Network Visibility 2017 - CenturyLink

To really understand how your application is performing it is critical to gain end-to-end visibility across the network, says Andy Huckridge, Director of Service Provider Solutions at Gigamon. You have to be able to measure performance across multiple layers and network boundaries.

Customers are more demanding these days, says Drew Flechsig, Director of Network Policy, Traffic and Security for CenturyLink.  Customers want visibility at Layer 2, 3 and up through the OSI stack.

Series produced by Converge! Network Digest and sponsored by Gigamon.

See video: https://youtu.be/juZgYIrw2xM

Read More

Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF – Automating Carrier Networks

Pascal Menezes, CTO, MEF provides an update on key MEF initiatives to enable orchestrated Third Network services over automated networks.  He notes that MEF is seeing “huge demand” to develop “East-West” APIs  for orchestration across multiple providers. MEF also is working on “North-South” APIs to orchestrate services over multiple technology domains within a single operator.  Stay tuned for news in the coming months about MEF’s expanded certification programs centered on orchestrated services and open APIs.

Filmed at PTC'17 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

See video:  https://youtu.be/oVYvbaq4djA

Read More

Juniper Unveils Unite Cloud Framework for Hybrid Environments

Juniper Networks introduced "Unite Cloud" - a data center framework for helping enterprises to simplify the creation and management of hybrid, multi-cloud environments.  The solution complements the previously announced Unite Campus and Unite Cloud-Enabled Branch solutions to further broaden Juniper's Unite architecture.

Juniper's Unite Cloud is aimed at building and managing many virtualized elements spread across multiple geographies and cloud environments.

The framework includes the latest version of Juniper's Junos Space Network Director data center management tool, provides advanced automation for simple management, allowing networks to scale securely with analytics that enable an enhanced experience to visualize, analyze and control the network. This provides the ability to to configure and visualize multiple data centers through a single pane of glass, relieving network administrators from performing manual provisioning and configuration. It features controller-less network virtualization to automate the building and management for overlay fabrics on top of layer 3 fabrics, utilizing Ethernet VPN (EVPN) control plane and Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) overlay.

The Unite Cloud framework uses Juniper's new QFX5110 data center switch, which is designed to be scalable and agile enough to handle high-bandwidth applications, including server virtualization and simple leaf and spine topologies to web scale fabric architectures.  Juniper is offering Contrail JumpStart services to assist customers with the deployment of the Contrail Cloud Platform or Contrail Networking software in their data centers.

"The move to hybrid, multi-cloud IT is accelerating with workloads migrating to cloud data centers at lightspeed. Enterprises require agility and elasticity for applications or services to be spun up quickly and managed efficiently and securely with limited resources. With the solutions announced today, Juniper is changing the landscape for IT leaders who are in search of open, automated and secure solutions to deploy hybrid cloud environments," stated Denise Shiffman, senior vice president, Juniper Development and Innovation, Juniper Networks.

http://newsroom.juniper.net/

Read More

AT&T Advances Project AirGig to Trials

AT&T reported progress with its Project AirGig, which aims to deploy low-cost plastic antennas along medium-voltage power lines as a means of propagating millimeter wave (mmWave) signals that can be used for 4G LTE and 5G multi-gigabit mobile and fixed deployments. AT&T confirmed that it is now in advanced discussions with power companies and others to trial Project AirGig in at least two locations by this fall. One location will be in the United States with others to be determined in the coming months.

Project AirGig ueses patented broadband-over-power lines (BPL) technology developed at AT&T Labs.  The technology has been tested at an AT&T outdoor facility for some time with positive results, leading to the development of new innovations like the Radio Distributed Antenna System (RDAS).

Significantly, there’s no direct electrical connection to the power line required and it has the potential of multi-gigabit speeds in urban, rural and underserved parts of the world.

“We are looking forward to begin testing the possibilities of AT&T Labs’ invention for customers and utility companies,” said Andre Fuetsch, president of AT&T Labs and chief technology officer. “AT&T is focused on delivering a gigabit-per-second speed everywhere we can with our wired and wireless technologies. Project AirGig represents a key invention in our 5G Evolution approach. AT&T Labs is ‘writing the textbook’ for a new technology approach that has the potential to deliver benefits to utility companies and bring this multi-gigabit, low-cost internet connectivity anywhere there are power lines – big urban market, small rural town, globally.”

AT&T noted that it now has more than 200 patents and patent applications for Project AirGig. AT&T Labs engineers and scientists invented low-cost plastic antennas, a Radio Distributed Antenna System (RDAS), mmWave surface wave launchers and inductive power devices. The RDAS will reconstruct signals for multi-gigabit mobile and fixed deployments. A typical DAS carries cellular signals throughout buildings and stadiums, using fiber and/or coaxial cables to transmit analog signals.


AT&T also confirmed that it has started deploying small cells using Centralized RAN (C-RAN) architecture on light posts in San Francisco.

