Monday, October 5, 2015

AT&T Selects Juniper's Contrail for Cloud Infrastructure

AT&T has selected Juniper Networks Contrail Networking to provide software-defined networking capabilities in its AT&T Integrated Cloud (AIC) infrastructure.

Juniper Networks confirmed that AT&T will use its Contrail Networking to help automate and virtualize the network to rapidly scale and accelerate the deployment of new services. The company said its open approach ensures vendor-agnostic interoperability.

“Juniper and AT&T share a common vision for a customizable cloud network experience that is highly scalable, secure, automated and can readily adapt to customer needs,” said Ankur Singla, corporate vice president and general manager of Cloud Software at Juniper Networks. “Juniper is pleased to be working with AT&T to help them usher in the future of networking, while embracing the open source community.”

http://www.juniper.net


  • Juniper's Contrail Networking is an SDN solution that automates and orchestrates the creation of highly scalable virtual networks.  The hypervisor-level vRouter forwarding plane provides line-rate overlay packet processing in a multitenant virtualized, containerized, or bare-metal environment completely decoupled from the underlying physical fabric switches. It provides L3VPN and E-VPN style overlays that can span cloud boundaries with federation.




HP Launches OpenSwitch Network Operating System

HP launched a new OpenSwitch network operating system (NOS) designed for data centers.

OpenSwitch is intended to be an open community that provides developers and users the ability to accelerate innovation, avoid vendor lock-in, and realize investment protection as they rapidly build data center networks. HP announced a number of early supporters including Accton Technology Corporation, Arista, Broadcom, Intel, and VMWare.

“Open source software, with its collaborative community of specialized developers, accelerates innovation and improves the stability of the software platform, providing organizations with a more powerful infrastructure to support their specific business requirements,” said Mark Carroll, chief technology officer for HP Networking. “The newly formed developer community and Linux-based OpenSwitch NOS early release code will help developers address the rapidly evolving business and web-scale networking needs in the industry.”

Initial components and key attributes of OpenSwitch include:

  • A fully featured NOS with L2/L3 protocols support
  • Open source cloud database for persistent and ephemeral configuration
  • All inter-module communication is through system database
  • Universal API approach: CLI, REST, Puppet/Chef, Ansible


http://www.openswitch.net
http://www.hp.com

Skyworks to Acquire PMC-Sierra for $2 Billion

Skyworks Solutions has agreed to acquire PMC-Sierra for $10.50 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $2 billion.

Skyworks, which is based in  Woburn, Massachusetts, supplies high performance analog semiconductors for automotive, broadband, wireless infrastructure, energy management, GPS, industrial, medical, military, wireless networking, smartphone, and tablet applications. The company’s portfolio includes amplifiers, attenuators, circulators, demodulators, detectors, diodes, directional couplers, front-end modules, hybrids, infrastructure RF subsystems, isolators, lighting and display solutions, mixers, modulators, optocouplers, optoisolators, phase shifters, PLLs/synthesizers/VCOs, power dividers/combiners, power management devices, receivers, switches, and technical ceramics. For its fiscal year 2014, Skyworks reported revenue of 2.3 billion, up 28 percent from fiscal 2013.

PMC, which is based in Sunnyvale, California with operation in Burnaby, British Columbia,  offers a range of semiconductor products for storage, optical networking, mobile and embedded processors.

Skyworks said this acquisition solidifies its position as a highly diversified analog, RF and mixed signal semiconductor leader by significantly expanding its product portfolio, customer base and end market applications. Upon completion of the acquisition, Skyworks expects annual revenues of more than $4 billion with gross margin in the 55 percent range and operating margin exceeding 40 percent.

“With our acquisition of PMC, Skyworks will be uniquely positioned to capitalize on the explosive demand for high performance solutions that seamlessly connect, transport and store Big Data,” said David J. Aldrich, chairman and chief executive officer of Skyworks. “Specifically, we plan to leverage PMC’s innovative storage systems, flash controllers, optical switches and network infrastructure solutions to expand our engagements with some of the world’s leading OEMs and ODMs as well as emerging hyperscale data center customers. At a higher level, this complementary yet highly synergistic acquisition is consistent with our stated strategy of diversifying into adjacent vertical markets while leveraging our system-level expertise and global scale. PMC enables us to substantially expand our serviceable market within some of the fastest growing segments in technology including cloud storage and optical networking. Financially, we expect this transaction to create further economic value for our shareholders upon closing, with immediate margin expansion and accretion. After we implement $75 million of synergies, we expect at least $0.75 of incremental non-GAAP diluted earnings per share on an annual basis.”

