Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Facebook to Contribute Open Packet DWDM to Telecom Infra Project

Facebook outlined its plan for Open Packet DWDM for metro and long-haul fiber optic transport networks.  The idea is to "enable a clean separation of software and hardware" based on open specifications.

Facebook had already developed a new "white box" transponder and routing platform called Voyager based on Open Packet DWDM, which it will contribute to the Telecom Infra Project.

Facebook said the Voyager open line system will include Yang software data models of each component in the system, and an open northbound software interface (NETCONF, Thrift, etc.) to the control plane software. This allows multiple applications to run on top of the open software layer, enabling software innovations in DWDM system control algorithms and network management systems.

The DWDM transponder hardware includes DSP ASICs and complex optoelectronic components, and thus accounts for much of the cost of the system. The hardware design leverages technologies implemented in Wedge 100, Facebook's top-of-rack switch, including the same Broadcom Tomahawk switching ASIC.  It also uses the DSP ASIC and optics module (AC400) from Acacia Communications for the DWDM line side with their open development environment.

Facebook worked with Lumentum to develop a terminal amplifier specification so that multiple applications can run on top of the open software layer to enable software innovations in DWDM system control algorithms and network management systems.

Some additional notes:

  • Equinix has successfully tested the Voyager solution and Lumentum’s open line system over 140km of production fiber. MTN also shared the results of their successful test of Voyager over their production fiber network in South Africa. Facebook, Acacia Communications, Broadcom, Celestica, Lumentum, and Snaproute are delivering a complete disaggregated hardware and software optical networking platform that is expected to significantly advance the industry.
  • ADVA Optical Networking is providing commercial support for Voyager, including all of the essential services and software support needed to make it a complete network solution that is ready for deployment.
  • Coriant is extending its networking software to enable engineering support for Voyager, providing routing and switching as well as DWDM transmission capabilities. The combination of DWDM and packet switching/routing opens up the potential for more open and more programmable network architectures.
  • The first TIP Ecosystem Acceleration Centers, sponsored by SK Telecom and Facebook, will open in Seoul in early 2017. Other TIP Ecosystem Acceleration Centers are being planned to encourage community participation. The latest companies to join TIP include Bell Canada, du (EITC), NBN, Orange, Telia, Telstra, Accenture, Amdocs, Canonical, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Toyota InfoTechnology Center.

https://code.facebook.com/posts/1977308282496021/an-open-approach-for-switching-routing-and-transport/


Infinera Validates Optical Line Systems with Lumentum's White Box

Infinera and Lumentum have validated Infinera’s portfolio of DWDM platforms over Lumentum’s white box optical line system.

The interoperability testing included Infinera’s XTM Series, Cloud Xpress Family and DTN-X Family (including XTC and XT Series) platforms. In addition, the companies successfully conducted interoperability testing of Infinera’s next generation Infinite Capacity Engine pilot hardware.

Specifically, the Infinera platforms interoperated with the Lumentum white box open line system including the 20 port Transport ROADM. The test cases covered point-to-point metro fiber links carrying multiple modulations including QPSK (quadrature phase shift keying), 8QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) and 16QAM with PIC based super-channels over the Lumentum open line system. The test was able to fill the fiber to full capacity at QPSK, 8QAM and 16QAM data rates via 19 super-channels injected into a single rack unit 20 port ROADM. A fully loaded solution achieves up to 24 terabits of fiber capacity using the Infinite Capacity Engine at 16QAM. The testing successfully validated standard optical parameters including optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) for seamless performance over metro distances.

The companies described the interoperability testing as the first multi-vendor driven demonstration of, and commitment to supporting, an open, interoperable and agile approach to the construction of transport networks, including for data center interconnect (DCI) and metro/edge WDM transport.

Infinera and Lumentum also noted that they are collaborating on open packet optical transport in the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), an industry initiative co-founded by Facebook.