In addition, based on the learnings of a G.fast trial at a multifamily property in Minneapolis, AT&T now plans to make G.fast access available at additional locations beginning mid-2017.

http://www.att.com

Read More

FCC Eliminates Two Rules in First Meeting

The FCC, now under the Chairmanship of Ajit Pai, announced the elimination of two public inspection file requirements: (i) the requirement that commercial broadcast stations retain in their public inspection file copies of letters and emails from the public; and (ii) the requirement that cable operators maintain for public inspection the designation and location of the cable system’s principal headend.

The FCC said the eliminating the correspondence file and principal headend public file requirements will reduce regulatory burdens on commercial broadcasters and cable operators.

http://www.fcc.gov

Read More

Telefónica Picks Huawei for Large Scale Virtual EPC in 13 countries

Telefónica has selected Huawei for building a large scale virtual Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) covering eleven countries in Latin America:  Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, México, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala; and two in Europe: Germany and Spain.

Huawei’s vEPC solution, named CloudEPC, enables carriers to build agile networks that quickly scale to match the performance demands of new services, reduce production costs, support faster service rollout, and dynamically allocate virtual resources while providing carrier-grade availability, security and reliability and enabling seamless integration with Telefónica's legacy networks.

The vEPC allows serving diverse use cases that include traditional customer-centric services, IoT/M2M, MVNO, private LTE, and Mobile-Edge Computing. Huawei vEPC maintains the same features as its existing physical version, SingleEPC, inheriting the long-term experience and the advantages of its leadership in communications technology.

Telefónica said it has been working with Huawei on testing CloudEPC performance in its NFV Reference Lab in Madrid. During the test, Huawei CloudEPC showed one of the best performances in both data and signaling planes by good cloud-formation architecture and by using EPA (Enhanced Platform Awareness) technologies. That achievement was a joint effort by both companies within the Telefónica NFV Reference Lab framework. Telefónica and Huawei are currently testing the onboarding of the CloudEPC solution over Telefónica´s UNICA infra cloud platform that will allow full automatization of the vEPC deployments and life cycle management within Telefónica networks.

“Telefónica has been actively working for some time in the evolution of network virtualization technologies. Huawei is a reliable EPC vendor, and a strategic partner of Telefónica collaborating in many NFV areas. This large scale vEPC network deployment is a further step within the Telefónica UNICA virtualization program where a smooth migration to UNICA infra cloud capabilities will be reached following extensive test in Telefónica LAB. These results provide the confidence needed to continue with the adoption and deployment of virtualized solutions and to enable the transformation to software-driven networking," said Javier Gavilán, Planning and Technology Director at Telefonica, Global CTO.

“Huawei is leading the All Cloud strategy for operators´ business success. This CloudEPC network build out represents a significant step forward in Telefónica’s cloud transformation roadmap and reinforces our long standing partnership as main EPC provider to Telefónica. We are delighted Telefónica has entrusted Huawei the cloudification of such critical network function, which further strengthens the cooperation within Telefónica UNICA program.” said Michael Ma, President of Cloud Core Network at Huawei.

http://www.telefonica.com

Read More

Nokia Extends IP/MPLS for Power Distribution Smart Grids

Nokia introduced its 7705 SAR-Hm, an LTE/3G wireless router aimed bring IP/MPLS to the distribution networks of utilities and other vertical applications.

Nokia noted that many power utilities currently use narrowband or proprietary wireless solutions to connect their field devices to each other and the control center, with most remote devices have no connectivity at all.

The SAR-Hm uses standards-based LTE/3G and IP/MPLS technologies, and security features in both hardware and software implementations, including Network Group Encryption (NGE).  The SAR Hm expands Nokia's mission critical WAN solution set, already deployed in over 100 utility customers globally.

Sri Reddy, head of the IP Routing and Packet Core Business Unit for Nokia, said: "Power utilities worldwide are in the midst of a significant transformation as they gear up to meet new market forces, green environmental regulations and disruptive renewable energy technologies. Grid reliability, power quality and automation are all key areas that will require improved field area networks. We are excited to offer our utility customers wireless options for extending the proven, secure and reliable IP/MPLS services of our Service Router portfolio. This will not only allow them to modernize their field area operations with more automation and monitoring for improved grid reliability and power quality, it will position them well to maximize tomorrow's opportunities."

http://www.nokia.com

Read More

DISH Acquires DBS and OTT Assets from EchoStar

DISH Network Corporation will acquire certain EchoStar assets and operations, including its EchoStar Technologies hardware and software development group, its national and regional uplink business, its managed fiber backhaul network serving all U.S. DMAs and its OTT development group, in exchange for DISH’s 80 percent economic interest in Hughes Retail Group held in the form of a tracking stock. The deal also transfers to DISH the 10 percent stake in Sling TV held by EchoStar, wireless spectrum licenses covering four markets in the 28 GHz band and certain real estate properties.

DISH will continue to market satellite broadband under the brand dishNET to rural customers.

“With this transaction we will vertically integrate all the elements that define our customer experience – one team will deliver the full DISH and Sling TV experience end to end,” said DISH President Erik Carlson. “Not only do we gain full control of product development roadmap for DBS and Sling TV but we also anticipate achieving operational efficiencies.”

http://www.dish.com

Read More

Network Visibility 2017 - Verizon

Network operators are in the early days of a significant  transformation as they provide visibility and insight into the performance of applications running across their infrastructure.  Paul Hooper, CEO of Gigamon, provides perspective on the power of visibility solutions to transform networks.

