ONOS-based Peering Router Enters Pacific Deployment

An ONOS-based software-defined peering router has been deployed on a trans-Pacific network by a coalition consisting of the Open Networking Operating System (ONOS) Project, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), Corsa Technology (Corsa), ESnet, AARNet and CSIRO.

The router located at AARNet/CSIRO in Australia exchanges routes with the Vandervecken software-defined networking (SDN) controller stack at ESnet in California and uses high performance data planes comprised of Corsa switches in both locations.

The deployed SDN-based peering router, developed by ONF and the ONOS Project, is a free, open source application built on ONOS and is currently available for download from the ONOS Project website. It enables SDN networks to seamlessly interact with software-defined and traditional (non-SDN) networks by peering with one another to advertise, collect and exchange routes using eBGP. The peering application receives route advertisements from peers, resolves next hops and then programs the OpenFlow™ switch in the SDN data plane through ONOS.

The ONOS-based peering router is deployed across two sites in Sydney, Australia. The Corsa switch is located in an AARNet data center in Haymarket and the ONOS application in a CSIRO research laboratory in Marsfield, approximately 15km away. It controls the high throughput Corsa OpenFlow DP6410 data plane and successfully peers across a trans-Pacific Layer 2 VLAN with a complementary SDN-based router, Vandervecken, at ESnet in Berkeley, Calif. (see figure 2).

The ESnet site also uses a Corsa DP6420 data plane, programmed by the Vandervecken SDN router software developed by Google and based on Routeflow project1 and Quagga on a Ryu controller.

"Having successfully exchanged 15,000 routes in this deployment reflecting true Internet scale and 100,000 routes in lab tests, it was programming the data plane with large forwarding tables that presented the real technical challenge here," said Bill Snow, vice president of Engineering at ON.Lab.

"This operation has been up and running for over a month now, so it is no longer a question of whether SDN control planes can be deployed to support worldwide infrastructure. With ONOS' support for high availability, scale and performance and with Corsa's high performance, programmable data plane, the promise of SDN is turning into reality. An SDN control plane that readily interoperates with existing infrastructure, whether traditional or software-defined is the key to providing a migration path from legacy systems as well as a roadmap to pure SDN infrastructure."

"As the Department of Energy's high-bandwidth network for science, it's exciting to be a partner in this project that is helping to transform networking," said ESnet CTO Inder Monga. "Operational deployment of SDN-IP stacks will enable existing networks to seamlessly integrate with innovative SDN network deployments. Since we are funded by the U.S. government, it's important this software is free and open source so that our investment in the project can be further leveraged by the rest of the networking community."

https://sites.google.com/site/routeflow/home
http://www.onosproject.org

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Cisco Joins Intel Network Builders Ecosystem

Renu Navale discusses the Intel Network Builders program, which aims to accelerate the market for network functions virtualization (NFV) and help carriers to transform their infrastructure.

Over 150 companies now participate in this program. Cisco is the latest to join.

See video: https://youtu.be/DOVW0zvV2v0

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Cyan Expands Its Blue Orbit SDN and NFV Ecosystem

Cyan has added a number of new partners to Blue Orbit, its ecosystem of partners focused on delivering applications and infrastructure platforms for multi-vendor SDN and NFV deployments.

Blue Orbit’s new members are:

ADI Engineering – an ODM that delivers next-generation solutions for emerging mega-trends including SDN, NFV, and IoT.  ADI’s NFV-enabled network edge and CPE devices, including its RCC-VE and RCC-DFF platforms, are pre-integrated and validated with Cyan’s Blue Planet platform, and are available for trials and full-scale deployments.
Aria Networks – Aria Networks uses artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver capacity planning, optimization and orchestration that enable even the most complex networks to virtualize
Brocade –  Brocade's suite of SDN and NFV solutions include the Brocade Vyatta vRouter, Vistapointe virtual Network Visibility and Analytics, Brocade Vyatta Controller and the newly acquired SteelApp virtual ADC and Connectem Virtual Core for Mobile offering.
GENBAND – offering a differentiated Virtual Network Functions (VNF) portfolio includes fully virtualized, high-performance communications signaling, control and media management solutions including Session Border Controllers, Applications Servers, WebRTC Gateway, Wireless Access Gateways, Intelligent Messaging and Session Routing solutions. An intelligent VNF Management framework and open APIs enable seamless interworking with other NFV and cloud infrastructure components.
Intel – unified ingredients and platform technologies that aim to deliver business value quickly for enterprise IT, help telco service providers reduce expenses to derive incremental revenue, and optimize the cost of scalable service delivery for private/public cloud environments.
VMware – VMware vCloud for NFV is an integrated network functions virtualization platform that enables communication service providers to deploy virtual network functions on vCloud APIs today, and deploy them into production on OpenStack in the future.
Wind River - software for the Internet of Things, with its technology found in nearly 2 billion devices.

