Sunday, January 31, 2016

Xilinx Ships 16nm Virtex UltraScale+ FinFET FPGAs

Xilinx announced first customer shipment of its Virtex UltraScale+ FPGA, the industry's first high-end FinFET FPGA built using TSMC's 16FF+ process.

The Virtex UltraScale+ devices join the Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs and Kintex UltraScale+ FPGAs showcasing the availability of all three families of the Xilinx 16nm portfolio. The UltraScale+ portfolio provides 2 – 5x greater system-level performance/watt over 28nm devices and is suited for LTE Advanced and early 5G Wireless, Automotive ADAS, Cloud Computing, Industrial Internet-of-Things (IoT), SDN/NFV, and Video/Vision markets.      

Xilinx said it is actively engaged with more than one hundred customers on the UltraScale+ portfolio with design tools, and has already shipped devices and/or boards to over sixty of these customers.

"The successful delivery of our Virtex UltraScale+ FPGA marks the availability of all three UltraScale+ 16nm families, which are already providing more than one hundred customers with the ability to develop next generation designs using cutting edge FinFET-based devices, development boards and tools. Our "Three-Peat" execution – with three consecutive generations of leadership technology at 28nm, 20nm, and now at 16nm – showcases our sustained commitment to being first to market with the most advanced products in our industry," said Victor Peng, executive vice president and general manager of the Programmable Products Group at Xilinx.

http://www.xilinx.com

Xilinx Outlines its 16nm UltraScale+ Family of FPGAs

Xilinx introduced its next-generation 16nm UltraScale+ family of FPGAs, featuring new memory, 3D-on-3D and multi-processing SoC (MPSoC) technologies.

The UltraScale+ family also includes a new interconnect optimization technology and will leverage TSMC's 16FF+ FinFET 3D transistors.

Xilinx estimates the UltraScale+ family will deliver 2–5X greater system level performance/watt over 28nm devices. Key applications are expected to include LTE Advanced and early 5G wireless, terabit wired communications, automotive ADAS, and industrial Internet-of-Things (IoT).

Some highlights:

  • Memory Enhanced Programmable Devices: UltraRAM attacks one of the largest bottlenecks affecting FPGA- and SoC-based system performance and power by enabling SRAM integration. The new on-chip memory could be used for deep packet and video buffering. UltraRAM scales up to 432 Mbits in a variety of configurations.
  • SmartConnect Technology: Interconnect optimization technology for FPGAs. It provides additional 20-30 percent performance, area, and power advantages through intelligent system-wide interconnect optimization. While the UltraScale architecture attacks the silicon-level interconnect bottleneck through re-architected routing, clocking, and logic fabric, SmartConnect applies interconnect topology optimizations to match design-specific throughput and latency requirements while reducing interconnect logic area. 
  • 3D-on-3D Technology: The high end of the UltraScale+ portfolio leverages the combined power of 3D transistors and third generation of Xilinx 3D ICs. Just as FinFETs enable a non-linear improvement in performance/watt over planar transistors, 3D ICs enable a non-linear improvement in systems integration and bandwidth/watt over monolithic devices.   
  • Heterogeneous Multi-processing Technology: The new Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs include all of the aforementioned FPGA technologies with an unprecedented level of heterogeneous multi-processing, deploying the "the right engines for the right tasks." These new devices deliver approximately 5X system level performance/watt relative to previous alternatives.  At the center of the processing-subsystem is the 64-bit quad-core ARM® Cortex®-A53 processor, capable of hardware virtualization, asymmetric processing, and full ARM TrustZone® technology support.

"Xilinx is delivering a generation ahead of value with 16nm FinFET FPGAs and MPSoCs to a variety of next generation applications," said Victor Peng, executive vice president and general manager of the Programmable Products Group at Xilinx.  "Our new UltraScale+ 16nm portfolio delivers 2-5X higher system performance-per-watt, a dramatic leap in system integration and intelligence, and the highest level of security and safety required by our customers. These capabilities enable Xilinx to significantly expand its available market."

Early customer engagements are in process for the UltraScale+ families. First tape out and early access release of the design tools are scheduled for the second calendar quarter of 2015.

http://www.xilinx.com/products/technology/ultrascale.html

Friday, January 29, 2016

NTT Comm Inaugurates 5th Data Center in Osaka

NTT Communications inaugurated its fifth data center in central Japan's Kansai Region.

The new Osaka 5 Data Center, which has a dedicated building comprising 11 floors, is the newest addition to NTT Com's Nexcenter data center service, which combines extensive disaster countermeasures and ideal network environments to enable NTT Com's customers to accelerate their business development with confidence and efficiency. The facility offers approximately 3,500 m2 of server room, equivalent to 1,600 racks.

NTT Communications said the new data center is designed to minimize the impact of any envisioned disaster in Osaka, including earthquake, tsunami or flood in the event of a major tremor in the Nankai Trough. In the unlikely event that water were to reach the data center, equipment would continue to operate safely because the electric power equipment, communication facilities, server rooms and other important facilities are located on the second floor or above, over seven meters above ground level. The building's seismic-isolation device, which lessens the impact of strong shaking by the earthquake, is installed on the post beneath the second floor to ensure that it would work properly if water were to enter the building's first floor. In addition seismic damper, which suppresses the vertical shaking by the epicentral earthquake, is also installed.

http://www.ntt.com/aboutus_e/news/data/20160118.html

SoftBank Picks Brocade VDX Switches for Data Center

SoftBank Corp deploying Brocade VDX switches to provide Ethernet fabrics as part of the company's group-wide common service infrastructure network. More than 70 switches have already been installed.