Customers want better visibility and Verizon is now providing end-to-end metrics of network services, says Greg Harris, Associate Director of Ethernet Services, Verizon.

Series produced by Converge! Network Digest and sponsored by Gigamon.

https://youtu.be/AEVdhDlmb6c

Read More

Dense Fiber Connectivity for New York City

ZENFI is rolling out over 400 route miles of high-density fiber cabling across New York City to serve the growing demand for bandwidth especially from mobile networks.

Walter Cannon, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at ZenFi,  discusses the wholesale fiber market in NYC, including the recent partnership with Cross River Fiber of New Jersey to collaborate on metro cross-connects across the wider metropolitan region.

Filmed at PTC'17 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

See: https://youtu.be/fv4XLCl6hC0

Read More

Telstra Launches Gigabit LTE with Ericsson, Qualcomm

Telstra is launching commercial Gigabit LTE service is select capital cities across Australia. The gigabit downlink performance is enabled by LTE Advanced features including 4x4 MIMO, 3CA (Three Carrier Aggregation) and higher order modulation (256QAM). Ericsson is a key technology provider for the rollout.

At its "Gigabit LTE Experience" event in Sydney, Telstra said that n addition to Gigabit LTE speeds on the downlink, its new network capability also delivers up to double the previous uplink speeds, meaning a peak upload speed of 150 Mbps. On the uplink, Telstra's new network capability uses 64QAM and 2CA (Two Carrier Aggregation) for a peak upload speed of up to 150Mbps.

NETGEAR's Nighthawk M1 Mobile Router (MR1100) will first be made available to consumers in Australia in late February, 2017. The device leverages 4x4 MIMO and is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon(TM)  X16 LTE modem.

Mike Wright, Group Managing Director, Networks, Telstra says: "As the roll out of Gigabit LTE continues, our customers with a Gigabit capable device can enjoy a faster mobile experience for both downloads and uploads. As our customers continue to use increasing amounts of data for entertainment and business use, Telstra's continuous innovation ensures our network is ready to deliver the country's best mobile experience.
"Gigabit LTE is also an important step on our journey to 5G and demonstrates Telstra's commitment to delivering Australians a world class network now and into the future. We are well placed to evolve our 4G network and are putting the building blocks in place for Australia to be ready for 5G - this will deliver more bandwidth and lower latencies which are critical for emerging applications such as downloading 4K video, IoT, autonomous vehicles, augmented reality and shared virtual reality," said Wright.

Per Narvinger, Vice President Network Systems, Ericsson says: "Once again we are pleased to partner with Telstra to deliver the world's first commercial Gigabit LTE network which we see as an important step as Telstra continues toward 5G. Gigabit LTE provides end users with even faster mobile broadband speeds, further improving their mobile experience while supporting new emerging bandwidth intensive applications. It is exciting to deliver LTE advances that employ LTE carrier aggregation of 60MHz of spectrum with higher order MIMO, and advanced LTE modulation which are all necessary ingredients for Gigabit LTE."

http://www.ericsson.com

Read More

F5 Networks Names François Locoh-Donou as CEO

F5 Networks announced the appointment of François Locoh-Donou as its new President and CEO.  He will also served on the company's Board of Directors.

Locoh-Donou succeeds current President and CEO, John McAdam, who will remain a Director on F5's Board upon his retirement on April 3, 2017. Since McAdam joined in 2000, he has led F5 to $2.0 billion in annual revenue, with 49 of the Fortune 50 as customers, and numerous industry and community awards.

Locoh-Donou currently serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Ciena, a network strategy and technology company. He previously held successive leadership positions at Ciena, including Senior Vice President, Global Products Group; Vice President and General Manager, EMEA; Vice President, International Sales; and Vice President, Marketing. Prior to Ciena, Locoh-Donou held research and development roles with Photonetics, a French opto-electronics company.

Locoh-Donou also serves on the advisory board of Jhpiego, a non-profit global health affiliate of Johns Hopkins University dedicated to providing high-quality healthcare for women and their families in developing countries. He holds engineering degrees from École Centrale de Marseille and Télécom ParisTech in France and a M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

http://www.f5.com

Read More

25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium Completes 25G/50G Plugfest

The 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium announced record participation in, and successful completion of, the first 25G and 50G Ethernet plugfest.

The plugfest, which was held at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) in Durham, New Hampshire, provided a forum where consortium members could collaborate and ensure interoperability of feature sets and configurability between their products. Sixteen companies attended the week-long event with a wide variety of test scenarios including auto-negotiation and stressed conditions. The testing demonstrated a high degree of multi-vendor interoperability and specification conformance.

The plugfest was highlighted by the following activities:

• Interoperability between vendors including adapters, switches, test and measurement devices, and interconnects
• Proving advanced infrastructure connectivity
• Plug and play multi-vendor compatibility
• Successful auto-negotiation
• Support for both forward and backward compatibility

“In order to handle the increasing amount of data, server architectures all too often require multiple 10G ports. 25G Ethernet arrives just in time and has started its climb towards dominance as the leading server-to-ToR switch interconnect. As this transition occurs, plugfests assure users that 25G and greater speeds from different vendors will perform as advertised with solid plug-and-play interoperability,” said Vittal Balasubramanian, chair of the 25G/50G Ethernet Interop Committee and Principal Signal Integrity Engineer at Dell.

