Zayo Launches Flex Ethernet Service

Zayo launched a usage-based Ethernet service for flexible cloud and data center connectivity.

Zayo FlexConnect provides dedicated Layer 2 Ethernet connecting to more than 200 data centers, cloud, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, VMWare and Cisco Intercloud.  Customers pay only for the data they transport.

The service is available from 500 Mbps to 100 Gbps.  Zayo’s online self-service platform lets customers compare prices, purchase services, track orders, view their bandwidth usage and invoices.

“Zayo’s FlexConnect is aligned with today’s on-demand world, enabling businesses to scale up or down and pay only for the service they use,” said Max Clauson, executive vice president of Network Connectivity Services at Zayo. ”The solution is ideally suited for cloud and IaaS or any enterprise application with fluctuations or seasonality in traffic demands.”

“With FlexConnect, which leverages Microsoft Azure ExpressRoute to connect to Microsoft Azure, more customers can leverage Azure services easily and cost effectively,” said Venkat Gattamneni, group product marketing manager, Microsoft Azure. “FlexConnect is an ideal solution for customers who need more secure, flexible connectivity to the cloud to meet changing business needs.”

“We are excited to continue to work with Zayo to bring new, creative network solutions to customers inside Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers. FlexConnect will provide customers in our facilities with on-demand, cost-effective connectivity to a wider selection of providers and destinations,” said Bill Long, vice president of Interconnection Services at Equinix. “We also look forward to attracting new customers who now have an exciting new option to connect to our Cloud Exchange.”

http://www.zayo.com

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Intel Rolls Out 14nm Xeon E5-2600 v4 Processors

Intel is rolling out its new Xeon processor E5-2600 v4 product family and aimed at software-defined clouds. The launch is accompanied by new Intel SSDs, including the first 3D NAND drives optimized for cloud and enterprise workloads,

The Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v4 product family is built on 14nm process technology and features Intel Resource Director Technology, which enables customers to move to fully automated SDI-based clouds with greater visibility and control over critical shared resources like processor caches and main memory.

Intel said its new product family delivers improved performance for cloud tasks with more than 20 percent more cores and cache than the prior generation2, supports faster memory, and includes other integrated technologies for accelerating a wide range of server, network and storage workloads. Security enhancements like workload isolation, security policy enforcement and faster cryptography3 have been added to help protect data more effectively.

The new solid state drives (SSDs) are optimized for the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v4 family, enterprise storage and cloud deployments. The Intel SSD DC P3320 and P3520 Series are the first Intel SSDs to use the industry’s highest density 3D NAND technology to provide users with a highly efficient, dense storage solution. The DC P3320 offers up to a 5-times performance boost compared to SATA-based SSDs4.

The new Intel SSD DC D3700 and D3600 Series are Intel’s first dual-port PCI Express SSDs using the Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) protocol. The dual-port design provides critical redundancy and failover, safeguarding against data loss in mission-critical storage deployments. Customer systems using the D3700 can see up to a 6-times increase in performance over today’s dual-port SAS solutions.

“Enterprises want to benefit from the efficiency and agility of cloud architecture and on their own terms – using the public cloud offerings, deploying their own private cloud, or both,” said Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group. “The result is pent-up demand for software-defined infrastructure. Intel is investing to mature SDI solutions and provide a faster path for businesses of all sizes to reap the benefits of the cloud.”

As part of its Intel Cloud for All initiative, Intel is collaborating with CoreOS and Mirantis to bring together two of the most popular open source technologies to orchestrate container and virtual machine-based applications. The merging of these two technologies into a single solution will simplify choices for cloud operators to accelerate the adoption of cloud solutions.

In addition, Intel and VMware announced a network of Centers of Excellence aimed at accelerating cloud deployments. The centers will drive custom optimizations, facilitate proof-of-concept testing and integrate cybersecurity best practices in collaboration with The National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and Intel announced the world’s largest cloud application testing cluster for applications “born in the cloud.” The cluster will include more than 1,000 Intel Xeon processor-based server nodes designed to provide developers with the opportunity to test applications at larger scales and deliver the efficiency and portability of cloud native applications to businesses.

http://www.intel.com

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HPE Pushes Ahead with Persistent Memory

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) introduced new compute platforms with built-in support for Persistent Memory, a technology that combines the performance of high-speed memory and the persistence of storage to deliver new levels of application performance. The technology will be available for new HPE ProLiant Gen9 servers.

Some highlights:

HPE Persistent Memory. The first product in the HPE Persistent Memory portfolio is a an 8GB NVDIMM that is designed to accelerate database and analytic workloads. The HPE 8GB NVDIMM is designed around industry-standard NVDIMM-N technology, working with standards bodies such as JEDEC and SNIA, and includes back-up power from the HPE Smart Storage Battery, which supports up to 16 NVDIMMs for moving data from DRAM to Flash when power is lost.

New Intel Xeon platform. Designed to support up to 22 cores and memory speeds of up to 2400MT/s, the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 v41 processor offers up to 25 percent performance gains2 for HPE ProLiant Gen9 servers. The Intel Xeon E5-2600 v4 processors include virtualization enhancements, added security and improved orchestration capabilities to help customers better manage shared platform resources.

State of the art solid state drives (SSDs). HPE NVMe SSDs are compact, economical and offer up to 2TB of storage in a flexible package that includes Express Bay for front access to drives that are designed for big-ticket jobs, including online transaction processing, business intelligence and Big Data analytics.

Smart authentication. Adding TCG Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 specification 1.16 to HPE ProLiant Gen 9 servers provides a tamper-resistant environment to prevent unauthorized access to servers. TPM supports Microsoft BitLocker, which securely stores authentication elements, such as passwords and encryption keys.

HPE Application Migration to Cloud Solution. Secure, tested and validated reference architecture delivered by HPE Technology Services experts to help customers migrate on-premises applications to a private cloud.

http://www.hpe.com

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Dell Releases 13th Gen PowerEdge Servers

Dell launched its 13th generation of PowerEdge 13th generation rack, tower, blade and converged infrastructure architecture servers. The major improvements include over 20 percent improved performance with differentiated air-cooled support and over 12 percent enhanced memory bandwidth aligned to Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v4 updates.

“Customers are driving the rise of the software defined data center, using workload-oriented solutions that are increasingly compute-centric,” said Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, vice president and general manager, Dell Server Solutions. “Dell’s global x86 leadership gains, particularly in blade servers, are a terrific indicator of how we deliver on these customer needs. Dell PowerEdge 13th generation servers include practical innovations, based on product knowledge that spans our 20-year history, to deliver the right functionality to enable customers’ future-ready datacenters.”

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/poweredge-13g-server

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DOCOMO Invests in Expway for Wireless Multicasting

NTT DOCOMO Ventures has made a strategic investment of EUR 1.5 million in Expway for its wireless multicast solutions. Expway’s current investors, Innovation Capital, I-Source, TechFund and Isatis Capital also invested EUR 1.5 million in this round.

Expway’s newly announced Ultimate Mobile CDN solution optimizes data traffic between the telecom cells and the terminals using LTE Broadcast. In addition, Expway’s solution will also be made available on Wi-Fi networks to enhance video delivery in highly dense areas.

“NTT group and Expway have partnered for more than ten years, building trust and synergies with a number of NTT group divisions” said Thierry Sergent, CEO Expway. “This investment strengthens Expway and its leadership position worldwide as an the only end-to-end Wireless Multicast technology provider.”

http://www.expway.com/

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