The Brocade VDX 6740 and 6740-T switches, deployed in three key SoftBank data centers, create an elastic, self-forming, and self-healing Ethernet fabric with Brocade VCS Logical Chassis functionality enabling the entire fabric to be managed as a single switch. The fabric-based architecture simplifies and automates virtual machine mobility and management within the data centers.

"Increased data center agility is critical to realizing the company's strategy of delivering new OTT services to drive growth," said Takenobu Yamane, manager of system infrastructure and service platform, SoftBank Corp. "Deployment of Brocade VDX switches as part of the new common service infrastructure network gives our data centers a more flexible and automated foundation, supporting a much more streamlined and cost-effective operational model that is capable of responding rapidly to new demands."

http://www.brocade.com


  • The BROCADE VDX 6740 SWITCHES support up to 64 wire-speed 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports, with the units being deployed with an initial 24 active ports and the option to activate more in eight-port increments under Brocade's pay-as-you grow Ports on Demand (PoD) licensing model. 

BloomReach Raises $56 Million for Cloud Personalization Plat

BloomReach, a start-up based in Mountain View, California, raised $56 million in Series D funding for its cloud personalization platform.

BloomReach provides a single Personalization Platform that includes applications for organic search, personalized site-search and navigation in addition to marketing and merchandising analytics. The products now are broken into two families, including:

  • BloomReach Commerce, encompassing BloomReach's Organic Search and SNAP applications, that drives 10-40 percent lift by algorithmically optimizing site experience.
  • BloomReach Compass, role-specific analytics providing machine-intelligence insights, KPI management and action-tracking for marketers and merchandisers, that leads to an average $8,000 in monthly revenue for each action taken. With customers like SendGrid, development of BloomReach Compass also has paved the way for BloomReach's further expansion outside of e-commerce.

The company said it now captures data from approximately 20.5 percent of all U.S. e-commerce and currently has more than 175 customers, including 57 from the Internet Retailer Top 500. BloomReach also is experiencing 70 percent in new average contract value (ACV) growth.

Investors include Bain Capital Ventures, Battery Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Salesforce Ventures. Also demonstrating BloomReach's growing presence, joining its Board of Directors is the CEO and co-founder of Guidewire Software, Inc., Marcus Ryu.

"There's a $10-billion opportunity in marketing tech, and BloomReach has the core data-expertise to understand, learn and apply big data to make every experience personal for all digital businesses," said BloomReach co-founder and CEO Raj De Datta. "When the leading investors in our space show their confidence with this level of investment, it tells the entire landscape that BloomReach has the staying power to take the market. And, our growing, unmatched portfolio of customers proves it."

http://www.bloomreach.com

Savari Secures $8 Million for Vehicle Situational Awareness Tech

Savari, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, raised $8 million in Series A funding for tis V2X (Vehicle-to-Everything) safety communication technology.

Complementary to LiDAR, Radar and Camera-sensor technologies, Savari's DSRC technology works in any V2X environment including non-line-of-sight environments. Savari's solutions provide 360-degree situational awareness for the car and the road and include an upgrade path to support LTE technology.

The company said its technology is already deployed in the largest V2X safety pilot study conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). The company is continuing to collaborate with major automotive manufacturers in engineering and field trials along with additional industry groups around the world, including ITS America, OmniAir Consortium and Car 2 Car Communication Consortium (C2C-CC).

The company plans to launch an after-market product later this year that will provide full situational awareness to drivers while exchanging real-time information between connected cars.

Delta Electronics Capital Company, a subsidiary of Delta Electronics Inc., SAIC Capital, the corporate venture of Shanghai Motors, and an undisclosed strategic investor participated in the round.

http://www.savari.net

Appcito Enhances Enterprise Application Delivery Capabilities

Appcito, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, announced the latest release of its Appcito Application Delivery System (ADS), formerly known as Appcito Cloud Application Front-End (CAFÉ). The new capabilities allow enterprise IT and network infrastructure teams to act as providers and enable application owners and DevOps teams to rollout new applications with a self-service model, while still being 100% compliant to existing security policies and governance models.

New capabilities include:

  • Provider-Tenant Portal – allows enterprise infrastructure teams to define policies and arm application teams with a self-service portal to spin-up new services – traffic management, application security and analytics
  • Service Adapters for F5 Big-IP LTM and HAProxy Deployments – service adapters can be non-disruptively inserted into existing data center or cloud deployments complementing existing ADC and open source tools to provide per-application health, visibility and analytics. For F5 Big-IP deployments Appcito ADS service adapters provide application-centric monitoring with real-time monitoring and threat detection leveraging Big-IP high speed logging (HSL). For HAProxy based deployments Appcito provides ongoing and meaningful monitoring with a dedicated system that stores, visualizes and co-relates HAProxy metrics. It provides alerting based on HAProxy metrics and an application-specific dashboard providing real-time and per-application views of health and performance of applications served by HAProxy.

“We are seeing ever-increasing adoption across cloud-native, microservice-based applications, as well as with enterprises looking to accelerate their cloud adoption by de-risking application migration,” said Kamal Anand, CEO, Appcito. “The new capabilities create an excellent opportunity for enterprise IT and infrastructure teams to empower agile application teams and facilitate DevOps-friendly deployments. It is time to embrace and empower shadow IT, not fear it.”

http://www.appcito.com

Sony to Acquire Altair Semiconductor for $212 Million

Sony Corporation has agreed to acquire Altair Semiconductor for US$212 million.

Altair, which is based in Israel, supplies modem chip technology and related software for LTE.

Sony said it aims to not only expand Altair's existing business, but also to move forward with research on and development of new sensing technologies. By combining Sony's sensing technologies - such as GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) and image sensors - with Altair's high-performance, low power consumption and cost-competitive modem chip technology, and by further evolving both, Sony will strive to develop a new breed of cellular-connected, sensing component devices.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201601/16-008E/

LTE IoT Chipset Targets 10 years of Battery Life

Ericsson, in partnership with AT&T and Altair Semiconductor, plan to demonstrate ultralow power consumption for IoT devices with a target battery operational life of ten years.