“Due to the success of this interoperability test event, the steering committee of the consortium has decided to make its specification available to the public,” stated Brad Booth, chair of the 25G Ethernet Consortium. “The consortium is looking forward to future events to evaluate interoperability between the consortium specification and IEEE Std. 802.3by™-2016.”

http://www.25gethernet.org

Read More

Keysight to Acquire Ixia for $1.6 Billion

Keysight Technologies (formerly Agilent's test and measurement group) agreed to acquire Ixia for $1.6 billion in cash. Ixia shareholders will receive $19.65 per share in cash, representing a premium of approximately 45 percent to Ixia’s unaffected closing stock price on Dec. 1, 2016, the last trading day prior to media reports that Ixia was considering strategic alternatives, and a premium of approximately 38 percent to the Ixia’s unaffected 52-week high closing stock price for the period ended Dec. 1, 2016.

The companies said their combination brings industry expertise spanning electronic design, device and network validation, and application and security performance. The merged company will offer a unique combination of Layer 1 through 7 end-to-end solutions for assessing performance from the mobile device to the data center and the cloud.

Ixia has a broad IP portfolio that encompasses network communications, visibility, application and security technologies with solutions deeply rooted in software. Additionally, Ixia’s IP includes extensive networking and wireless protocols that will extend Keysight’s position in wireless communications and create a unique combination of Layer 1 through 7 end-to-end solutions that address fast-growing segments of the 5G communications design and test ecosystem.

“The proposed acquisition of Ixia is in direct alignment with our strategy to transform Keysight for growth and is 100 percent complementary to our business,” said Ron Nersesian, Keysight president and CEO. “The combination creates a powerful innovation engine to fuel growth, expands our software-centric solutions and builds new opportunities through sales and technology leverage. Ixia also brings a world-class level of talent, and together, we will provide leading-edge solutions that address the fastest-growing communications and networking trends including 5G, IoT, visibility, security and application performance.”

“We are confident that Keysight is the ideal partner to accelerate our growth initiatives and will continue to build upon our successful 20-year history,” said Bethany Mayer, Ixia president and CEO. “Ixia and Keysight share many of the same values including our dedication to innovation of leading-edge technologies, and commitment to operational excellence and financial discipline, which combine to create value for shareholders. We also have industry leading IP portfolios that are complementary, deep technical prowess and amazing teams. We believe that together, Ixia and Keysight have a tremendous opportunity to further strengthen our market leading positions and create unprecedented value for our customers, partners, employees and shareholders. The transaction also provides Ixia shareholders significant cash value at a substantial premium to market.”

http://www.keysight.com
http://www.ixiacomcom

Read More

Intel Promotes Aicha Evans

Intel has promoted Aicha S. Evans from corporate vice president to senior vice president. She is general manager of the Communication and Devices Group at Intel and is responsible for driving wireless communications for all Intel platforms. Evans joined Intel in 2006, was elected to corporate vice president in 2014, and is based in Santa Clara, California.

Intel also announced the promotion of Steven R. Rodgers from senior vice president to executive vice president. He is general counsel of Intel and leads Intel’s Law and Policy Group. Rodgers joined Intel in 2000, was elected senior vice president in 2015, and is based in Santa Clara, Calif.

In addition, Leslie S. Culbertson was promoted from corporate vice president and director of finance to senior vice president and director of human resources. She will oversee all of Intel’s human resource functions and policies. Culbertson joined Intel in 1979, was elected to corporate vice president and director of finance in 2003, and is based in Hillsboro, Oregon.

http://www.intelcom

Read More

Second Intelsat Epic Enters Service

Intelsat 33e, the second of the Intelsat EpicNG high throughput satellites (HTS), successfully completed all in-orbit testing and entered service on 29 January 2017.

Intelsat 33e was manufactured by Boeing and is equipped with the most advanced digital payload on a commercial spacecraft.

Intelsat 33e will extend Intelsat’s high throughput capacity in both C- and Ku-band from the Americas to include Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean regions.

Intelsat said it has a number of customers already committed to Intelsat 33e, some of which include Pakistani Internet service provider SuperNet Limited, African telecommunications providers such as Telkom South Africa, Orange, IP Planet, Vodacom, Dijoubti Telecom, Safarifone and Africell RDC SPRL.; Russian network service providers Romantis and RuSat LLC; and media customers including TV & Radio Broadcasting (formerly Television and Radio Broadcasting of Armenia), and MultiChoice of South Africa.