Announced Blue Orbit members and the area of completed or planned integration include:
VNFs: Brocade, Certes, Fortinet, GENBAND, Metaswitch Networks, PowerDNS
Physical Network Elements:  Accedian, RAD, Overture, Omnitron Systems, Telco Systems
Virtual Infrastructure: ADI Engineering, Aria Networks, Arista, Boundary, Canonical, Intel, Mellanox, Pica8, Ryu, VMware, Wind River

“The ability to run virtual functions on high performance servers and meet the requirements of production networks is extremely important in making NFV a mainstream technology,” said Joe Cumello, chief marketing officer, Cyan. “We are pleased to welcome these new members to the Blue Orbit Ecosystem. Together, we are working to further validate that SDN and NFV can meet the application, scale, and performance requirements that service providers demand.”

http://www.cyaninc.com/

RAD’s joining of Blue Orbit follows the recent completion by Cyan of end-to-end Ethernet services provisioning and "one-click OAM" as well as alarms and topology support for the RAD ETX-2. This integration enables network operators to have visibility and management of RAD platforms through Cyan’s Blue Planet SDN Platform.

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Zayo Enables Transatlantic Self-Service Provisioning

Zayo is enabling transatlantic service capabilities on its Tranzact provisioning portal.

Zayo said this new transatlantic capability allows its customers to seamlessly quote to and from locations across Zayo’s entire global network, for services including aggregated IP, E-line and ELAN Ethernet and 1-10G wavelength services. Customers will have the freedom to explore by building type, data center or Cloud provider at over 16,000 on-net locations.

“As we continue to expand our European footprint, it is vital that we are able to deliver bandwidth wherever and whenever customers require it,” said David Howson, president of Zayo international. “A big priority for us is to connect customers across the Atlantic, enabling them access into key locations in the US and Europe. That’s why Tranzact is such a valuable tool – it integrates bandwidth into an ‘online shopping’ experience, making purchasing bandwidth easy to navigate and understand."

http://www.zayo.com

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Alcatel-Lucent Posts Q1 Financials, Strength in Next Gen

Alcatel-Lucent's Q1 2015 group revenues, excluding Managed Services and at constant perimeter, increased 12% year-on year, with strong growth coming from next-generation products, which are up 25%. At constant exchange rates, group revenues, excluding Managed Services and at constant perimeter, are down 2% while next-generation revenues are up 9%. Gross margin expanded 230 bps year-over-year to 34.6%.

“Our first quarter 2015 results reflect not only strong growth in our next-generation products, but also the diligent efforts we have made to turn Alcatel-Lucent around and build a more resilient organization. Evidence of our progress is shown through the continued improvement in margins and cash flow. Execution of the Shift Plan is and will continue to be our top priority, underlined by our commitment to reach our positive free cash flow target in 2015. These results help pave the way for successful execution of our goals as we prepare for our combination with Nokia,” stated Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent.

Some highlights:

• Core Networking segment revenues were Euro 1,450 million in Q1 2015, up 7% year-over-year at actual rates and down 3% at constant rates. Adjusted operating income totalled Euro 41 million, or 2.8% of segment revenues in Q1 2015, compared to Euro 96 million or 7.1% of revenues in Q1 2014. This decline was mainly attributable to reinvestments made to promote future growth as well as lower contribution from IP Routing, which was impacted by a temporary softer spending environment in North America and Japan, and variations in product mix.
  
• IP Routing revenues were Euro 583 million in Q1 2015, an increase of 6% at actual rates and a decrease of 6% at constant rates when compared to Q1 2014, which was a very strong seasonally-adjusted Q1 compared to the previous Q4 2013.
  
• The high-end 7950 XRS IP Core router saw strong year-over-year revenue growth and registered 3 new wins in Q1, including a US cable company, for a total of 39 wins to date.
  
