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

Wednesday, October 14, 2015  #NFV, #SDN, BTI, Layer123  No comments

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.

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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

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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).

http://www.arbornetworks.com/resources/annual-security-report?utm_source=press_release&utm_medium=press_release&utm_campaign=WISR_2015_release&utm_term=ALL&utm_content=whitepaper

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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

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Sweden's Norrsken Deploys Infinera TM-Series Metro 100G

Norrsken, a major regional operator in Sweden, has expanded its network with the Infinera TM-Series metro 100G solution, enabling multi-service transport services with low power, high density and bandwidth scalability.

Norrsken operates a regional network in Sweden providing Layer 1 wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) services and Layer 2 Ethernet services for the major Internet service providers, carriers and other customers. With the Infinera TM-Series, Norrsken can provide a packet-optical network featuring multi-service capabilities including MEF 2.0 certified Ethernet services and Optical Transport Network (OTN) aggregation engineered for a range of services including enterprise, mobile backhaul, wholesale bandwidth and metro aggregation applications.

"Upgrading Norrsken's network with the Infinera TM-Series was a natural choice for us," said Björn Jonsson, CEO at Norrsken. "Norrsken already has TM-Series in our network and with the new metro 100G solution, we are now able to also provide 100G services to our customers, providing an even more scalable high capacity network."

http://www.infinera.com

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Switch Commits to 100% Green for Michigan Data Center

Switch, which runs the SUPERNAP data centers in Nevada, has committed to 100% renewable energy for its upcoming SUPERNAP Michigan data center near Grand Rapids/

As part of this announcement and Switch’s continued commitment to run all of its data centers on green energy, Switch has also become a member of the WWF/WRI Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles.

“Sustainably running the internet is one of the driving principles of Switch, which is why in our site selection process for an eastern U.S. SUPERNAP data center site, we had to find a local utility who could provide a pathway to 100 percent renewable power,” said Switch EVP of Strategy Adam Kramer. “When we first met with the team at WRI we knew that our goals aligned perfectly with the Buyers’ Principles, which is why Switch was excited to join.”

https://www.supernap.com/news/switch-plans-to-make-michigan-data-center-100-percent-green.html

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Cedexis Raises $22 Million for Internet Measurement/Optimization Tools

Cedexis, a start-up based in Portland, Oregon, raised $22 million in Series B funding for its Internet measurement and optimization tools.

Cedexis provides web-scale, end-user-experience monitoring and real-time traffic routing across multiple clouds and networks. Cedexis Radar crowd sources billions of real user measurements (RUM) a day from a community of nearly 1,000 enterprises. Cedexis Radar provides real-time visibility into how cloud/network performance is impacting the experience of web and mobile application users. Cedexis Openmix then uses this insight to route traffic for best performance, or availability, or cost, or any mix of the three. Cedexis Impact then demonstrates the real-world correlation of end-user performance to business KPIs, enabling enterprises to maximize web performance returns.

The funding was led by Ginko Ventures with participation from Foxconn, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), Citrix Systems Ventures as well as Cedexis' Series A investors, Advanced Technology Ventures and Madrona Ventures. This brings total company funding to $33 million.

"The web is now at the core of value delivery in almost every industry, making web performance mission critical for most enterprises. Cedexis dramatically increases an enterprise's ability to improve their users' Quality of Experience (QoE) over shared 'best effort' networks and clouds," said Scott Grout, CEO of Cedexis. "We have a very unique approach of crowd-sourcing billions of daily end-user measurements from a shared community of hundreds of participating global enterprises.  This data set yields unprecedented real-time visibility into global web performance which we then use to optimally route users across multiple networks (CDNs), clouds or data centers dramatically improving their experiences. This increases consumer engagement and measurably improves business results for the enterprise."

http://www.cedexis.com

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Edgecore Intros Gigabit Switches with 10G uplinks, PoE, Energy Efficient Ethernet

Edgecore Networks introduced its Web-Smart Pro series of switches for small and medium businesses.

The Web-Smart Pro product line includes switches ranging from 10 to 52 GE ports, with GE and 10GE uplinks. 802.11az Energy Efficient Ethernet features reduce energy consumption and lower operating costs. The EC2100 product series includes models with Power over Ethernet (PoE) to interconnect a wide range of WiFi access points, VoIP phones, security and building control system devices. PoE options deliver 15.4 Watts per port, or 802.11at compliant 30W per port to meet the increasing demand for 802.11ac WiFi access points. The Web-Smart Pro series is managed via an innovative dashboard graphical interface which allows network engineers or SMB office managers to perform the limited configuration and monitoring steps required for the network.

The Web-Smart Pro series of Gigabit Ethernet (GE) switches with Power over Ethernet (PoE) options enables SMB organizations to interconnect its full set of devices— servers, desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, VoIP phones, WiFi access points, security devices, cameras, card readers, building control devices, and more— through an integrated wired and wireless network with leading energy efficiency and manageability.

“Edgecore Networks understands that small and medium businesses are facing the same challenges as larger enterprises to integrate the rapidly increasing number and type of wireless, mobile and control devices with their business and network applications,” said George Tchaparian, CEO of Edgecore Networks. “Our new series of Web-Smart Pro switches, combined with our WiFi network offerings, allows SMBs to integrate cost effectively their WiFi-enabled devices with their wired network, providing access to cloud-based and premises-based business, security and building control applications.”

http://www.Edge-Core.com

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Mitsubishi Electric Develops an Antenna using Seawater Plume

Mitsubishi Electric has developed an innovative antenna system, called SeaAerial, that shoots a column of seawater into the air to create a conductive plume for the transmission and reception of radio-frequency waves.

The system, which is thought to be the first seawater antenna, is capable of receiving digital terrestrial broadcasts for normal viewing. The company said it is investigating conductive and transmutative liquids as new materials for antennas.

http://www.mitsubishielectric.com/news/2016/0127.html

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