CORD: Telcos Look to Adopt the Cloud Architecture

The CORD Project (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) is moving rapidly beyond the proof-of-concept and gaining support of major telcos and cloud providers such as AT&T, China Unicom, Google, Telefonica and Verizon, said Guru Parulkar, speaking at the inaugural CORD Summit, which was held 29-July-2016 at the Google campus in Silicon Valley.  CORD, which originated at ON.Lab, is now managed under The Linux Foundation.

The sold-out CORD Summit attracted about 200 participants from a diverse array of companies, ranging from silicon providers, system vendors, software developers, cloud companies and global carriers.

Some highlights:

• CORD has just released its first open reference implementation built on SDN, NFV, Cloud and open source platforms such as ONOS, Trellis, OpenStack, Docker and XOS.
  
• CORD will leverage merchant silicon, white boxes servers, bare metal switches and open source software platforms.
  
• XOS is the Everything-as-a-Service paradigm featuring service composition, multi-tenant services, and services with scalability and high availability;

• ONOS is the SDN OS for service providers also developed at ON.Lab. It targets scalability, performance, high availability, abstractions for apps and devices
  
• Trellis is open source SDN fabric on bare metal, combined with virtual network overlay, unified control of underlay and overlay and many applications;
  
• CORD is not only servers/switches but also network access boxes, including FTTH, LTE, etc.
  
• the CORD project is divided into the following domains: Mobile, Residential, and Enterprise.
  
• CORD introduces an SDN-enabled central office fabric with multiple levels of resiliency.
  
• CORD is using OpenStack and Docker to support a micro-services approach
  
• Google's Craig Barrett noted that his company has made considerable investments in SDN and NFV, and that it has huge network access project underway, such as Google Fiber in a growing number of U.S. cities, Wi-Fi/mobile access services, and even the futuristic Google Loon balloon Internet project. In India, Google's project with RailTel is already delivering Internet service to train commuters using a Wi-Fi + subscriber management system running in a cloud, not a traditional central office.
  
• AT&T's Al Blackburn spoke about this company's commitment to open source projects, including CORD and its ECOMP
  
• Newly announced CORD collaborators include Broadband Forum, Lime Micro (open source Software Defined Radio products), NTT East, Quortus and Telefonica. The five new collaborator companies also joined the ONOS Project
  
• Last week, CORD announced Google, Radisys and Samsung Electronics Co. as new members. Original backers include AT&T, China Unicom, Google, NTT Communications, SK Telecom, and Verizon, vendors Ciena, Cisco, Fujitsu, Intel, NEC, Nokia, etc.

“The CORD community continues to quickly grow and attract a diverse range of collaborators eager to work with us,” said Guru Parulkar, executive director of ON.Lab and board member of the CORD Project. “We are united in our focus on developing and building CORD into a mainstream solution for service providers as quickly as possible. Besides our existing service provider partners, more than 20 active collaborators and many other global service providers have also expressed interest in wanting to use CORD.”

http://www.opencord.org

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Broadband Forum and ON.Lab collaborate on CORD

The Broadband Forum agreed to collaborate with Open Networking Laboratory (ON.Lab) on the development of future broadband requirements and standards in close collaboration with open source projects in areas such as SDN, NFV, Cloud, and the CORD project.

Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh said: “Working with ON.Lab on CORD has been a very fruitful exercise and we’re pleased to formalize the arrangement with this MOU. The CORD project is an important example of the vast amount of work being done in this area and collaborating with projects like this one will be key for the Broadband Forum as we look to work more closely with open source projects to help our members feel the business benefits of SDN, NFV, Cloud and other new technologies.”

ON.Lab Executive Director Guru Parulkar said: “The Cloud CO as a concept is going to be a vital part of our work going forward and with it, operators will be able to quickly and efficiently deliver new technologies into the central office. With the help of the Broadband Forum, ON.Lab will continue to meet the challenges of re-imagining the telco CO as concepts and use cases emerge.”

http://www.broadband-forum.org
http://onlab.us

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Intel Puts its Rack Scale Design into Open Source

Intel announced the release of its Intel Rack Scale Architecture into open source code.

Intel describes its design as an industry-standard framework for disaggregating and dynamically managing compute, storage, and network resources for more efficient utilization of data center assets. The aim is to provice dynamic management of compute, memory, PCIe, and storage resources and the pooling of those resources for more efficient use of data center assets.

The architecture was discussed at last year's Intel Developer Forum (IDF 2015).

Intel Rack Scale Design is based upon and use the Redfish industry standard from DMTFOpens in a new window for modern and secure management of scalable platform hardware in the modern data center.

http://itpeernetwork.intel.com/intel-rack-scale-design-now-ready-open-source-development/

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SES Posts 1H16 Revenue of EUR 956.8 million, down 4.2%

SES S.A. reported revenue of EUR 956.8 million, down 4.2% as reported (-4.8% at constant FX), for the first six months of 2016. EBITDA came in at EUR 699.8 million, down 5.4% as reported (-5.8% at constant FX and same scope).

“SES’s first half results were in line with management’s expectations, while the appeal of SES’s differentiated and holistic solutions to major customers has continued to deliver substantial contract backlog and validates SES’s capability-driven strategy," stated Karim Michel Sabbagh, President and CEO.

A few operational highlights from the financial statement:

• HDTV channels up 12.1% (YOY) to 2,442 channels, improving HD penetration from 30.4% to 32.7%
• Of the 7,463 total TV channels broadcast by SES’s global fleet (30 June 2015: 7,164), 32.7% are broadcast in HD (30 June 2015: 30.4%). This represents a growth in HDTV channels of 12.1% (YOY) to 2,442 HDTV channels. 
• At 30 June 2016, 60% of SES’s total TV channels are broadcast in MPEG-4 (30 June 2015: 54%).
• At 30 June 2016, SES now broadcasts 16 commercial UHD TV channels (30 June 2015: none), including all regional variations. In January 2016, SES and Vivicast Media unveiled UHD-1 for audiences of North American cable operators and telcos. Then, in May 2016, SES announced an agreement for the world’s first Ultra HD sports channel, Viasat Ultra HD. 
• SES now supports a total of 57 global government customers. In January 2016, SES secured a new contract with the Kativik Regional Government, in Canada, to provide satellite services across the northern Quebec region. The contract, which began on 30 June 2016, includes 12 transponders on SES-2 to deliver critical C-band communications capabilities. The service will triple the bandwidth currently available across the region.
• As at 30 June 2016, the SES fleet had 1,550 available transponders (30 June 2015: 1,518 available transponders). The movement in available capacity includes the entry in commercial service of SES-9 (+53 incremental transponders) on 1 June 2016. This was partly offset by the ARSAT migration (-16 transponders) and reduction in available capacity on NSS-6 (-5 transponders) as a result of power degradation.

http://www.ses.com/

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