“The experience of implementing Intelsat EpicNG and bringing it to our customers has affirmed our beliefs about the potential of HTS,” said Stephen Spengler, Chief Executive Officer, Intelsat. “We have a dynamic, open and evolving platform that will increase in capability over time, providing a technology hedge for our customers that need to make investments today on which they can build for a decade of growth. Intelsat is delivering on the promise of HTS, and our design and strategy will advance our vision of unlocking access to new, larger and faster growing sectors for Intelsat and our customers.”

http://www.intelsat.com

Read More

Network Visibility 2017 - Level 3 Communications

Managing the customer experience has to be the highest priority for Service Providers, says Andy Huckridge, Director of Service Provider Solutions at Gigamon.  The next wave of software-defined services has started to roll.

Level 3 is keenly focused on the customer experience, says Adam Saenger, VP Product Development and Management, Level 3. The customer experience extends across a continuum of shop, buy, get, use, pay and renew.  Each step needs to be assessed.

Series produced by Converge! Network Digest and sponsored by Gigamon.

https://youtu.be/jjJoMs8tgqQ

Read More

PTC'17: Next-Wave Network Interconnections - DE-CIX

2016 was an eventful year for DE-CIX with the launch of the fastest-growing Internet Exchange in Madrid, the widely-distributed exchange in New York, and a new presence in Istanbul, Marseille, and Palermo, addressing the future traffic exchange requirements for African and Middle Eastern networks.

In this video, Ivo Ivanov discusses the next advances for network interconnection. It's going to be an eventful year as DE-CIX brings to market new classes of network interconnections.

Filmed at PTC'17 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

https://youtu.be/LJptj7FaHWM

Read More

Ericsson Announces Support for OpenECOMP

Ericsson announced its supportive of AT&T's OpenECOMP initiative, saying it shares the vision of a modular and model-driven management and orchestration system with analytics and policy-based control. Ericsson wants to accelerate industry alignment in Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) management and orchestration. To this end, Ericsson will support service providers who deploy OpenECOMP and work with AT&T to encourage industry alignment.

“Network Functions Virtualization is about developing software that enables the best usage of underlying common hardware platforms, while employing the agility and flexibility of a cloud environment. Ericsson, a global leader in NFV/SDN Infrastructure, Network Applications, and Management and Orchestration, is highly supportive of the open source development in this area, and Ericsson will continue to engage and drive the industry alignment, stated Ulf Ewaldsson, Ericsson’s Chief Strategy and Technology Officer.

Ericsson noted that  will continue to collaborate and contribute toward projects like OpenStack, Linux, OpenDaylight and OPNFV.

https://www.ericsson.com/news/170127-ericsson-supports-openecomp-management-orchestration_244010065_c

Read More

Source Photonics Invests in Next Generation FTTx

Source Photonics has expanded investments in its market leading 10G PON OLT and ONU product lines to support the upcoming fixed access network upgrade cycle from EPON and GPON to 10GEPON and XG(S)PON.

The company said its investment at all levels of manufacturing, including laser chips and advanced optical modules, will enable continuing leadership as the highest volume vertically integrated provider in the market. This contrasts with several industry participants who have publicly announced an exit from the FTTx transceiver market due to eroding margins and declining competitiveness.

Leveraging its vertically integrated business model and state-of-the-art LEAN manufacturing facilities, the company’s investments include capacity to support EML laser diode and optical sub-assembly volumes projected by customers and policy regulators.

“Over the last two years, we successfully ramped our 100G product line to world class levels of performance. We are excited to expand this operating infrastructure as we support early deployments of next generation FTTx networks,” stated Doug Wright, CEO of Source Photonics.

10GEPON OLT modules manufactured on the expanded lines are in production and currently available for order. XGPON and XGSPON OLT modules expected to release later this year will leverage the same manufacturing assets.

http://www.sourcephotonics.com

Read More

Nokia Builds an Engineering Digital Assistant for Telecom Carriers

Nokia introduced "MIKA" a customized 'digital assistant' for helping the network engineers of telecom operators gain faster access to critical information.

MIKA - or Multi-purpose Intuitive Knowledge Assistant - is powered by the Nokia AVA cognitive services platform and underpinned by Nokia's services expertise. It will provide voice-dictated automated assistance to reduce time spent searching information resources, enabling operators to focus on key business tasks without being distracted by the complexities of multi-technology network environments.

Nokia said its MIKA - is the first digital assistant 'trained' specifically for the telecom industry.

Igor Leprince, head of Global Services at Nokia, said: "Finding the right information is a daily challenge for telco engineers tasked with boosting network quality. MIKA taps into the power of the Nokia AVA platform to provide quick and accurate answers, avoiding time wasted on fruitless searches. MIKA is customized to support the specific needs of telecoms, and can deliver recommendations based on experience from networks around the world."

In addition to launching MIKA, Nokia introduces Predictive Repair, a service that will enable operators to reduce costs and improve network quality by moving away from break-fix approaches to hardware maintenance. This care service can predict hardware failures and recommend replacements up to 14 days in advance, with up to 95 percent accuracy. These recommendations will allow operators to improve efficiency by avoiding unnecessary site visits, wasted operations efforts, excessive inventory, and false 'No Fault Found' returns.

http://www.nokia.com

Read More

Nokia Wins EUR 30M Contract with Bangladesh's Teletalk

Bangladesh's Teletalk awarded a contract to Nokia to improve coverage in rural areas not currently covered by 2G and 3G networks and enhance the quality of services in urban areas.