The demonstration of LTE Power Saving Mode on a commercial LTE Internet of Things (IoT) chipset is showcased at this week's GSMA Mobile 360 Series - North America event in Atlanta, Georgia.

The IoT device Altair's FourGee-1160 Cat 1 chipset featuring ultra-low power consumption. Power Saving Mode is an Ericsson Evolved Packet Core feature based on 3GPP (Release 12) for both GSM and LTE networks. The feature is able to dramatically extend IoT device battery life up to ten years or more for common use cases and traffic profiles.

Cameron Coursey, Vice President, Product Development, AT&T's IoT Organization, says: "IoT connectivity is essential to helping businesses stay tethered to their assets around the world. Whether a trucking company hauls expensive cargo across the country or a restaurant transports fresh food overseas, a long battery life on their connected devices can help them provide continuous service.  Businesses can save money and become more efficient with battery replacements every few years rather than very few months.

Bell Canada Deploys Nokia 7950 XRS Core Router

Bell Canada is deploying Nokia's 7950 XRS core router to support its wireless, residential and business customers. Specifically, Nokia is providing Bell Canada with the 7950 XRS - to be managed by Nokia's 5620 Service Aware Manager (SAM) - to create a single, end-to-end managed IP platform streamlining day-to-day network operations and enhancing operational efficiency, including a reduced energy footprint. The 7950 XRS scales from 6.4 to 32 terabits per second in a single system. 

The deal was won by Alcatel-Lucent, a subsidiary of Nokia.

http://nokia.com

Pankaj Patel to Step Down as Cisco's Chief Development Officer

Pankaj Patel will step down from his position as Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer, Global Engineering of Cisco Systems during the second half of calendar year 2016.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/858877/000119312516441933/d116386d8k.htm

Nigel Stagg to Step Down as CEO of BT’s Wholesale business

Nigel Stagg will step down as CEO of BT’s Wholesale business.

Stagg has spent 36 years with the company in a variety of roles and is now planning to explore other options. His most recent role has been CEO of BT Wholesale, a position he has held since 2011. BT Wholesale provides services to more than 1,400 communications providers who prefer to rely on BT’s expertise than to build out their own networks. It generated £2.2 billion of revenue in 2014/15 and EBITDA of £561 million.

http://www.btplc.com/News/index.cfm#/pressreleases/nigel-stagg-to-leave-bt-1304090

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Amazon Web Services Hits Q4 Sales of $2.4 Billion, up 69% YoY

In its Q4 2015 financial report, Amazon reported that quarterly sales for AWS reached $2.415 billion, up 69% over the same period a year ago.  Operating income for AWS reached $687 million, up 161% with f/x adjusted.

Significantly, AWS announced 722 significant new services and features in 2015, a 40% increase over 2014. The company also highlighted the recent launch of AWS IoT, a managed cloud platform for connected devices, and AWS Certificate Manager (ACM), a new service that enables customers to provision, manage, and deploy Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) certificates for use with AWS services.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2133281


AWS Hits Q3 Sales of $2.1 Billion, up 78% YoY

In its quarterly financial report, Amazon.com noted net sales of $2.085 billion for AWS, up from $1.169 billion for the same period last year -- a rise of 78.4%.



At its recent, re:Invent customer and partner conference, AWS attracted more than 19,000 attendees and 38,000 streaming participants. Some of the highlights of the event included a partnership with Accenture, a new Amazon QuickSight cloud-powered business intelligence (BI) service, the launch of AWS Snowball (a petabyte-scale data transport appliance for securely transfering 50 TB of data into the AWS cloud), new database tools and services that make it easier for enterprises to bring databases to AWS, and the launch of a managed cloud platform for IoT.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2100418

First Intelsat EpicNG Satellite Successfully Launched by Arianespace

The first of the Intelsat EpicNG high throughput satellites was launched successfully from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 vehicle.

The Intelsat 29e (IS-29e), which is the first of the EpicNG satellites, combines high throughput Ku- spot beams in the Americas to meet broadband demand for carrier-grade telecom and enterprise connectivity as well as Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean coverage for dense aero and shipping routes. It also offers a transatlantic Ku- wide beam overlay and provides efficient broadcast capabilities for in-flight entertainment. C-band wide beam provides full South American continent coverage for media distribution. Boeing served as prime contractor.

“Today’s launch represents a truly ‘epic’ moment in communication’s history, as we begin a new era of high throughput satellite services for our customers,” stated Stephen Spengler, Chief Executive Officer, Intelsat. “This is a testament to the innovation and creativity of the Intelsat team who envisioned the Intelsat EpicNG platform nearly four years ago. Through design expertise and a deep understanding of our customers’ requirements, the Intelsat EpicNG platform will deliver high performance, improved economics and simplified access that will expand the addressable market for our solutions.”

http://www.intelsat.com/Intelsat29e
http://www.arianespace.com/mission/ariane-flight-va228/


  • Intelsat has previously named a number of customers in the region who have already committed to Intelsat EpicNG, include Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, BT Latam Venezuela, Anditel, S.A.S, Axesat, Amazonia Cabo Ltda., Cadena Ecuatoriana de Television C.A., Canal 10 CETV, Corporacion Nacional de Telecommunicaciones CNTE.P., Fox Latin America Channels do Brasil, Igrege Mundial do Poder de Deus, Radio e Televisao Banderantes and Telefonica del Peru.
  • In 2012, Intelsat first unveiled its EpicNG platform -- a new approach to satellite and network architecture utilizing multiple frequency bands, wide beams, spot beams and frequency reuse technology. EpicNG will be the company's next generation of satellites, promising higher throughputs and lower cost per bit. It will be a complementary overlay to the company's existing constellation of satellites and global IntelsatONE terrestrial network.