“The PMC team is excited to join forces with Skyworks to realize our vision of transforming the broader communications landscape through unparalleled product breadth and operational scale,” said Greg Lang, president and chief executive officer of PMC. “Given Skyworks’ deep global sales channels and leadership applications support, underpinned by a world class supply chain, we could not have found a better partner. Together, we plan to develop a wider range of leading-edge solutions for our customers, target new growth vectors and enable some of the most exciting networking and storage platforms in the world, while delivering immediate value for our shareholders.”

http://www.pmcs.com
http://www.skyworks.com

IBM to Acquire Cleversafe for Object Storage in Hybrid Clouds

IBM agreed to acquire Cleversafe, a developer and manufacturer of object-based storage software and appliances. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Cleversafe, which is based in Chicago, holds more than 350 patents in object-based, on-premise storage solutions that enable clients to scale to exabytes of storage, or billions of gigabytes. Clients across multiple industries use Cleversafe for large-scale content repository, backup, archive, collaboration and storage as a service. The company was founded in 2004 and employs approximately 210 people.

IBM said the acquisition will strengthen its positions in storage and hybrid cloud and support clients’ drive to next generation mobile, social and analytics applications. The Cleversafe technologies will be integrated into the IBM Cloud to enhance IBM’s Infrastructure as a Service, SoftLayer and the SoftLayer Object Storage services platform, providing clients a hybrid cloud deployment model that offers greater choice of geography, performance, cost optimization and flexibility.

"Today a massive digital transformation is underway as organizations increasingly turn to cloud computing for innovative ways to manage more complex business operations and increasing volumes of data in a secure and effective way,” said Robert LeBlanc, Senior Vice President, IBM Cloud. “Cleversafe, a pioneer in object storage, will add to our efforts to help clients overcome these challenges by extending and strengthening our cloud storage strategy, as well as our portfolio.”

“IBM is an innovator and leader in cloud and storage and we’re excited about the opportunities that lay ahead once this transaction closes,” said John Morris, President and CEO of Cleversafe. “Together with IBM we can extend our object storage leadership position to address the broadest set of workloads for clients with the most expansive set of object-based solutions.”
Cleversafe’s Dispersed Storage Network (dsNet) solutions enhance on-premise storage options for clients and service providers with low-cost, large scale active archives and unstructured data content stores. The solutions complement IBM’s software defined Spectrum Storage portfolio for data protection and backup, tape archive, as well as a high performance file and object solution where the focus is on response time.

http://www.ibm.com
http://www.cleversafe.com

Eutelsat Signs Facebook for AMOS-6 Satellite over Africa

Eutelsat Communications and Facebook announced a plan to leverage satellite technologies to get more Africans online.

Under a multi-year agreement with Spacecom, the two companies will utilize the entire broadband payload on the upcoming AMOS-6 satellite and will build a dedicated system comprising satellite capacity, gateways and terminals. In providing reach to large parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Eutelsat and Facebook will each be equipped to pursue their ambition to accelerate data connectivity for the many users deprived of the economic and social benefits of the Internet.

AMOS-6, which is scheduled for launch in the second half of 2016. is a Ka-band geostationary satellite configured with high gain spot beams for covering large parts of West, East and Southern Africa. The capacity is optimised for community and Direct-to-User Internet access using affordable, off-the-shelf customer equipment. According to the terms of the agreement, the capacity will be shared between Eutelsat and Facebook.

“Facebook’s mission is to connect the world and we believe that satellites will play an important role in addressing the significant barriers that exist in connecting the people of Africa,” said Chris Daniels, VP of Internet.org.  “We are looking forward to partnering with Eutelsat on this project and investigating new ways to use satellites to connect people in the most remote areas of the world more efficiently.”

https://www.facebook.com/zuck
http://news.eutelsat.com/pressreleases/eutelsat-and-facebook-to-partner-on-satellite-initiative-to-get-more-africans-online-1228638

Nokia Networks Showcases Public Safety LTE

Nokia Networks is showcasing an end-to-end LTE-based solution for first responders and other public safety personnel.

LTE technology offers high bandwidth and high reliability for disaster-level operational capabilities and information management with low latency for the fastest connectivity.

The end-to-end Nokia Networks Public Safety Portfolio in brief:

  • 3GPP compliant, including Quality of Service, high availability, mobility, security and resilient IP connectivity.
  • The public safety LTE network is built on Nokia Networks’ radio access network, evolved packet core, VoLTE solution, IP Multimedia Subsystem, Core in a Box solution, subscriber data and device management, network management, Self-Organizing Networks, and Nokia Liquid Applications technology.
  • Nokia Networks LTE Network in a Box offers standard authorized IP connectivity and can provide complete LTE network coverage for users in minutes.
  • End-to-end security offering for public safety networks, protecting devices and networks.


“Tomorrow’s smart cities will be built on standardized technologies with economies of scale, such as LTE for public safety. Already today, LTE mobile broadband connectivity with innovative real-time applications helps public safety authorities offer a completely new level of service to citizens. We at Nokia Networks understand that public safety networks must conform to the most stringent requirements for connectivity and application security. Building on our strong heritage of working with governmental agencies, we are now offering the most comprehensive LTE public safety portfolio to our customers jointly with our selected partners,” stated Thorsten Robrecht, Vice President, Partner Business at Nokia Networks.

http://networks.nokia.com