Verizon's Brendan Gunn on Network Transformation

SDN and NFV are now transforming service delivery in a material way, says Brendan Gunn, Director, Global Ethernet and IP for Verizon Wholesale.

As before, the core challenge remains to deliver connectivity to people, places and things while doing so securely, reliably and simply.

To do so, Verizon Wholesale focuses on (1) expanding the physical layer (2) building Layer 2 and 3 functionality on top of that infrastructure, including SD-WAN, NFV-as-a-service, ultra high-speed ports, etc.

See video:  https://youtu.be/Ol-YmAPSA2k

Read More

AWS Adds Transit Virtual Private Cloud Service

Amazon Web Services announced a new service that connects multiple Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), which might be geographically disparate and/or running in separate AWS accounts, to a common VPC that serves as a global network transit center.

AWS said this network topology simplifies network management and minimizes the number of connections needed. The service is implemented virtually and does not require any physical network gear or a physical presence in a colocation transit hub.

AWS said the new transit VPC supports several important use cases:

• Private Networking – a private network that spans two or more AWS Regions.
• Shared Connectivity – Multiple VPCs can share connections to data centers, partner networks, and other clouds.
• Cross-Account AWS Usage – The VPCs and the AWS resources within them can reside in multiple AWS accounts.

https://aws.amazon.com/answers/transit-vpc/

Read More

CoreSite Eyes Major Data Center Expansion in No Virginia

CoreSite Realty plans to acquire the Sunrise Technology Park (STP) in Reston, Virginia, a 21.75-acre light-industrial / flex office park 0.3 miles from its existing VA1 and VA2 buildings. CoreSite expects pay $60 million plus transaction costs, followed by an additional $90 million to complete Phase 1 of the master-planned development.

CoreSite said it estimates that it could build over 660,000 square feet of new data center capacity across multiple phases on the new parcel, which currently hosts four buildings totaling 315,000 square feet.

Currently, CoreSite's Reston campus includes two facilities totaling over 390,000 square feet of turn-key data center capacity.

"CoreSite's expansion in the Reston market is an important step in the execution of our strategy to scale our business supporting performance-sensitive customer requirements across our network-dense, cloud-enabled data center platform," said Tom Ray, President and Chief Executive Officer, CoreSite. "This planned expansion to our Reston campus is designed to meaningfully scale our colocation offering in the important Northern Virginia market, leveraging off of the installed network-and-cloud capabilities already deployed at the campus. We believe that our Reston campus presents a nexus of robust, protected, low-latency network rings serving the market, while providing diversity from Ashburn. Additionally, we believe that the planned acquisition of the STP site will provide opportunities for CoreSite to continue its successful history of providing build-to-suit and wholesale data center solutions for customers with larger requirements. With the planned acquisition, we believe that CoreSite will be well-positioned for sustained growth in the important Northern Virginia market."

http://www.coresite.com/about/news-events/press-releases/coresite-to-expand-northern-virginia-campus

Read More

NEC Announces NFV Cloud-Radio Access Network

NEC Corporation announced a "Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Cloud-Radio Access Network (C-RAN) Solution" built on Intel processors and enabled by software-based wireless base station functions.

The solutions uses Intel Architecture to handle functions that control multiple wireless base stations connected via Ethernet.

"NEC launched a range of innovative SDN/NFV solutions on the market ahead of our competitors," said Nozomu Watanabe, General Manager, Mobile Radio Access Network Division, NEC Corporation. "Looking forward, NEC will capitalize on its NFV C-RAN solutions and Management and Orchestration solutions in order to contribute to the highly efficient facility operations that are necessary for 5G."

"Intel is collaborating with global operators and telecom equipment manufacturers to develop more intelligent and agile networks that lay a foundation for 5G. Innovations in areas like cloud RAN offer increased flexibility to support a breadth of new use cases and will help accelerate progress toward 5G," said Sandra Rivera, vice president and general manager of Intel's Network Platforms Group.

NEC and Intel will be running dynamic demonstrations and showcasing the effectiveness of this NFV C-RAN solution at this week's Intel Developer Forum 2016 (IDF 2016) in San Francisco.

http://www.nec.com

Read More

Former Sprint Execs Join Rivada

Rivada Mercury today announced the appointments of four former Sprint executives to its senior leadership team: Pierre Elisseeff, Peter Campbell, Bill Esrey, and Todd Rowley.