Nokia Incorporates Open Compute Designs into AirFrame Portfolio

Nokia plans to incorporate Open Compute Project (OCP) designs into its AirFrame Data Center Portfolio, aiming to offer greater efficiency, density, cooling and power usage effectiveness.

OCP-based variants for computing, network and storage will be developed in line with OCP specifications, but taking into account the specific needs of the telco domain such as regulatory requirements, Direct Current (DC) power feeding and electromagnetic shielding.

Nokia said it plans to offer a full end-to-end data center solution for telco, IT and enterprise customers, with cloud wise services supporting design and deployment. The OCP-based variants will complement the already available AirFrame rackmount servers launched in June 2015, offering complete flexibility, scalability and reliability for smaller and more distributed data center deployments.

“Nokia’s vast experience, competence and scale will redefine OCP specifications for carrier-grade performance, and we are delighted to extend our collaboration with Facebook and the Open Compute Project. This will ensure that our customers fully benefit from OCP solution efficiencies and performance, as well as the OCP ecosystem, for what is seen as the industry benchmark in hyperscale data center deployments. We see our input into OCP as being vital to ensure data centers can handle the most demanding of workloads,” stated Henri Tervonen, head of Mobile Broadband Architecture at Nokia.

http://networks.nokia.com/news-events/press-room/press-releases/Nokia-AirFrame-portfolio-enhanced-for-hyperscale-data-center-deployments-MWC16

Nokia Launches its AirFrame Data Center Servers and Switches

Nokia unveiled its AirFrame Data Center Solution for combining the benefits of cloud computing technologies with the stringent requirements of the core and radio in the telco world.


The Nokia AirFrame Data Center Solution is the company's foundation for meeting the latency and data processing requirements of the future, including 5G and distributed cloud applications. The portfolio is build around highly integrated, Intel-based servers and switches that are optimized for low-latency, scalability, flexibility and business agility.

Key advantages of AirFrame:

  • Offers significant efficiency gains when running data-demanding telco applications like mobile network Virtual Network Functions (VNFs)
  • Fully compliant with IT standards and able to run the most common IT cloud applications in parallel to telco cloud
  • Enables operators to implement not only their NFV strategy, but also expand into new business models, such as renting data center capacity for customers' IT applications
  • Implements the most advanced telco cloud security practices, which have been tested and approved at the Nokia Security Center in Berlin
  • Adheres to Nokia Networks' open standards approach as well as complies with ETSI NFV, ensuring the success of telco cloud deployments
  • Ready for 5G, with an advanced cloud management solution to handle the telco cloud architecture (centralized / distributed), including security orchestration which automates and manages the lifecycle of security policies and security functions
  • Ready to support several Nokia VNFs, including OSS/CEM and the company's recently announced Radio Cloud architecture

AirFrame components include:

  • Nokia AirFrame Cloud Servers and Switches - Pre-integrated racks with ultra-dense servers, high performance switches and software defined storage, including Nokia Networks specific enhancements that make it more efficient than other solutions to run demanding VNFs
  • Data center services - AirFrame is complemented by a suite of professional services provided by the company's services experts and geared to implement, monitor and operate telco cloud data centers

Nokia to Offer "Pop-up Network" Service for Mobile Operators

Nokia is preparing to launch a "Pop-up Network" service that provides temporary, transportable base stations coordinated by Nokia Centralized Radio Access Network (RAN) capabilities to operators that need extra capacity on a short term basis, such as mass events.  With the service, Nokia will provide planning and deployment of the equipment.  The operator simply pays for the capacity required during the event, reducing the total costs by up to 80% when compared to investing in its own infrastructure.

In addition, Nokia announced cloud-based, Geo-Data as a Service, which combines anonymized 3-D geolocation data from devices with network data to provide accurate insight into network, device and application performance as well as subscriber behavior. The insight is tailored to the needs of different operator functions. For example, network planners can spot and correct areas where subscribers are experiencing poor service; marketing personnel can identify subscriber trends and implement campaigns to grow revenue from the most valuable subscribers; or sales executives can pinpoint where their network provides better service than its competitors to leverage with new corporate clients.

http://networks.nokia.com/news-events/press-room/press-releases/nokia-introduces-pop-up-network-service-for-mass-events-up-to-3x-uplink-speed-ensures-memo

Mellanox Posts Record Sales, EZChip Merger On Track for Q2

Mellanox Technologies reported Q4 2015 revenues of $176.9 million and $658.1 million for fiscal year 2015. GAAP gross margins were 70.7 percent in the fourth quarter, and 71.3 percent in fiscal year 2015. GAAP net income was $43.2 million in the fourth quarter and $92.9 million in fiscal year 2015 which included an income tax benefit from the release of a valuation allowance of $22.4 million in the fourth quarter.

“We are pleased to achieve record quarterly and annual revenues. Our profitability grew 2.4 times year-over-year with operating income representing 21.3% of revenues. We are proud to grow our annual net income to $138.5 million and generate $150.5 million in cash from operations in 2015 - while we continued to invest in our technology and businesses,” said Eyal Waldman, president and CEO of Mellanox Technologies. “We saw strong growth in our Ethernet business in 2015, and expect it to accelerate in 2016 and beyond. We are pleased to see our InfiniBand business continue to grow across multiple markets and technology generations, with strong adoption of our EDR 100 Gigabit InfiniBand products. We look forward to closing the EZChip merger in the second half of February 2016. This merger is important to Mellanox and adds processing capabilities to our networking technologies. We believe the combination of these technologies will lead to a superior position in the data center interconnect market. We expect this transaction to be accretive from day one.”

http://www.mellanox.com/

Cambium Intros Quick Deploy Positioner for Wireless Broadband

Cambium Networks introduced its Quick Deploy Positioner, a device used to initiate rapid connectivity for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless broadband network deployments.

