Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Telsta Launches SDN-based PEN Exchange & Marketplace

Telstra launched its new SDN-based PEN Exchange and PEN Marketplace -- two new enhancements to its global Software Defined Networking solution, enabling organisations to identify and connect their network circuits on-demand with other PEN customers. The two new enhancements were designed to satisfy customers’ growing needs for secure, high bandwidth on-demand, and built on the expansion of the Telstra PEN Platform to the optical layer across 26 PEN Points of Presence worldwide in 2015.

The new PEN Marketplace is an online portal that allows organisations to instantly order virtual network functions – such as firewalls and routers – on-demand and based on their preferred vendor.

“The launch of our new PEN Exchange is the natural next step in our SDN strategy and means we now have the unique capability to dynamically connect network circuits between PEN Exchange customers, linking different people and business sites easily and cost effectively. With provisioning time measured in minutes rather than months, PEN Exchange customers can also use a new application programming interface, which triggers additional capacity depending on their changing bandwidth needs,” stated Jim Clarke, Telstra’s Head of International Products and Pricing, Telstra.

http://www.telstraglobal.com/dynamicnetworks

 Telstra Extends its Global SDN into the Optical Layer
Telstra has extended its new global Software Defined Networking (SDN) Platform into the optical layer, enabling high-bandwidth provisioning up to 100G and automated fault restoration across its global Points of Presence (PoPs).

The announcement follows Telstra's recent acquisition of Pacnet, a provider of connectivity, managed services and data centre services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments in the Asia-Pacific region.  The Pacnet Enabled Network (PEN)an SDN-based service delivery platform with automated provisioning capabilities.

Telstra now operates 25 PEN Points of Presence across eight countries – including Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the US and the UK. Additional connectivity options into public Cloud services to bridge hybrid Cloud deployments are available too.

Jim Clarke, Telstra’s Director of Marketing, Product and Pricing – International, said the extension of SDN and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) capabilities into Layer 1 followed the announcement last month that Telstra had added nine Telstra PEN PoPs to Pacnet’s existing footprint of sixteen PoPs across Asia, creating a globally connected on-demand networking Platform.

“Extending our global PEN platform into the optical layer is the natural next step in our SDN strategy and by providing this infrastructure on demand, we’re able to significantly shorten the provisioning cycle times and better meet our customers’ growing high-bandwidth needs.

“This is an exciting milestone in Telstra’s SDN journey and by leveraging our high quality infrastructure assets and Pacnet’s leadership in early adoption of SDN technology, we will continue to innovate and deliver cost-efficient virtualised network resources to our customers,” Mr Clarke said.

“We believe it’s time for global networks to evolve. The applications of tomorrow require a different kind of network and this latest enhancement to the PEN Platform means we now have the unique capability to provide customers with on-demand provisioning of their network services up to 100G, whenever they want it and wherever they are based.

“Furthermore, Telstra plans to extend virtualisation to its suite of Managed Services offerings which means we can now, more than ever, deliver the choice and flexibility our customers require, in an age of bandwidth hungry applications, fuelled by distributed computing, big data and mobility,” Mr Clarke concluded.

http://www.telstra.com.au/

In March 2015, Infinera announced that Pacnet, which operates submarine cable systems connecting 15 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, has deployed the new Infinera Open Transport Switch (OTS) software to extend virtualization into the optical layer of its network. Pacnet’s existing Intelligent Transport Network is based on the Infinera DTN-X packet optical transport networking platform.

Big Switch Secures $48.5 Million in Series C Funding

Big Switch Networks raised $48.5 million in a Series C funding round.

The company, which is based in Santa Clara, California, said it experienced more than 300% growth in 2015 with customers wins across the US, APAC and EMEA regions, and in verticals including tech, financial services, government, service providers, and higher education.  The company has two products and three use cases, which have played a critical part in its growth, including accelerated adoption with Enterprise and Carrier customers of both Big Monitoring Fabric, a next generation network monitoring fabric, as well as Big Cloud Fabric, the industry’s first data center fabric built using whitebox or britebox switches and SDN controller technology.

Big Switch also named former NetApp CEO, Dan Warmenhoven, as well as seasoned venture capitalist Gary Morgenthaler to its Board of Directors.

The new funding includes participation from both new and existing investors, including Morgenthaler Ventures, Silver Lake Waterman, Index Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Accton, CID Group, MSD Capital, among others. This brings total funding to $94 million since the company was founded in 2010.