“By validating the industry’s first white box open line system interoperability with Lumentum, Infinera has demonstrated our commitment to delivering the innovative and open optical solutions that our customers need,” said Tom Fallon, Infinera CEO. “Infinera’s leadership in technology innovation with large-scale photonic integration is changing telecom networks. This announcement is yet another step in the path to delivering on our vision of enabling an infinite pool of intelligent bandwidth that the next communications infrastructure is built upon.”

“Lumentum’s award-winning optical white boxes are designed for simplicity and scalability, with open interfaces to enable Software Defined Networking (SDN),” said Alan Lowe, Lumentum CEO. “The demonstration of successful interoperability with Infinera validates the open system approach that should deliver the simplicity and service innovation many network operators desire.”

https://www.infinera.com/infinera-validates-intelligent-transport-network-portfolio-over-lumentum-white-box-optical-line-system/
https://www.lumentum.com



Cisco Debuts Storage-Optimized UCS Servers - Cheaper than Public Cloud

Cisco introduced a new storage-optimized server category in its Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) portfolio and designed specifically to address the needs of data intensive workloads such as Big Data, streaming media and collaboration applications, as well as to deploy software-defined storage, object storage, and data protection solutions.

The new UCS S-Series Storage Server features a fully modular architecture and automation capabilities.  Cisco calculates that the first product in this series, the S3260, will lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) by over 50 percent compared to public cloud. Compared to traditional servers, the UCS S3260 can reduce CapEx by up to 34 percent.

The UCS S3260 provides a wide range of capacity and performance options with up to 600 Terabytes of storage capacity per system, frictionless scaling up to Petabytes with UCS Manager, cache acceleration, and unified I/O connectivity for any type of data storage.

Cisco also announced the next generation of its ONE Enterprise Cloud Suite, a hybrid cloud software solution with a self-service portal that can be tailored for end users, application developers and IT professionals.

http://www.cisco.com

AWS Plans Second Wind Farm in Ohio

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a new 189 megawatt (MW) wind farm in Hardin County, Ohio that will generate 530,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy annually starting in December 2017.  Amazon has contracted with EverPower, a leader in utility grade wind projects, to construct, own, and operate the new wind farm. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"We remain committed to achieving our long-term goal of powering the AWS Cloud with 100 percent renewable energy," said Peter DeSantis, Vice President, Infrastructure, AWS. “There are lots of things that go into making this a reality, including governments implementing policies that stimulate cost-effective renewable energy production, businesses that buy that energy, economical renewable projects from our development partners and utilities, as well as technological and operational innovation that drives greater efficiencies in our global infrastructure. We continue to push on all of these fronts to stay well ahead of our renewable energy goals.”

AWS noted that this is its fifth renewable energy project in the United States (and its second wind farm in Ohio) that will deliver energy onto the electric grid powering AWS data centers located in the AWS US East (Ohio) and AWS US East (N. Virginia) Regions. When this newest wind farm is completed, AWS’s five renewable energy projects will generate a grand total of 2.2 million MWh of energy annually – enough to power almost 200,000 U.S. homes

http://www.amazon.com/sustainability

Amazon Plans 253 Megawatt Wind Farm in Texas

Amazon will commission a new 253-megawatt (MW) wind farm in Scurry County, Texas, that will generate 1,000,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy annually – enough energy to power almost 90,000 U.S. homes.

Amazon Wind Farm Texas, which is scheduled to open in late 2017, will include more than 100 turbines and be the company’s largest renewable energy project to date. Amazon previously announced wind and solar farms in Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia that deliver energy to the electrical grids supplying both current and future Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud data centers. The five projects together will generate more than 2.6 million MWh of renewable energy each year.

http://www.amazon.com/sustainability

Cisco Brings on Roland Acra as SVP/GM, Data Center Business Group

Cisco announced the appointment of Roland Acra as SVP/GM, Data Center Business Group. He will be responsible for defining the next phase of Cisco data center strategy and driving development for its data center portfolio, including all data center switching products – NX2/4/5/6K, NX3K, NX7K, and NX9K, UCS, SAN, and associated products and programs.