• There was significant interest and activity in routing virtualization continued with 8 Virtualized Service Router (VSR) wins to date, including 3 new wins in the quarter, and 55 trials underway.
  
• Nuage Networks added 4 new customers in the quarter, bringing the total to 20 customers. Recent wins include CTCC, the Cloud Computing Branch of China Telecom, which selected Nuage’s SDN technology to help deliver secure, scalable, and self-serve public cloud services in China's fast-growing cloud computing market.
  
• IP Transport revenues were Euro 492 million in Q1 2015, up 8% at actual rates and 2% at constant rates, compared to the year-ago quarter. Terrestrial optics revenues grew at a mid-single-digit pace year-over-year at constant rates, driven by WDM and with particular strength in the EMEA and CALA regions. The submarine business registered a double-digit year-over-year revenue increase, resuming revenue growth as the pipeline continues to build up.
  
• The 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) platform represented 60% of terrestrial optical product revenues in the quarter, up 16 percentage points year-on-year, and was selected by Chuan Wei for Cambodia’s first ultra-broadband 100G fiber-optic data network.
  
• In Q1 2015, our 100G shipments represented 47% of total WDM line cards shipments compared to 31% in Q1 2014, also up 16 percentage points year-on-year.
  
• Access segment revenues were Euro 1,782 million in Q1 2015, an increase of 13% year-over-year at actual rates and a decrease of 2% at constant rates.
  
• Wireless Access revenues were Euro 1,184 million, a year-on-year increase of 19% at actual rates and flat at constant rates, as growth from LTE rollouts in China was offset by lower spending in other regions, particularly North America.
  
• Fixed Access revenues were Euro 506 million in Q1 2015, an increase of 10% compared to the year-ago quarter at actual rates and a decrease of 1% at constant rates. Competition for broadband access drove good performance in EMEA, APAC outside China and CALA, compensating for the impact of spending pause in North America.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/press/2015/alcatel-lucent-reports-q1-2015-results

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Sonus Aligns NFV Portfolio with ALU CloudBand

Sonus Networks is bringing its Diameter Signaling Controller Software edition (DSC SWe) and its Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) IQ into the Alcatel-Lucent CloudBand Ecosystem. The solutions will join the currently deployed Sonus Session Border Controller Software edition (SBC SWe) introduced into the program in 2014.

“Sonus offers a full portfolio of virtualized solutions dedicated to bringing intelligence and security to service provider’s real-time communications,” said Tony Scarfo, executive vice president, Product Management and Corporate Development. “Sonus’ participation in the Alcatel-Lucent CloudBand™ Ecosystem will not only bolster our traction in the NFV space, but also accelerate the critical need for NFV across the industry.”

http://www.sonus.net

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Cubic Telecom Secures EUR 18 Million for M2M Connectivity

Cubic Telecom, a start-up based in Dublin, Ireland, has secured €18 million in venture funding for its global Machine to Machine (M2M) connectivity platform.

Cubic Telecom is focused on enabling seamless global connectivity solutions for enterprise customers across automotive, computer OEM and retail sectors. Cubic’s applications and technologies are embedded at the manufacturing stage, enabling enterprise customers to offer always-on connectivity anywhere in the world. Cubic is actively working with some of the world’s leading Fortune 100 tablet and notebook manufacturers including HP and Lenovo, and Australia’s number one retailer Woolworths. More recently Cubic expanded its business to partner with some of the most innovative M2M and automotive companies in the world.

The funding comes in the form of a co-investment from Audi Electronics Venture GmbH (AEV), a subsidiary of AUDI AG focused on investing in innovative technologies, and Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM), a world leader in 3G, 4G and next-generation wireless technologies.

Existing investors include Sierra Wireless, ACT Venture Capital, TPS Investment Limited and Enterprise Ireland. This is Qualcomm’s fourth investment in Cubic, highlighting the strength of the partnership between the two organizations.

Barry Napier, CEO, Cubic Telecom said, “We appreciate the investment from Audi and Qualcomm as we continue to expand our market presence. The automotive industry is changing faster than ever, and connectivity in the car is at the heart of it. With this new round of financing, Cubic Telecom, along with our strategic partners, will be at the core of this transformative new phase for the automotive industry.”

http://www.cubictelecom.com

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