“I am pleased that our performance continues to earn the trust of our customers, partners, and investors, all of whom believe in our mission to disrupt the status quo of networking,” said Douglas Murray, CEO, Big Switch Networks. “Dan Warmenhoven’s knowledge and operational experience scaling NetApp from hyper-growth startup through maturity will be invaluable as Big Switch continues to scale and as we introduce our core products to new customers in more markets around the world. I am also thrilled to have Gary Morgenthaler join the board to share his invaluable experience as one of Silicon Valley’s pre-eminent investors.”

http://www.bigswitch.com

Arista Updates its Extensible OS for Hybrid Clouds and Containers

Arista Networks announced a major upgrade to its open and programmable Arista EOS (Extensible Operating System) based on three building blocks: Infrastructure, Hybrid Cloud and Container Support.

Arista EOS, which features a state-driven, publish-subscribe-notify architecture built for cloud networking, now introduces NetDB, a network-wide state repository that increases network scalability, agent efficiency, and resilience.

Some highlights:

Infrastructure - NetDB expands the network roles for Arista’s spine platforms, enabling EOS to now support in excess of 1 million routes and 100,000 tunnels for increased cloud scale. NetDB also provides the ability to aggregate the network state of all EOS devices to a common point through the CloudVision platform and, from there, stream network-wide telemetry data to improve network operations visibility and historical analytics.

Hybrid Cloud - Arista EOS features support for workload migration between private and public workloads and CloudVision management for hybrid cloud solutions. By delivering appropriate EOS Tracer tools for cloud-bursting, enterprise customers can now seamlessly execute their hybrid cloud roadmap. This bridges the gap between private and public clouds.

Container Support - Arista EOS extends its virtualization support by adding both the ability to run Docker containers on EOS, as well as improved physical and virtual visibility with Container Tracer. Container support in EOS offers customers the flexibility to load container-based applications directly onto the Arista EOS platform. Complementing visibility tools for bare metal and hypervisor designs, Container Tracer delivers advanced monitoring capabilities for emerging container-based applications.

“The infrastructure underlying a network operating system is the foundation for delivering a flexible and resilient solution to customers. Arista EOS, originally built on a state-sharing database, has proven stable and scalable in the largest cloud networking environments. Today’s NetDB introduction represents our continued investment in Arista EOS, as it evolves to meet the changing needs of the cloud,” said Ken Duda, CTO and Senior Vice President of Software Engineering for Arista.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8327500062634719808#editor/target=post;postID=9105821876244975384


https://www.arista.com/en/company/news/press-release/1235-pr-20160119

Hibernia Trims Latency on Transatlantic Route with Innovative Backhaul

Hibernia Networks said it has further reduced latency on its new Hibernia Express transatlantic cable route connecting New York to London by means of newly acquired backhaul infrastructure.

Specifically, the company said that to further reduce latency beyond the already industry leading performance of sub 58.95ms on the high density traffic London to New York route, it has procured alternative backhaul routes in the United Kingdom as part of its phase one deployment. The low latency services delivered over Hibernia Express are relied upon by customers for mission critical applications across numerous segments, including financial firms, content providers, and web-centric companies. Hibernia Express latency on the subsea cable connecting North America and UK is RFCS tested at 44.92ms.

“At Hibernia Networks we are unwavering in our commitment to provide the industry leading network performance that our most demanding customers entrust us to deliver,” states Omar Altaji, CCO of Hibernia Networks. “Customers rely on our low latency, high capacity connectivity solutions to ensure their ability to stay competitive in today’s networked world.”

  • Hibernia Express utilizes a 6-fiber-pair submarine cable, with a portion of the fibers optimized for lowest latency and a portion optimized for 100X100 Gpbs design capacity.  Hibernia Express follows the most direct route between the UK and North America.

Riverbed Acquires Ocedo for SD-WAN

Riverbed announced the acquisition of Ocedo, a leading provider of software-defined networking and SD-WAN (software-defined wide-area-network) solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ocedo, which is based in Karlsruhe, Germany, developed an advanced software-defined branch office networking solution, with a portfolio of products that include secure gateways, wireless access points and switches, and an integrated cloud management system that enables zero-touch provisioning and centralized control of remote devices and network services.

Riverbed said the acquisition furthers its strategy to deliver next-generation, software-defined networking solutions that provide superior application performance and business agility for today’s hybrid enterprises. Ocedo fuels Riverbed’s Project Tiger initiative, announced in Fall 2015, in which Riverbed plans to bring to market a new suite of application-centric SD-WAN solutions that will eliminate the need for traditional branch routers, provides cloud-based zero-touch provisioning & management, and will be based on a new software operating platform that enables agile service-chaining for Riverbed-native and 3rd-party services and applications. Riverbed plans to launch an initial SD-WAN solution in Q1 2016 to complement and expand the Riverbed Application Performance Platform.

