Broadcom's Tomahawk II Switch Packs 64 Ports of 100GE

Broadcom announced its StrataXGS Tomahawk II Switching chip -- the highest performance Ethernet switch to date, packing up to 64 ports 100GE or 128 ports of 50GE with SDN-optimized packet switch engines operating at 6.4 Terabits per second.

The StrataXGS Tomahawk II  Tomahawk II integrates 256 serdes running at over 25 Gbps, with large on-chip forwarding tables and packet buffer memory.  The chip supports Broadcom's next generation BroadView instrumentation and control capabilities. Tomahawk II also provides enhanced traffic load balancing, network visibility and control of traffic provisioning.

StrataXGS Tomahawk II Key Features

• 6.4 Tbps Multilayer L2/L3/MPLS Ethernet switching
• Support for 64 ports 100GE, or 128 ports 40GE/50GE
• 256 x 25Gbps SERDES
• Low Latency StrataXGS Pipeline Architecture
• FleXGS flow processing with flexible match/action capabilities
• Dynamic Flow Distribution for large scale Layer3/ECMP networks
• Increased On-Chip Forwarding Databases
• Higher Capacity Embedded Packet Buffer Memory
• Enhanced BroadView network telemetry features
• Comprehensive overlay and tunneling support including VXLAN, NVGRE, MPLS, SPB
• Advanced OpenFlow support using Broadcom OF-DPA
• 16nm process

"Our StrataXGS Tomahawk II comes just two years after Tomahawk with twice the bandwidth and resource capacity. We expect this to accelerate 100G adoption in the next wave of data centers, while delivering network scale and visibility for public/private cloud computing, storage and HPC fabrics," said Ram Velaga,  senior vice president and general manager, Switch Products at Broadcom. "Tomahawk II will leverage the 25G/100G infrastructure established with the highly successful Tomahawk line.”

http://www.broadcom.com

Read More

A10 Rolls Out Big Gun to Fight DDoS Attacks

A10 Networks introduced "the industry’s biggest gun" in the rapidly escalating war against DDoS attacks -- the A10 Thunder 14045 TPS (Threat Protection System) for Service Providers, Internet Content Providers, and Cloud operators.  The appliance packs 300 Gbps of mitigation throughput capacity (or 2.4 terabits per second in a cluster).

A10 is also expanding its Thunder TPS family with a new 840 model offering 2 Gbps of mitigation throughput capacity for medium-sized enterprises or remote sites. In addition, the company is introducing NFV-based DDoS solutions at performance tiers from 1 to 5 Gbps.

A10 said its Thunder TPS can block multi-vector DDoS attacks to stop disruption, detecting and mitigating them at the network edge, and functioning as a first line of defense for the network infrastructure.

“It’s all about the customer,” said Raj Jalan, CTO of A10 Networks. “We’re helping service providers and enterprises fight back against the rising DDoS onslaught so they can be proactive, not reactive. True multi-vector, always-on protection helps them ensure uptime, exceed operational readiness and productivity, and avoid brand damage due to costly outages.”

Some highlights:

A10 Thunder 14045 TPS
Performance: 300 Gbps, 440 Mpps, 2.4 Tbps in a cluster.
Specification highlights: SPE with FPGA, 4x18 core Xeon, 3 RU, 4x100 GbE, 2+2 redundant 80 Plus Platinum rated power supplies.

A10 Thunder 840 TPS 
Performance: 2 Gbps, with hardware bypass option.

A10 vThunder TPS 
Performance: 1, 2, and 5 Gbps. Available on VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisors.

https://www.a10networks.com/news/stop-multi-vector-ddos-disruption-expanded-thunder-tps-solution

Read More

Ericsson Opens New Campus in Silicon Valley

Ericsson inaugurated its new Silicon Valley campus at 2795 Augustine Drive (visible from Highway 101) in Santa Clara, California.

The new buildings consolidate various Ericsson teams around the San Francisco Bay area.  The campus also hosts a state-of-the-art Experience Center for showcasing the full potential of the Networked Society, including 5G, IoT and cloud.

http://www.ericsson.com

Read More

Webscale Raises $12 Million for Cloud Application Delivery

Webscale Networks raised $12 million through a Series A1 round of funding for its multi-cloud, software-defined application delivery controller (ADC).

Webscale’s software-defined cloud stack enables Layer 4-7 functionality delivered as-a-service within all cloud environments, public, private or hybrid. Integrated analytics provide insight into global web applications deployed by the enterprise.

Webscale said its platform is gaining momentum in the e-commerce segment as well as initial traction within the broader enterprise. Product enhancements and a strengthened sales team have delivered a 2X increase in bookings year over year, and broadened the company’s reach into new territories, including the UK, Canada, China and Australia.

“Large e-retailers understand the concept of front and back-end infrastructure scaling, which keeps their sites fast, secure and available. Webscale helps the remaining 99.9 percent of the market compete with them,” said Sonal Puri, CEO at Webscale. “Enterprise applications are becoming increasingly web-enabled, need to be cloud-agnostic, and easy to manage across infrastructures to avoid lock-in. Our expertise in providing these benefits in addition to constant availability, high-performance and enhanced security and analytics will serve us well as we expand into the broader enterprise.”

The new funding round was led by Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV) and also included new investment from Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV), Grotech, and Silicon Valley Bank. Webscale's total financing now stands at  $20 million.

http://www.webscalenetworks.com

Read More

Level3 Appoints CTO and CIO

Level 3 Communications (NYSE: LVLT) named Andrew Dugan Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Atilla Tinic Chief Information Officer, effective immediately.

As CTO, Dugan will continue to lead Level 3's Global Technology Organization, with a focus on global network technology, architecture, engineering, network systems and security. He has more than 30 years of experience in building telecommunications networks, switching platforms and services platforms. Dugan has bee1111n with Level 3 since 1998 and has served as interim lead for the Global Technology and IT Organization since June 2016.

Tinic has responsibility for the global IT organization and, in collaboration with marketing and network technology, its critical role in innovating services for our customers. He has more than 20 years of experience in IT architecture, system engineering and data management. Tinic joined Level 3 in 2014 as part of the tw telecom acquisition and had been with the company since 2004. His former role was Senior Vice President of IT.

http://www.level3.com

Read More

UNH-IOL to Host G.fast Interoperability Demo

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) will host a multi-vendor G.fast interoperability demo in the Broadband Forum Interoperability Pavilion at next week's Broadband World Forum (BBWF) in London.

The demo showcases G.fast interoperability between products from six companies based on chipsets from three different providers. Additionally, the UNH-IOL will be showing some live testing during the demo, based upon the forthcoming G.fast Certification Program.

Companies taking part in UNH-IOL’s demo are Calix, Digital Lightwave, Huawei, Metanoia Communications, Technicolor, and Telebyte.

“Proving cross-chipset interoperability enables G.fast technology to become an even more powerful tool for service providers to achieve higher speeds to the subscriber over short distances,” said Tom Starr, Broadband Forum President. “This interoperability ultimately ‘future proofs’ the network, so that new devices can effortlessly work with already deployed devices, saving time and money.”

http://www.iol.unh.edu

Read More