Microsoft and Facebook to Build 160 Tbps Transatlantic Cable

Microsoft and Facebook will jointly fund a new transatlantic cable system linking Virginia Beach, Virginia to Bilbao, Spain.

The MAREA cable, which will be managed by Telxius, Telefónica’s new infrastructure company, will feature eight fiber pairs and an initial estimated design capacity of 160 Tbps. The new 6,600 km submarine cable system will take a more southern route than other transatlantic cables, which mostly connect northern Europe to the New York/New Jersey region.

Construction is set to begin in August 2016 with completion targeted for October 2017.

“In order to better serve our customers and provide the type of reliable and low-latency connectivity they deserve, we are continuing to invest in new and innovative ways to continuously upgrade both the Microsoft Cloud and the global Internet infrastructure,” said Frank Rey, director, global network acquisition, Microsoft Corp. “This marks an important new step in building the next generation infrastructure of the Internet.”

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/server-cloud/2016/05/26/microsoft-and-facebook-to-build-subsea-cable-across-atlantic/

• Microsoft has previously announced investments with Hibernia and Aqua Comms for fiber connectivity from North America to Ireland and on to the United Kingdom.
• Microsoft is a consortium partner in the New Cross Pacific (NCP) Cable Network.  Other partners include China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, and KT. TE SubCom its the cable supplier.

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Level 3 Launches Enterprise Security Gateway in the Cloud

Level 3 Communications launched a cloud-based network security solution that helps enterprises evolve from the traditional on-premises hardware model to Security as a Service.

The Level 3 Enterprise Security Gateway (ESG) moves the security perimeter from their enterprise or data center to the Level 3 network.

Level 3 cited the following benefits and competitive differences:

• ESG uses Level 3's network to provide carrier agnostic, network-based security protection – data on any device at any location through any connection or carrier can be secure.
• From anywhere in the world, customers can leverage Level 3's global IP backbone capacity, more than 42 Terabits per second (Tbps), and rich interconnection agreements to access security tools hosted in gateways.
• ESG offers multiple carrier-class security services for customers, including anti-malware with sandboxing, data loss protection, application awareness and enforcement and next-generation firewall.
• ESG is backed by Level 3's threat research, providing actionable intelligence for customers.
• Single Viewpoint: Through Level 3's customer portal, users can view their entire ESG ecosystem, enabling access to a multitude of reports and gateway performance metrics.
• Around-the-clock protection; customers have access to Level 3's 24/7 Security Operations Centers and professionals

"With today's global launch of Enterprise Security Gateway (ESG), Level 3 continues to enhance our network-based enterprise security solutions portfolio. With ESG, enterprises can fundamentally shift their security perimeter to the Level 3 network cloud where customers can then access a state of the art collection of security solutions, tools and technical expertise. ESG reinforces Level 3's commitment to our customers where everything we do is intended to allow them to grow their business faster, operate their networks more efficiently and to do both in a secure fashion," stated Anthony Christie, Chief Marketing Officer, Level 3.

http://news.level3.com/2016-05-25-Level-3-Takes-Security-to-the-Network-and-Leverages-the-Cloud-to-Defend-Customers

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Video: A Fundamental Shift in Corporate Security Thinking - BT Americas

There has been a fundamental shift in the way that companies think about security, says Kate Kuehn, Head of Sales - Security for BT Americas.

Security used to be an afterthought for technology deployments.  Now, security is the first thing that companies are considering, because it does impact every area of their business.

See video: https://youtu.be/1yOwsmDlIlc

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Video: Data Center Interconnect and Edge CDNs

More and more operators are interconnecting data centers in a metro region. Jim Hintze, Senior VP of Sales at FiberLight, highlights this trend along with the idea of moving content closer to the user in metro regions.

See: https://youtu.be/0dI4aysud-Y

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Video: Delivering a U.S. Fiber Presence for International Carriers

International carriers are looking for a metro fiber presence in many U.S. markets.  Jim Hintze, Senior VP of Sales at FiberLight, talks about how these international carriers are looking for fiber instead of leasing capacity from existing operators.

See video: https://youtu.be/tKi0vthQvrM

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Video: Simplifying Cloud Connectivity

Enterprises are looking for a secure way to connect to the cloud that they have visibility and control over.