“Ocedo is a compelling and strategic acquisition for Riverbed. Their innovative software-defined networking solutions perfectly complement our own strategic investments in R&D, expanding our position to aggressively compete in the emerging markets for software-defined networks and SD-WAN, bringing disruption to the multi-billion dollar branch router market,” said Jerry M. Kennelly, Riverbed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “As the industry goes through one of the largest transformations in a decade, with cloud and hybrid IT environments requiring a different approach to networking, Riverbed is well positioned to help businesses reap the benefits of newer and superior network architectures that are application-centric and software-defined.”

http://www.riverbed.com

Ocedo Enters Enterprise SDN Equipment Market

Ocedo GmbH, a start-up based in Karlsruhe, Germany, announced its entry into the enterprise SDN market.

Ocedo is developing a range of cloud managed and SDN enabled network equipment to connect wired, wireless and wide-area networks. The Ocedo System enables IT departments and MSPs to roll-out entire networks remotely from the cloud, track network activity in a “single pane of glass”, and provision network configuration changes in real time.

“SDN is ready to move beyond the data center and provide innovation in distributed enterprise networks,” said Jan Hichert, Ocedo CEO. “Ocedo’s focus is on making networking radically simpler for today’s agile, growing organizations.”

Ocedo was started by the founders of Astaro, a network security vendor that over the course of a decade engineered networks for thousands of organization around the globe, and was acquired by Sophos in 2011.

http://www.ocedo.com


https://www.ocedo.com/en/hybrid-wan.html

ZTE Posts Record Revenue & Profit

ZTE reported full-year 2015 revenue of RMB 100.8 billion (approx US$15.33 billion), 23.8% higher than in 2014, and the first time annual revenue has exceeded RMB 100 billion.

Net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company will be RMB 3.78 billion (US$574 million) in 2015, compared with RMB 2.63 billion a year earlier, according to preliminary unaudited results published by ZTE today, based on accounting standards of the People’s Republic of China. This represents an annual increase of 43.5%.

The company attributed its growth to higher sales of 4G LTE network solutions internationally, in addition to China. The company also posted increased sales of optical network solutions as demand for broadband networks strengthens.

The growth in annual revenue was also driven by increased sales of high-end routers in overseas markets, while ZTE posted higher revenue from sales of Enterprise ICT solutions including Smart City and Data Center solutions to companies and government departments. In addition, ZTE also boosted sales of 4G smartphones outside China, as well as terminal products for homes.

At the end of 2015, ZTE’s gearing ratio improved to 63.9%, compared to 75.25% a year earlier, reflecting the stronger profitability of the company’s operations and better capital management. The company strengthened cash flow management, with cash received for the sales of goods and rendering of services exceeding RMB 105 billion, achieving substantial growth in cash inflows from operating activities and net cash flows from operating activities.

http://wwwen.zte.com.cn/en/press_center/news/201601/t20160119_447513.html

IronScales Raises Seed Funding for IPS with Phishing Mitigation

IronScales, a start-up based in Israel, announced $1.5 million in seed funding for its development of an intrusion prevention system with an automated phishing-mitigation response.

IronScales said its crowd-wisdom-based phishing-mitigation solution helps protect enterprises from cyber-crimes whereby criminals attempt to deceive employees into revealing sensitive information such as usernames and passwords so they can then install spyware, remote-access Trojan horse attacks or ransomware. The IronScales solution is currently in use by dozens of customers in the financial sector, as well as security and telecom companies.

The $1.5 million round was led by RDSeed, an investment arm of Rafael Development Corporation (RDC).

"Phishing is an insidious threat to enterprises, but the existing solutions targeting the problem simply did not go far enough,” said Eyal Benishti, IronScales CEO. “That’s why we created IronScales, not only to raise awareness of phishing attacks but to then empower employees to actually block them. When workers understand how to spot phishing attacks, they become powerful assets in helping protect their enterprises from attack.”

http://ironscales.com/

Polaris Wireless Prevails in Patent Dispute Against TruePosition

Polaris Wireless, which provides high-accuracy, software-based wireless location solutions, prevailed in a patent dispute filed by TruePosition.  The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington D.C. affirmed Polaris’ wins at the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) and District Court. All asserted claims were found to be invalid. The complaint was brought by TruePosition in 2012.

http://www.polariswireless.com


GENBAND Prevails in Patent Dispute with Metaswitch

GENBAND prevailed in a patent dispute with Metaswitch Networks.  A jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has found that Metaswitch infringed on seven GENBAND patents that cover a range of VoIP technology used in session border controllers and integrated softswitches.

https://www.genband.com/media-center/press-releases/jury-finds-metaswitch-infringes-7-genband-voice-over-ip-patents