The company said its Quick Deploy Positioner can automatically establish wireless high capacity broadband connectivity in less than three minutes without the need for an RF expert to manually align the antenna.

Use cases include national defense, state and local government, border security, oil and gas, and first responder applications, where rapid deployment and automatic positioning in rugged and rapidly evolving environments.

http://www.cambiumnetworks.com/

Gigamon Posts Q4 Revenue of $67 Million, up 31% YoY

Gigamon posted Q4 2015 revenue of $67.0 million, up 31% year-over-year. GAAP gross margin was 82%, compared to 77% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014. GAAP net income was $2.6 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $2.9 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014. Full year revenue came in at $222.0 million, up 41% from fiscal 2014.

"2015 was a very strong year for Gigamon. We delivered over 40% year over year revenue growth, we increased our gross margins to over 80% and significantly increased our cash reserve to over $200 million," said Paul Hooper, Chief Executive Officer of Gigamon. "Our momentum in the security market continues to increase, with Q4 seeing almost 50% of our total business directly related to Security deployments. We enter 2016 with increased leadership in our market and continue to execute with conviction and predictability."

http://www.gigamon.com

C&W Networks Picks Xtera for 100G Undersea Upgrade

C&W Networks has selected Xtera Communications for upgrading its submarine cable systems in the western Atlantic ocean and the Caribbean Sea to 100G.

Specifically, C&W Networks has bolstered its subsea network capacity by upgrading several unrepeatered and repeatered segments to 100G, using Xtera’s Nu-Wave OptimaT multi-purpose optical networking platform. The submarine cable systems were upgraded with new 100G channels to include the 1,570 km Gemini – Bermuda cable system, the 1,700 km Caribbean – US (CBUS) cable system, the 1,700 km East West Cable (EWC) system, the 1,440 km festoon Eastern Caribbean Fiber System (ECFS), and part of the 8,700 km ARCOS-1 submarine ring. The same optical networking platform was used over the unrepeatered and repeatered segments, enabling a unified, seamless network from an operational perspective.

“Strengthening our relationship with C&W Networks, these new upgrade projects are further evidence of the confidence network operators place in Xtera’s capabilities to
improve subsea optical transmission infrastructure already deployed across the world,” said Jon Hopper, President and Chief Executive Officer of Xtera.

http://www.xtera.com/home/news-events/news/

Netscout Posts $308 Million in Revenue

Netscout reported revenue of $307.7 million for the third quarter of its fiscal 2016, including a full quarter’s contribution from Danaher’s Communications Business, which NetScout acquired on July 14, 2015. Product revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 was $209.1 million, which was approximately 68% of total revenue. Service revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 was $98.6 million, or approximately 32% of total revenue. Net loss for the third quarter of fiscal year 2016 was $24.5 million, or $0.25 per diluted share. On a non-GAAP basis, net income for the third quarter was $57.2 million, or $0.58 per diluted share.

“NetScout produced a strong third-quarter performance,” stated Anil Singhal, NetScout’s president and CEO. “We were pleased with the revenue performance across the enterprise and service provider markets. Our top-line results, in combination with disciplined spending to advance key development, sales and integration initiatives, enabled us to deliver strong profit margins, along with a robust EPS performance. During the quarter, we also continued to make good progress integrating our acquisition of the Danaher Communications Business.”

http://www.netscout.com

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

BT Launches SDN-WAN Managed Service powered by Cisco

BT announced the global launch of BT Connect Intelligence IWAN, an innovative managed service that enables organisations to automatically route and optimise network traffic and gain visibility of applications performance without spending more on bandwidth. 

BT Connect Intelligence IWAN integrates the Cisco Intelligent WAN (IWAN) solution into the BT Connect portfolio of network services.

BT said this new service builds on its existing intelligent network capabilities by using a hybrid environment and managed Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) technology. It brings new options to reduce the cost of customers’ networks whilst securing the performance of applications.

“BT has been leading the research into emerging virtualisation technologies from the beginning. For years, we have also been adding ‘intelligence’ to the network services we provide to our customers. NFV and SDN are part of that drive, and aim at making those services more dynamic and automated. They pave the way for a new generation of services that are quicker and easier to set up and change. BT Connect Intelligence IWAN leverages the Cisco IWAN solution to bring an important new building block in that virtualisation effort. It will help our customers all over the world deal much more effectively with ever increasing bandwidth and traffic optimisation demands, allowing customers to network like never before,” stated Keith Langridge, vice president of network services, BT Global Services.

Walgreens Boots Alliance’s businesses in the UK and in around 20 other countries are set to be some of the first BT Connect Intelligence IWAN customers.

Stated benefits of the BT Connect Intelligence IWAN include:
  • Virtual Private Network (VPN) capabilities across globally dispersed sites and different transport technologies. This enables organisations to reduce costs by securely interconnecting remote sites over hybrid network options, such as MPLS VPNs, private and public internet, and mobile, and to transfer information using powerful encryption technology;
  • Applications are routed across the best path in the customer’s hybrid network, based on real-time network performance;
  • Faster performance for applications, which will improve productivity and user experience. It will also identify underperforming business processes. This includes acceleration of web based traffic such as online catalogues shown to customers in retail stores, or access to employee training videos;
  • Enhanced application visibility and analytics, available via centralised, user friendly reporting, which gives customers deep insight into their application and network performance. This will also allow BT to enhance its monitoring and incident management service to customers.

