Verizon Launches LTE Advanced - 50% Faster Peak Speeds

Verizon launched LTE Advanced service in 461 cities across the United States.

The network upgrade uses carrier aggregation to combine two or three bandwidth channels into one larger channel. Verizon is using a combination of 700 MHz, AWS, and PCS spectrum.

Verizon said users should expect 50 percent faster peak speeds when using one of the 39 LTE Advanced-capable phones and tablets already on Verizon’s network – including top-selling Samsung Galaxy S6 and S7 smartphones, Moto Droids and Apple iPhones. There is no additional cost to the user and no customer device update is required. Customers will continue to see typical download speeds of 5 – 12 Mbps, but two-channel carrier aggregation can deliver peak download speeds of up to 225 Mbps.

Verizon is also launching a national advertising and social media campaign to support its LTE Advanced rollout.

“Our customers just received a major network enhancement for no additional cost,” said Tami Erwin, head of operations for Verizon’s wireless unit. “Verizon LTE Advanced works like a turbocharger on an engine. Speed boosts kick in when you need it most, with big data use.  That’s when you get the big peak boost of Verizon LTE Advanced.”

http://www.verizon.com

• Verizon first launched commercial LTE service in 2010.

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VMware Unveils Cross-Cloud Architecture, Partnership with IBM

VMware unveiled its Cross-Cloud Architecture, which aims to deliver cloud freedom and control to customers.

In a keynote at its VMworld event in Las Vegas, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said that 75% of corporate workloads currently reside in traditional IT infrastructure vs. only 15% in public #cloud, and that it is likely to be 2030 or beyond before the majority of workloads are fully in public cloud infrastructure. VMware believes much work remains to be done. Gelsinger cited an August 2016 Economist Intelligence Unit global survey, commissioned by VMware, which found that the majority of its 600 respondents noted IT complexity is harming the operations of the enterprise. It also found that 36 percent of senior IT executives said that IT could not move fast enough to support business users. Cloud is contributing to this complexity and if not done right, can contribute to the inefficiencies as well.

The VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture promises to give customers the ability to manage, govern and secure applications running across public clouds, including AWS, Azure and IBM Cloud.

In addition, VMware announced VMware Cloud Foundation which offers a new "as a service" option that delivers the full power of the SDDC in a hybrid cloud environment.

IBM is the first VMware vCloud Air Network partner to deliver the new offerings.

"We believe that all businesses who want to thrive must embrace being a 'digital business,'" said Gelsinger. "Partners and customers want to engage with a mobile experience, and there is no longer a distinction between digital and traditional. The VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture is the strategy to run, manage, connect and secure apps in this all-digital world."

VMware is preparing to release Cross-Cloud Services, which are new SaaS offerings featuring discovery and analytics, compliance, security, etc.

http://www.vmware.com

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Mellanox Tunes its Ethernet Offload Engines for VMware vSphere

Mellanox Technologies announced software driver support for ConnectX-4 Ethernet and RoCE (RDMA over Converged Ethernet) on the VMware vSphere virtualization platform.

The new vSphere software for ConnectX-4 delivers three critical new capabilities; increased Ethernet network speeds at 25/50 and 100 Gb/s, virtualized application communication over RoCE, and advanced network virtualization and SDN (Software Defined Networking) acceleration support.  The release delivers three critical new capabilities; increased Ethernet network speeds at 25/50 and 100 Gb/s, virtualized application communication over RoCE, and advanced network virtualization and SDN acceleration support.

“In the past, customers working in virtual environments in their data centers had to trade off performance for efficiency,” said Motti Beck, senior director, enterprise market development, Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox’s advanced networking technologies for VMware vSphere enable industry-leading performance and high efficiency.”

http://www.mellanox.com/

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Samsung Commences Mass Production of 14-nm Mobile Processor

Samsung Electronics has begun mass production of Exynos 7 Quad 7570, the company’s newest mobile application processor (AP) built on 14-nanometer (nm) process technology for the budget smartphone market as well as other IoT devices.

The Exynos 7570 is also the first Exynos processor to fully integrate a Cat.4 LTE 2CA modem and connectivity solutions including WiFi, Bluetooth, frequency modulation (FM) and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) in one chip. Exynos 7570, with four Cortex-A53 cores in 14nm, delivers 70 percent improvements in CPU performance and 30 percent improvement in power efficiency when compared to its predecessor built on 28nm.

“With Exynos 7570, more consumers will be able to experience the performance benefits of the advanced 14nm FinFET process in affordable devices,” said Ben K. Hur, Vice President of System LSI Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “By successfully integrating various connectivity solutions, Samsung is strengthening its competitiveness in the single chip market”

Last year, Samsung was the first in the industry to adopt advanced 14nm FinFET technology for its premium processors and has since expanded the adoption to other segments, bringing premium features to more affordable smart devices. As part of such efforts, Exynos 7570 is the first in its class with 14nm FinFET, making it highly power-efficient while enabling outstanding performance.

http://www.samsung.com/exynos

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Nutanix Acquires PernixData and Calm.io

Nutanix announced the acquisition of two start-ups: PernixData and Calm.io.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

PernixData, which is based in San Jose, specializes in scale-out data acceleration and analytics. The company’s flagship product, PernixData FVP software, virtualizes server flash and RAM to enable scale-out storage performance that is independent of capacity. No changes are required to VMs, servers or primary storage, ensuring maximum performance of all virtualized applications in a seamless, scalable and cost-effective manner.

Nutanix said it shares PernixData's architectural design philosophy that next-generation datacenter fabrics must keep data and applications close in order to drive the fastest possible performance and to deliver flexible, cost-effective infrastructure scaling.

“PernixData software has helped hundreds of customers virtualize their applications without compromising performance and visibility,” said Poojan Kumar, CEO and co-founder, PernixData.

Calm.io is working to bring an application-first approach to choosing, managing and consuming IT infrastructure – enabling customers to pick the right cloud for each application. Nutanix said it plans to add cloud automation and management capabilities to its existing software stack to deliver application and service orchestration, runtime lifecycle management, policy-based governance, comprehensive reporting and auditing services to support all application environments, including virtual machines, containers and microservices.

http://www.pernixdata.com
http://www.calm.com
http://www.nutanix.com

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IDC Predicts 3.3% Annual Growth in IT Spending Through 2020

International Data Corporation (IDC) is forecasting that worldwide revenues for information technology products and services will grow from nearly $2.4 trillion in 2016 to more than $2.7 trillion in 2020 -- a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.3% for the 2015-2020 forecast period, according to the firm's newly updated Worldwide Semiannual IT Spending Guide..

IDC said its forecast sees positive momentum in big industries like financial services and manufacturing, where companies continue to invest in 3rd Platform solutions (e.g. cloud, mobility, and Big Data) as part of their digital transformation efforts.

The telecommunications industry is forecast to remain relatively sluggish, although spending levels are expected to gradually improve compared to the past several years. Combined, these four industries (banking, discrete manufacturing, process manufacturing, and telecommunications, which are also the industries with the largest IT expenditures) will generate nearly a third of worldwide IT revenues throughout the forecast.

"While the consumer and public sectors have dragged on overall IT spending so far in 2016, we see stronger momentum in other key industries including financial services and manufacturing," said Stephen Minton, vice president, Customer Insights and Analysis at IDC. "Enterprise investment in new project-based initiatives, including data analytics and collaborative applications, remains strong and mid-sized companies have been especially nimble when it comes to rapidly adopting 3rd Platform technologies and solutions. Assuming the economy remains stable in 2017, smaller businesses will also begin to climb aboard the 3rd Platform in greater numbers."

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41699316

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