Under the agreement, Nokia's will supply its Single RAN technology to allow 2G, 3G and 4G technologies to run from a single platform.  Teletalk will deploy the Nokia Single Radio Access Network (RAN) platform, extending its service offerings in parts of the capital city, Dhaka, and five divisions including Rajshahi, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Khulna and Barisal, covering 70% of Bangladesh.

At the end of September 2016, Bangladesh had 66.86 million internet subscribers, out of which 62.9 million accessed the Internet on mobile, according to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.

http://www.nokia.com

Read More

Microsoft Azure Revenue Increases 93% YoY

Microsoft posted revenue of $24.1 billion GAAP and $26.1 billion non-GAAP for its quarter ending 31-Dec-2016. Net income was $5.2 billion GAAP, and $6.5 billion non-GAAP.

“Our customers are seeing greater value and opportunity as we partner with them through their digital transformation,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Accelerating advancements in AI across our platforms and services will provide further opportunity to drive growth in the Microsoft Cloud.”

Some cloud highlights:

• Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 5% (up 7% in constant currency) driven by Office 365 commercial revenue growth of 47% (up 49% in constant currency)
• Office consumer products and cloud services revenue increased 22% (up 21% in constant currency) and Office 365 consumer subscribers increased to 24.9 million
• Dynamics products and cloud services revenue increased 7% (up 9% in constant currency) driven by Dynamics 365 revenue growth
• Revenue in Intelligent Cloud was $6.9 billion and increased 8% (up 10% in constant currency), with the following business highlights:
• Server products and cloud services revenue increased 12% (up 14% in constant currency) driven by double-digit annuity revenue growth
• Azure revenue increased 93% (up 95% in constant currency) with Azure compute usage more than doubling year-over-year
• Enterprise Services revenue decreased 4% (down 2% in constant currency) with declines in custom support agreements offset by growth in Premier Support Services and consulting.

http://www.microsoft.com

Read More

Ixia Demos 400GbE via Four-Level PAM4

Ixia successfully demonstrated 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) technology by combining eight electrical lanes of 56 Gbps, defined as 400GAUI-8 by IEEE802.3bs, via four-level Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM4).

Ixia said currently supports and collaborates with two key multisource agreement (MSA) development groups to help drive the effectiveness and efficiency of 400 GbE technology: double-density quad small-form-factor pluggable (QSFP-DD) MSA, and Octal Small Form Factor Pluggable (OSFP) MSA.

The QSFP-DD MSA Group is addressing the technical challenges of achieving a double-density interface and ensuring mechanical, electrical, thermal, and signal-integrity interoperability for module components produced by different manufacturers. Collaboration through the MSA is intended to enable faster implementation and easier operation of the high-speed, double-density quad small-form-factor pluggable interface in networking equipment. QSFP-DD addresses increasing global bandwidth consumption with its ability to quadruple aggregate switch bandwidth while maintaining port density.

The OSFP MSA is comprised of 49 industry leaders who are tasked with defining the form factor for new 400 GbE transceiver module that will support the full range of 400 GbE optics technologies, from datacenter to metro reach.

http://www.ixiacom.com

Read More

Juniper Posts Q4 Revenue of $1.386B, up 5% YoY

Juniper Networks reported preliminary net revenues for the fourth quarter of 2016 of $1,385.6 million, an increase of 5% year-over-year and an increase of 8% sequentially. Juniper's GAAP operating margin for the fourth quarter of 2016 was 21.5%, an increase from 21.2% in the fourth quarter of 2015, and an increase from 19.5% in the third quarter of 2016. GAAP net income was $197.4 million, flat year-over-year, and an increase of 15% sequentially. GAAP diluted earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2016 was $0.51.

"I am pleased to report year-over-year revenue and non-GAAP earnings growth after a challenging start to 2016," said Rami Rahim, chief executive officer at Juniper Networks. "We believe we are successfully executing on our strategy to diversify our business and capture share in the cloud and cloud-enabled segments of our market. Our innovation pipeline and product portfolio are strong and position us well as we head into 2017."

http://www.juniper.net

Read More

T-Mobile Boosts Capacity in Houston Sites 20X Ahead of Super Bowl

T-Mobile has permanently increased 4G LTE capacity nearly 20x in and around Houston’s NRG Stadium and more than 10x at area airports, venues and hotels in the last year in anticipation of the upcoming Super Bowl.

“When carriers get ready for big events, they just bring in a lot of temporary, short-term fixes. That’s not how we roll, so when we souped up T-Mobile’s network in Houston, we did it permanently and all through the city -- not just in one place and not just for the weekend,” said Neville Ray, T-Mobile CTO. “For us, just being the fastest and most advanced LTE network is never enough. We push the limits every day, and I predict T-Mobile’s LTE network will be the fastest at this year’s game, just as we were last year!”

The boost was achieved by using more LTE spectrum, including Extended Range LTE; three carrier aggregation for a total of 35+35 MHz of LTE; new small cells and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS); 4x4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) and 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM).

http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage

Read More

Ericsson and Orange Exceed 10G in 5G Testing

Ericsson and Orange have exceed 10 Gbps peak rates in lab testing for 5G technologies in France.