AT&T Adds 2.8 Million Mobile Subs in Q4

Citing strong wireless net adds, AT&T reported consolidated Q4 2015 revenues of $42.1 billion, up more than 22% versus the year-earlier period largely due to the acquisition of DIRECTV. Compared with results for the fourth quarter of 2014, operating expenses were $34.6 billion versus $39.9 billion; operating income was $7.5 billion versus $(5.5) billion; and operating income margin was 17.9% versus (15.9)% in the year-ago quarter. Fourth-quarter 2015 net income attributable to AT&T totaled $4.0 billion, or $0.65 per share, compared to a net loss of $4.0 billion, or $(0.77) per share, in the year-ago quarter. Adjusting for the $0.22 non-cash actuarial gain on benefit plans from the annual remeasurement process and $0.20 of costs primarily for merger- and integration-related items, earnings per share was $0.63 compared to an adjusted $0.56 in the year-ago quarter, an increase of 12.5%.

“We now have a unique set of capabilities that positions us for growth and also gives us a strategic advantage in providing consumers and businesses the integrated mobile, video and data solutions they want,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. “Our DIRECTV integration is going well, and the customer response to our new integrated mobile and entertainment offers is strong. Throughout this year, we plan to launch a variety of new video entertainment packages that give customers even more choices. “We’re also seeing terrific results from our expansion into the Mexican mobile market. Our LTE network now covers 355 million people and businesses, and in the quarter we had 2.8 million wireless net additions,” Stephenson said. 

Some highlights from the quarterly report:

  • Full-year capital investment of $20.7 billion
  • 2.8 million wireless net adds; 1.6 million branded (postpaid and prepaid) net adds
  • 4G LTE network coverage expands to 355 million POPs
  • 2.2 million U.S. wireless net adds with gains in every category
  • Postpaid churn of 1.18% and total churn of 1.50%, both down year over year
  • 638,000 Mexico wireless branded net adds, LTE network reaches 44 million POPs
  • Business Solutions service revenues down slightly year over year
  • Strategic business services revenues of $2.8 billion, up 10.3% and up 12.4% when adjusted for foreign exchange
  • 214,000 U.S. DIRECTV net adds; total video subscribers down slightly
  • 192,000 total IP broadband net adds

http://about.att.com/story/att_fourth_quarter_earnings_2015.html

Ericsson: Q4 Sales Flat on Constant Currency as 4G Rollouts in China Recover

Ericsson's Q4 2015 sales increased by 8% YoY to SEK 73.6 (US$8.64 billion).  Sales, adjusted for comparable units and currency, decreased by -1%. Operating margin increased to 15% (9%) YoY with improvements in all segments. The major contributors to the profit improvement were higher IPR licensing revenues and lower operating expenses, mainly in segment Networks.

Some highlights from the quarterly report:

  • In North America, the mobile broadband investments remained stable, with additional hardware sales in the quarter. 
  • 4G deployments in Mainland China recovered after a weak third quarter. 
  • Emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and Mexico remained strong while markets such as Russia, Brazil and parts of the Middle East continued to be weak, mainly due to macro-economic developments. 
  • Investments in Europe were driven by the transition from 3G to 4G and capacity enhancements. Operators increased their investments in telecom core networks, driven by deployment of new service offerings such as VoLTE.
  • In the quarter, sales growth in segment Global Services was mainly driven by growth in Systems Integration and Managed Services while Network Rollout sales declined.
  • Ericsson ended the year with good YoY sales development in TV and Media which contributed to growth in Segment Support Solutions.


http://www.ericsson.com/news/1981476

Juniper's Q4 Revenues Increase 20% YoY to $1.32 Billion

Juniper Networks reported Q4 2015 revenue of $1,319.6 million, an increase of 20% year-over-year and 6% sequentially. Juniper's operating margin for the fourth quarter of 2015 increased to 21.2% on a GAAP basis, from 20.7% in the third quarter of 2015, and increased from (63.7%) in the fourth quarter of 2014. Net income (GAAP) was $197.8 million, consistent with the third quarter, and increased significantly compared to a GAAP net loss of $769.6 million for the fourth quarter of the prior fiscal year, even when adjusted for the $850 million non-cash goodwill impairment charge taken in the fourth quarter of 2014. GAAP net income per diluted share was $0.51, inclusive of a $0.03 benefit due to the renewal of the R&D tax credit for 2015.

"2015 was a year of solid execution and product innovation for Juniper Networks. I am very proud of the many accomplishments we've made as a company to drive growth and create value," said Rami Rahim, chief executive officer at Juniper Networks. "As a challenger in this industry, we plan to remain nimble, anticipate and deliver what our customers require for network innovation, and continue our relentless focus on execution to maximize long-term value for our shareholders."

The company also announced that Robyn Denholm will step down as CFO and be replaced by Ken Miller, who currently serves as the company's senior vice president, finance.

http://www.juniper.net

SecureAuth Secures $10 million for Adaptive Access Control

SecureAuth, a start-up based in Irvine, California, closed $10 million in follow-on equity financing for its adaptive access control solutions.

SecureAuth said it achieved 70% year over year growth in 2015, which marks seven consecutive years of successive, high-double digit growth. The company has from its two-factor authentication and single-sign on (SSO) roots to its role as an adaptive authentication leader. SecureAuth IdP is currently protecting over five million users worldwide.

To date, SecureAuth has raised $40 million in equity financing.