Mary Stanhope, Vice President of Marketing at Global Capacity, says a key performance challenge is overcoming the "long tail" -- the long haul routes that operate users in one city from servers located far away.

See video: https://youtu.be/Y3bDeR7Pb-s

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Video: Deep Metro Fiber for Texas and Other Regions

FiberLight is an infrastructure-rich company operating in seven states.  Its largest network is in Texas, where FiberLight's infrastructure extends over 9,000 route miles.

Ron Kornos, Chief Strategy Officer at FiberLight, introduces the company and talks about how data center connectivity is becoming a key driver of the business.

See video: https://youtu.be/BD-yY050cy8

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BT Tests 5.6 Tbps Optical Transmission Speed

BT and Huawei demonstrated speeds of 2 Tbps over a live core network spanning 700km between London and Dublin.

Separately, BT also announced today that it has successfully transmitted speeds of 5.6Tbps over a single optical fibre running on its trial network between the BT Labs in Adastral Park and the BT Tower in London, beating the previous record of 3 Tbps set in 2014.

Key technical facts about the trials:

• The 2Tbps trials exploit commercial flexible grid hardware and real-time flexible rate 64GBaud transponders. 64GBaud optical technology runs at twice the electrical speed of current deployed core optical network optical signals and is one of the key enablers for high-speed, long reach optical transmission.
• The live trials were conducted over a 727km commercial flexible grid optical core link between London and Dublin, based on Huawei’s OSN 9800/8800 and iManager U2000 platforms, carrying live 40/100G customer traffic. The link includes a 133km long unrepeatered submarine cable link from Dublin to Holyhead.
• The trials demonstrate, for the first time, the successful operation of real-time 64GBaud flexible-rate transponders allowing all-optical, long reach (unregenerated) superchannel transmission, with low latency.
• In addition, by exploiting flexible rate transponders, BT successfully demonstrated fast capacity turn up (or network upgrade) equivalent to ~2Tbps in one minute.
• BT and Huawei also successfully demonstrated a record real-time 5.6Tbps optical superchannel over a closed loop network running between the BT Tower and Adastral Park. This comprised 28 x 200Gb/s (64GBaud/QPSK) sub-channels, bundled together to provide combined capacity, achieving highest capacity and spectral efficiency.

Howard Watson, CEO of BT Technology, Service & Operations, said: “BT scientists built the first commercial single mode optical fibre link back in 1984 and the BT Labs remain at the forefront of photonics research more than thirty years later. The core network is the superhighway of the internet. It’s important that our core networks keep pace with the growth in bandwidth demands driven by take-up of high-speed fibre broadband, HD content, 4G smartphones and tablets and in the future, 5G services. So we’re investing in our core, as well as in high-speed access technology such as fibre broadband, to make sure there is no capacity crunch and deliver the best possible speeds to customers.

http://www.btplc.com

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Ciena Intros Blue Planet DevOps Toolkit for SDN/NFV

Ciena introduced its Blue Planet DevOps Toolkit to help network operators speed up the creation and delivery of new on-demand, virtualized services within their SDN and NFV enabled networks.

The kit consists of a set of software development tools and community resources that allow operators to integrate network resources such as devices, functions, or domains (physical or virtual), as well as customize service templates, with the Blue Planet Network and Service Orchestration software.

Ciena said the kit could be used in the creation and on-boarding of new virtual network functions (VNFs) such as virtual firewalls, physical network domains such as Layer 2 metro networks, and virtual domains such as a third party cloud, and ultimately deploy these resources as components of new service offerings.

“Customers have made it clear that the ‘old way’ of doing business is unsustainable. Blue Planet and the DevOps Toolkit have been selected for key global engagements recently because choice, openness, empowerment, and self-service are key components of our software. Ciena is leading this revolution and our Blue Planet DevOps Toolkit allows network operators to integrate their IT, product development and operations to create an interconnected ecosystem that reduces the time required to offer new services and quickly adapt their network to changing market needs," stated Kevin Sheehan, Vice President, Global Customer Operations, Blue Planet Division, Ciena

http://www.ciena.com

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