Rivada has developed an Open Access Wireless Marketplace that allows bandwidth to be bought, sold, and traded at the wholesale level. The company’s Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage (DSA) technology allows buyers to acquire wireless bandwidth for a specific period of time in a specific location.

Having built a successful wholesale business at Sprint, Rivada Networks’ new hires will leverage the company’s technological advances to transform the mobile broadband industry.

Pierre Elisseeff is Rivada Mercury’s chief financial officer. He was previously vice president and wholesale business unit CFO at Sprint, where he successively oversaw the Enterprise/Wholesale and Postpaid Consumer
businesses.

Peter Campbell will join Rivada Mercury as chief information officer. He has more than 30 years of experience in the telecommunications sector, and joins Rivada after holding the same post at Sprint, where he recently led the deployment of OSS and BSS systems in support of Sprint’s multi-billion-dollar National US LTE Network Upgrade covering tens of thousands of cell sites.

Bill Esrey joins Rivada Mercury as senior vice president of wholesale and business development. Before joining Rivada, Bill was with Sprint where he was responsible for the growth and retention of Sprint's largest business customers selling cloud, wireline, wireless, M2M and various mobility applications. He served in Sprint’s Global Wholesale organization as vice president of operations, product, marketing and global sales. Bill brings over 27 years of experience in the telecom industry working for Sprint, Ameritech, and CentelCorporations.

Todd Rowley joins Rivada Mercury as senior vice president of business development. He most recently spent the past 16 years serving as vice president of business development at Sprint. There he was responsible for leading certain strategic partnering and commercial deals and working with the business units to develop strategic direction and new business models and opportunities. He has also led Sprint’s strategic efforts to develop and execute a rural LTE coverage strategy through partnerships with rural and regional carriers across the country.

The appointments follow the recent announcement that former Sprint CFO Joe Euteneuer joined Rivada Mercury as CEO. Rivada Mercury is the company formed by Rivada Networks, Fujitsu, the Harris Corporation, Nokia and Black & Veatch to offer to build out FirstNet’s nationwide public-safety broadband network. Euteneuer also serves as co-CEO of Rivada Networks.

“Rivada is building the best wholesale and network operations team in the industry as we move to disrupt the way wireless works. Pierre, Peter, Bill and Todd are second to none at what they do. I look forward to working them as Rivada drives the commoditization of mobile bandwidth,” stated Rivada Networks Co-CEO and Executive Chairman Declan Ganley.

Read More

Verizon Enterprise Names Vic Bhagat as CIO

Verizon Enterprise Solutions named Vic Bhagat as Chief Information Officer.

Bhagat most recently served as the executive vice president and chief information officer for EMC, where he was responsible for leading their IT transformation and overseeing their global centers of excellence that led to the delivery of IT as a service. He also provided leadership for EMC’s technology services and support to optimize enterprise processes and enable global sales.

Prior to his role at EMC, Bhagat served at GE for more than 20 years, where he was CIO for multiple organizations, including GE Aviation Services, GE Global Growth and Operations, CNBC, GE Corporate, and GE India and Southeast Asia.

http://www.verizon.com/about/news/industry-veteran-vic-bhagat-joins-verizon-enterprise-solutions

Read More

Motorola Solution Inaugurates New HQ in Downtown Chicago

Motorola Solutions inaugurated its new global headquarters in downtown Chicago at 500 West Monroe in the West Loop. The headquarters will house the company’s chief technology office, ventures group, software engineering team and corporate functions, as well an innovation center showcasing the products and services depended on by the company’s 100,000 customers worldwide.

The first teams of employees moved into the new building today, which will house six floors by mid-September. The move marks a return to Chicago for the company, which was founded in 1928 on Harrison Street.

“The story of Chicago and Motorola Solutions goes back nearly 90 years, and today we are writing a new chapter at their new home, right here in the City of Chicago,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said. “This new headquarters will employ hundreds of people and give Motorola Solutions the tools they need to grow for generations to come – access to talent, transportation and capital.”

“Where you work matters, and today we’re opening our new collaborative workspace in the heart of Chicago. We look forward to welcoming our employees as well as attracting new talent that is critical to our company’s future,” said Motorola Solutions Chairman and CEO Greg Brown. “It’s an honor to join Chicago’s thriving tech community as a pillar of innovation, ideas and opportunity.”

Motorola Solutions also maintains its current Americas Sales Headquarters at 224 S. Michigan Ave. (300 employees) and an engineering facility in Schaumburg, Ill., (1,600 employees).

https://newsroom.motorolasolutions.com/

Read More