“The trend as of late is to raise as much money as possible, with an end goal being focused more on going public than to serve customers well,” said Craig Lund, SecureAuth CEO. “We’ve gone in a contrarian direction to focus on serving the customer well as our primary focus. We do not try to boil the ocean in solving all security problems, but focus on the most critical, helping our customers determine identity with confidence. This strategy may not be a $200 million series round, but we’re here for the marathon – not the sprint. We’re not looking to be the next Good Technology.”

https://www.secureauth.com/

VMWare Reports Q4 Revenue of $1.87 Billion, 800 Job Cuts

VMware reported Q4 revenue of $1.87 billion, an increase of 10% from the fourth quarter of 2014, or up 12% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $373 million, or $0.88 per diluted share, up 17% per diluted share compared to $326 million, or $0.75 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of 2014.

VMware also announced a restructuring and realignment of approximately 800 roles and plans to take a GAAP charge estimated to be between $55 million and $65 million related to this action over the course of the first half of 2016.

In addition, the company announced the appointment of Zane Rowe as its new chief financial officer and executive vice president, replacing Jonathan Chadwick, who stepped down.

“VMware’s Q4 2015 was a solid finish to 2015," said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. “We were especially pleased with the growth across our portfolio of emerging products and businesses, including NSX, EndUser
Computing and Virtual SAN. All of these businesses demonstrated strong growth in both Q4 and for the full year, underscoring the momentum we expect to continue into 2016.”

Some highlights from the quarterly report:

  • License revenues for the fourth quarter were $825 million, an increase of 6% from the fourth quarter of 2014, or up 11% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. 
  • EMEA performed best, followed by the Americas & Asia Pacific
  • Continued weakness in China, Russia and Brazil
  • Enterprise Agreements (EAs) approximately 42% of total Q4 bookings
  • AirWatch grew Q4 license and subscription bookings nearly 50% YoY
  • Cloud management penetration over 17% of installed base
  • NSX total bookings more than doubled 2H-15 versus 1H-15
  • Over 1,200 NSX paying customers; 9 of top 10 EAs included NSX

http://www.vmware.com

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Juniper to Acquire BTI Systems for Metro Optical and DCI

Juniper Networks has agreed to acquire BTI Systems, a supplier of cloud and metro networking systems and software. Financial terms were not disclosed.

BTI Systems, which is based in Ottawa, features a software-driven metro optical networking architecture.  BTI’s flagship metro packet optical networking system (BTI 7800 Series Packet Optical Transport platform) offers high-density 10G/40G/100G connectivity for metro service providers. The platform leverages 100G Coherent modules and features integrated ROADM capability and MPLS switching. The compact BTI 7000 Series integrates MEF Carrier Ethernet 2.0-certified switching, 10G WDM optical layer and 2 Degree and 4 Degree ROADM Dynamic Optical Layer capability. BTI's Intelligent Cloud Connect platform for data center interconnect delivers up to 3.36Tbps of full duplex wavelength capacity in a compact 14RU footprint, and is scalable to more than 10Tbps in a single rack.  The company claims more than 380 customers (service providers, content providers, colocation providers and cloud infrastructure companies) in over 40 countries.

Juniper said the acquisition will accelerate its delivery of open and automated packet optical transport solutions that integrate with its NorthStar Controller, including network management features that enable end-to-end provisioning of new services.  The deal is expected to close in Q2 of this year.

http://www.btisystems.com/
http://forums.juniper.net/t5/The-New-Network/Juniper-Networks-Enters-Into-Definitive-Agreement-to-Acquire-BTI/ba-p/287163

Layer123: BTI Debuts Virtual Network Edge for its Packet/Optical

BTI Systems introduced a virtual network edge solution for its metro packet/optical portfolio.

The BTI 7800 Virtual Network Edge, which enables next-generation broadband services delivery, leverages the high density and massively scalable, SDN-enabled BTI 7800 Series metro packet-optical platform. BTI said it is pursuing a unique architectural approach by integrating virtualization software in an open and converged network infrastructure platform that has been purpose-built for the metro cloud. BTI integrates optical transport and wire-speed routing with applications software in an open system that supports rapid development using third-party commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) compute blades and open carrier-grade Linux OS.

Key features of the BTI 7800 Virtual Network Edge solution:

  • A high-performance packet-optical transport platform integrated with a NFV applications plane, and sharing a common non-blocking switch fabric, power, cooling and management for efficiencies and cost savings;
  • Scalable performance and economics by leveraging best-of-breed merchant silicon and horizontally-scalable COTS compute in a multi-slot chassis design;
  • Increased service velocity and innovation with open management interfaces (NETCONF/YANG, RESTful APIs and OpenFlow), an open NFV plane (COTS compute, X.86 processor, carrier-grade Linux OS) and open standard SDN control (OpenDaylight today);
  • Flexible hosting of BTI or third-party Virtual Network Functions for services innovation and differentiation; 
  • Central-Office ready architecture with full redundancy, NEBS3, DC (and AC) power and minimal cabling;
  • Fast service deployment backed by an agile, responsive and experienced professional services organization.

Netronome's Agilio Server Networking Accelerates Cloud Data Centers

Netronome introduced its Agilio Server Networking Platform for transparently offloading server-based networking data paths, such as open virtual switch (OVS), Juniper Networks Contrail vRouter, and Linux firewall.

The company said its hardware and software-based Agilio platform delivers up to 5X higher throughput while reducing CPU requirements by up to 80 percent compared to traditional NICs and server-based networking implemented in software.

Server-based networking is being widely deployed in cloud data centers to handle virtualization, firewalls, load balancing, telemetry, zero-trust security using micro-segmentation, virtual network functions (VNFs) and application-based analytics. The big cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google) are using server-based networking in their mega data centers. Netronome's Agilio solution accelerates such server-based networking functions by offloading compute-intensive flow and tunnel processing from the CPUs.

The Agilio CX intelligent server adapters (ISAs) are based on Netronome's own flow processing silicon (NFP-4000) and software architecture (Agilio Software). The Agilio ISAs use onboard memory to support up to two million security policies, and deliver 28Mpps of throughput using hardware-based acceleration.