As a long-standing industry expert in Internet routing, software engineering and communication protocol development, Roland fits right in – once again. He

Acra is a Cisco veteran having held several general management and executive leadership positions from 1991 – 2003. In 2010, he came back to Cisco as Vice President in the Smart Grid Business Unit, following the acquisition of Arch Rock , a developer of IPv6-based wireless sensor networks where he served as President and CEO. Prior to Arch Rock, he was the President and CEO of Procket Networks.

http://www.cisco.com

Red Hat Enhances Ansible for Containers, Networks and Cloud

Red Hat released Ansible 2.2, the latest version of its agentless open source IT automation framework, bringing performance enhancements, expanded container and Windows automation capabilities, and several new modules, including those for networking, cloud provider platforms, and expanded vault support.

New features include:

  • New docker_network functionality enables users to manage docker machine environments and automate their network layers simultaneously. Combined with the ansible-container project, users can now control more aspects of their container development and deployment pipelines, including how containers communicate over a network.
  • Since the Ansible 2.1 release in May 2016, Ansible’s supported networking platforms grew from ten to 20, and total network module count has more than doubled. Ansible 2.2 adds network device support for several vendors, including Cisco (ASA); Dell; F5 Networks; Nokia SR-OS;Pluribus Networks (Open Netvisor) and VyOS.
  • Expanded and enhanced Cisco NX-OS support provides modules designed to make it easier for customers to operationalize Virtual Extensible LAN (VxLAN) programmable datacenter fabrics through automation.
  • New functionality for cloud providers has been added, including: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform and OpenStack providers. Finally, new capabilities for VMware and Amazon Web Services have been added. 
  • Ansible 2.2 features new VMware virtual machine management modules and supports new AWS capabilities, including Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), Amazon Redshift and AWS Lambda.


“We are excited to see the results of the investments in our Ansible Core engineering team, as well as continued community momentum in our module development. Networking growth in Ansible has been exciting, covering more than twenty percent of all our modules. We are pleased to see continued momentum and commitment to building open source automation solutions for a wide variety of customers,” stated Tim Cramer, engineering director, Ansible, Red Hat.

http://www.redhat.com

Sonera Trials Nokia's NB-IoT

Nokia conducted a trial using NB-IoT (Narrowband Internet of Things) technology on Finnish operator Sonera's  commercial 4G network. The trial used Nokia base stations operating in the 800 Mhz band to maximize coverage.

The NB-IoT technology was used to communicate information on temperature, humidity and air pressure over Sonera's 4G network in Helsinki. The companies also connected a roaming device over the commercial network using NB-IoT technology. This world's first demonstration shows how NB-IoT technology will allow companies to track their mobile assets - for example large maintenance firms such as electricians or plumbers with fleets of vehicles or healthcare providers tracking the status of patients outside of a hospital.

NB-IoT is a 3GPP Rel. 13 radio access technology designed especially for enabling cellular connectivity to Internet of Things devices. Nokia said NB-IoT will co-exist with operators' existing networks to benefit from mobile security and privacy features.

http://www.nokia.com

Ixia Posts Q3 Revenue of $123.9 Million

Ixia reported Q3 revenue of $123.9 million, compared with $125.9 million reported for the 2015 third quarter and $120.1 million reported for the 2016 second quarter. On a GAAP basis, the company recorded net income for the 2016 third quarter of $4.8 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, compared with net income of $4.0 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, for the 2015 third quarter, and net income of $1.5 million, or $0.02 per diluted share, for the 2016 second quarter.

"We are pleased with our results in the third quarter, with revenue and EPS exceeding our guidance. Our revenue performance was driven by growing momentum for our network visibility solutions and record revenue from the enterprise market, which offset softness in our NEM markets," said Bethany Mayer, Ixia’s president and chief executive officer. "We are continuing to execute and invest in our strategy and are pleased with the early results we have generated from the changes we made to our sales leadership and organization.”


https://www.ixiacom.com/