"The significant increase in throughputs, including on the move, is one of the promises of 5G. These ever-increasing speeds will be needed for new use cases such as Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, or the needs of business environments. Thanks to our 5G partnership with Ericsson, we are preparing the future of networks," says Alain Maloberti, senior vice president of Orange Labs Networks.

A video is posted online.

http://www.orange.com

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x59jas9_high-speed-5g-experiment-orange-and-ericsson_tech

High-speed 5G experiment - Orange and Ericsson by Orange

Read More

MACOM Completes AppliedMicro Acquisition

MACOM completed its previously announced acquisition of AppliedMicro.  MACOM plans to sell off AppliedMicro’s compute business.


John Croteau, MACOM’s President and Chief Executive Officer stated, “I am pleased to announce the completion of this transaction. AppliedMicro’s leadership in MACsec and 100G to 400G single-Lambda PAM4 positions MACOM as a preferred supplier to major Enterprise and Cloud Data Center providers, many of whom are adopting the technologies this year. MACOM will now be able to support customers with all of the requisite semiconductor content for optical networks—analog, photonic and mixed signal PHY—from the switch to fiber for long haul, metro, access, backhaul and data centers.”

http://www.macom.com

MACOM to Acquire AppliedMicro for $770 Million

Tuesday, November 22, 2016  AppliedMicro, MACOM  No Comments

MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings agreed to acquire Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AppliedMicro") for approximately $8.36 per share, consisting of $3.25 in cash and 0.1089 MACOM shares per share of AppliedMicro. The deal, which represents a 15.4% premium over AppliedMicro's closing price of $7.25 on November 18th, is valued at approximately $770 million. MACOM plans to divest AppliedMicro's non-strategic Compute business within the first 100 days of closing. The company said it is already talking to interested parties.

MACOM said the deal will accelerate its growth in optical technologies for Cloud Service Providers and Enterprise Network customers.

AppliedMicro, which supplies semiconductors for compute and computing in data centers, has approximately $165 million in TTM revenue (including the Compute business) and $82 million of cash and short-term investments. AppliedMicro's leadership PAM4 solutions based on FinFET technology and custom engagements with top-tier Data Center and service provider customers is expected to strengthen MACOM's competitive position with those customers

MACOM and AppliedMicro's pro forma combined TTM revenue was approximately $709 million including AppliedMicro's Compute business, or approximately $644 million excluding the Compute business
AppliedMicro's Connectivity business is highly complementary to MACOM's product portfolio, through the addition of market-leading OTN framers, MACsec Ethernet networking components and the industry's leading single-lambda PAM4 platform

Read More

Apple Plans to Add 200 Megawatts of Solar in Nevada

Apple reached an agreement with NV Energy to build 200 megawatts of additional solar energy in Nevada by early 2019 to support its Reno data center.

"We are proud to play a role in helping Apple meet their energy needs with Nevada's abundant solar resource," said Paul Caudill, president and CEO of NV Energy. "In partnership with our customers, we continue to develop a more balanced fuel mix in a way that benefits the local economy by providing hundreds of jobs for Nevadans, particularly those in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local 357 and 396, and advances the state's policy goals."

"Investing in innovative clean energy sources is vital to Apple's commitment to reaching, and maintaining, 100 percent renewable energy across all our operations," said Apple's vice president for environment, policy and social initiatives Lisa Jackson. "Our partnership with NV Energy helps assure our customers their iMessages, FaceTime video chats and Siri inquiries are powered by clean energy, and supports efforts to offer the choice of green energy to Nevada residents and businesses."

https://www.nvenergy.com/company/mediaroom/newsdetail.cfm?n=136958

Read More

Ericsson's Q4 Sales Drop 11% YoY

Ericsson reported Q4 2016 revenue of SEK 65.2 billion (US$7.36 billion), down 11% YoY primarily due to the decrease of SEK -5.5. b in IPR licensing revenues. Full-year IPR licensing revenues were SEK 10.0 (14.4) b. Operating income decreased to SEK -0.3 (11.0) b. in the quarter.

Ericsson said a number of markets, in regions such as Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, were impacted by a weak macroeconomic environment with a negative effect on mobile broadband investments. The underlying market remained weak in the fourth quarter with further weakness in Latin America. However, hardware deliveries previously planned for Q1 2017 were made on customer requests, and had a positive impact on sales in the fourth quarter. In combination with a weakened SEK versus USD, this resulted in a stronger than expected sequential sales growth in mobile broadband.

Global Services sales declined by -4% YoY mainly due to the reduced scope of a managed services contract in North America. Support Solutions sales declined by -39% YoY, mainly due to lower IPR licensing revenues. In addition, TV & Media sales were lower than expected due to a rapid decline in legacy products. Sales in the targeted areas declined by -7% YoY, mainly impacted by lower sales in OSS and BSS following the transition from legacy to new products. We are allocating resources into our digital transformation projects to secure important deliveries in 2017. Full-year sales for targeted areas were flat and accounted for 20% of group sales in 2016.

http://www.ericsson.com

Read More

Verizon Edgecast CDN Adds Distil Botnet Protection

Verizon Digital Media Services is partnering with Distil Networks to deliver bot protection on the Verizon Edgecast Content Delivery Network (CDN).