The Agilio server-based networking solutions include:

  • Production-ready Agilio Software currently supports OVS v2.3 and v2.4, with support for OVS v2.5, Linux Firewall, and the Juniper Networks Contrail vRouter expected during the first half of 2016.  The Agilio host software package is open sourced, has been up-streamed to relevant Linux repositories and is available at https://github.com/Netronome/nfp-drv-kmods
  • The Agilio CX family of intelligent server adapters includes standard PCIe Gen3 low-profile adapter cards for customer deployments. 10 and 40GbE configurations of the intelligent server adapters are in production now, with additional 25, 40 and 50GbE configurations expected to sample during the middle of 2016

"While server-based networking is providing higher efficiency and scale for the world's largest data centers, the need for SDN and network functions virtualization (NFV) is accelerating the demand for increased performance across the broad spectrum of cloud-based data centers," said Niel Viljoen, co-founder and CEO of Netronome. "The purpose-built Agilio platform uniquely addresses a critical inflection point in the industry caused by rapid software innovations in server-based networking on one side, and the burgeoning cost of compute on the other, resulting in the rise of heterogeneous computing."

http://www.netronome.com

Arbor Networks: DDoS Attacks Continue to Grow and Clouds Come Under Threat

Cloud services are coming increasingly under attack, according to Arbor Networks' newly released, 11th Annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report (WISR). The report is based on a survey of Tier 1 and Tier 2/3 service providers and hosting, mobile, enterprise and other types of network operators from around the world. Data covers November 2014 through November 2015.

Some highlights:

Top 5 DDoS Trends
  • Change in Attack Motivation: This year the top motivation was not hacktivism or vandalism but ‘criminals demonstrating attack capabilities,’ something typically associated with cyber extortion attempts.
  • Attack Size Continues to Grow: The largest attack reported was 500 Gbps, with others reporting attacks of 450 Gbps, 425 Gbps and 337 Gbps. In 11 years of this survey, the largest attack size has grown more than 60X.
  • Complex Attacks on the Rise: 56 percent of respondents reported multi-vector attacks that targeted infrastructure, applications and services simultaneously, up from 42 percent last year. 93 percent reported application-layer DDoS attacks. The most common service targeted by application-layer attacks is now DNS (rather than HTTP).
  • Cloud Under Attack: Two years ago, 19 percent of respondents saw attacks targeting their cloud-based services. This grew to 29 percent last year and now to 33 percent this year – a clear upward trend. In fact, 51 percent of data center operators saw DDoS attacks saturate their Internet connectivity. There was also a sharp increase in data centers seeing outbound attacks from servers within their networks, up to 34 percent from 24 percent last year.
  • Firewalls Continue to Fail During DDoS Attacks: More than half of enterprise respondents reported a firewall failure as a result of a DDoS attack, up from one-third a year earlier. As stateful and inline devices, firewalls add to the attack surface and are prone to becoming the first victims of DDoS attacks as their capacity to track connections is exhausted. Because they are inline, they can also add network latency.
Top 5 Advanced Threat Trends
  • Focus on Better Response: 57 percent of enterprises are looking to deploy solutions to speed the incident response processes. Among service providers, one-third reduced the time taken to discover an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) in their network to under one week and 52 percent stated their discovery to containment time has dropped to under one month.
  • Better Planning: 2015 saw an increase in the proportion of enterprise respondents who had developed formal incident response plans and dedicated at least some resources to respond to such incidents, up from around two-thirds last year to 75 percent this year.
  • Insiders in Focus: The proportion of enterprise respondents seeing malicious insiders is up to 17 percent this year (12 percent last year). Nearly 40 percent of all enterprise respondents still do not have tools deployed to monitor BYOD devices on the network. The proportion reporting security incidents relating to BYOD doubled, to 13 percent from six percent last year.
  • Staffing Quagmire: There has been a significant drop in those looking to increase their internal resources to improve incident preparedness and response, down from 46 to 38 percent in this year’s results.
  • Increasing Reliance on Outside Support: Lack of internal resources this past year has led to an increase in the use of managed services and outsourced support, with 50 percent of enterprises having contracted an external organization for incident response. This is 10 percent higher than within service providers. Within service providers, 74 percent reported seeing more demand from customers for managed services.

“A constantly evolving threat environment is an accepted fact of life for survey respondents,” said Arbor Networks Chief Security Technologist Darren Anstee. “This report provides broad insight into the issues that network operators around the world are grappling with on a daily basis. Furthermore, the findings from this report underscore that technology is only part of the true story since security is a human endeavor and there are skilled adversaries on both sides. Thanks to the information provided by network operators worldwide, we are able to offer insights into people and process, providing a much richer and more vibrant picture into what is happening on the front lines.”

Download the full report (registration required).

Comcast Business Launches WiFi Pro Service for SMBs

Comcast Business launched its WiFi Pro service featuring cloud-based controls, marketing tools and other advanced capabilities for SMBs and enterprise branch locations.

The managed service provides two high-performance commercial Wi-Fi networks – a private network for employees and a guest network for visitors and patrons – providing additional security, and leverages the latest AC chipset to support the fastest Wi-Fi speeds and expanded range. The equipment and access points for WiFi Pro are installed and managed by professional technicians.

“WiFi Pro offers simple management and features to SMBs and distributed enterprises that were previously only available to headquarters and other large office locations, enabling a better employee experience and customer engagement,” said John Guillaume, vice president of Product Management at Comcast Business. “The additional marketing features allow SMBs and enterprise branches to create a more personalized experience through Wi-Fi to help drive customer retention and revenue growth.”

http://business.comcast.com/wifipro