www.infonetics.com/pr/2015/2H14-Service-Provider-DPI-Market-Highlights.asp

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AT&T Expands Footprint of Business Fiber Internet Service

AT&T is now offering its Business Fiber Internet service in more than 180 U.S. cities at speeds of up to 300 Mbps, with plans to offer symmetrical 1 Gbps service soon.  The service is not available in all commercial buildings.

“Business owners constantly tell us that they need blazing fast Internet speeds to stay ahead," said Tom Hughes, vice president, AT&T Small Business. "AT&T Business Fiber in more than 180 cities helps give companies just that. The ability to upload and download at the same high speed allows companies to work faster with customers, partners and suppliers."

http://about.att.com/story/att_expands_high_speed_internet_service_for_businesses.html

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AWS Adds SAP Business One, Version for SAP HANA

Amazon Web Services has added a Quick Start reference deployment for the new SAP Business One, Version for SAP HANA in-memory database.

The deployment builds on the existing SAP HANA on AWS Quick Start, which makes use of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud.  The solution is launched via a AWS CloudFormation template.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/
http://www.sap.com/solution/sme/software/erp/small-business-management/overview/industries.html

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