The partnership will enhance Verizon Digital Media Services' suite of security features, now incorporating protection against a wide-range of automated threats including: web scraping, application denial of service, account takeover, transaction fraud and digital ad fraud. The service is available immediately to Verizon Digital Media Services customers.

"Malicious bots are more sophisticated than ever and quickly becoming the biggest threat to web applications," said Rami Essaid, CEO of Distil Networks. "By partnering with Distil, Verizon Digital Media Services has added to its layered defense approach to website security, now offering customers protection against a myriad of malicious bot attacks. We are honored to have been selected as a partner by one of the largest IT infrastructure and security providers in the world."

https://www.distilnetworks.com
http://www.verizondigitalmedia.com

Read More

SentinelOne Secures $70 Million for Endpoint Security

SentinelOne, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California, raised an additional $70 million in Series C financing for its next generation endpoint security powered by machine learning and dynamic behavior analysis.

SentinelOne unifies endpoint threat prevention, detection and response in a single platform driven by sophisticated machine learning and intelligent automation. SentinelOne said its solution enables organizations to detect malicious behavior across multiple vectors, to rapidly eliminate threats with fully-automated, and to adapt their defenses against the most advanced cyber attacks.

Redpoint Ventures led the round along with new investment from Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary’s firm, Sound Ventures. Existing investors Third Point Ventures, Data Collective, Granite Hill Capital Partners, Westly Group, and SineWave Ventures also participated in the round, bringing the total investment in SentinelOne to more than $110 million to date.

“Confidence remains dismally low when it comes to traditional antivirus’ ability to stop anything but the most mundane threats. Even vendors that are now touting machine learning-based file-scanning, and artificial intelligence capabilities are in fact pursuing a very narrow approach, and only an incremental improvement – if any – to a much broader problem,” said Tomer Weingarten, co-founder and CEO of SentinelOne. “The time is now to migrate away from these ineffective technologies that remain focused on only a subset of threats and replace with a next-generation endpoint protection platform that’s been tested and proven to stop even the most advanced cyber threats.”

http://sentinelone.com

Read More

AT&T Hits Financial Targets as Revenue & Income Dip

AT&T posted Q4 consolidated revenues of $41.8 billion, down from $42.1 billion in the year-ago quarter. Compared with results for the fourth quarter of 2015, operating expenses were $37.6 billion versus $34.6 billion; operating income was $4.2 billion versus $7.5 billion; and operating income margin was 10.2% versus 17.9%.

Fourth-quarter net income attributable to AT&T totaled $2.4 billion, or $0.39 per diluted share, compared to $4.0 billion, or $0.65 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Cash from operating activities was $10.1 billion in the fourth quarter, and capital expenditures were $6.5 billion.

“2016 was a transformational year for AT&T, one in which we made tremendous progress toward our goal of becoming the global leader in telecom, media and technology,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO. “We launched DIRECTV NOW, our innovative over-the-top streaming service. Our 5G evolution plans and improved spectrum position are paving the way for the next-generation of super-fast mobile and fixed networks. And we shook-up the industry with our landscape-changing deal to acquire Time Warner, the logical next step in our strategy to bring together world-class content with best-in-class distribution which will drive innovation and more choice for consumers."

Some highlights:

• 2.8 million wireless net adds in Q4, including 1.5 million U.S. and 1.3 million Mexico
• 9.5 million wireless net adds for full year 2016, including 6.2 million U.S. and 3.3 million Mexico
• 1.1 million branded smartphones added to subscriber base in Q4
• Best-ever postpaid phone churn of 0.98% in Q4
• Wireless postpaid churn of 1.16% in Q4
• Strong DIRECTV NOW launch with more than 200,000 paid net adds
• 235,000 U.S. DIRECTV satellite net adds with stable linear TV subscriber base
• 149,000 IP broadband net adds with stable total broadband base
• Nearly 400 million North American 4G LTE POPs

http://www.att.com

Read More

F5 Posts Revenue of $516 Million, up 5.4% YoY

F5 Networks reported Q1 revenue of $516.0 million, up 5.4 percent from $489.5 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016.

GAAP net income was $94.2 million ($1.44 per diluted share), compared to $89.7 million ($1.28 per diluted share) in the first quarter a year ago. Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation and amortization of purchased intangible assets, non-GAAP net income was $130.3 million ($1.98 per diluted share), compared to $120.6 million ($1.73 per diluted share) in the first quarter of last year.

“As we anticipated, the launch of BIG-IP iSeries, which we successfully completed in November, was a significant contributor to product revenue which grew 2 percent year-over-year,” said John McAdam, F5 president and chief executive officer. “iSeries bookings during the quarter represented approximately 18 percent of appliance bookings and we believe that percentage will increase during the current quarter with general availability of the complete family for the entire quarter.

“Product sales were robust in the Americas, APAC and Japan in Q1, while sales in EMEA remained relatively soft, and were down year over year. As we emphasized during our Analyst/Investor Meeting in November, the array of new products we have brought to market recently and those we are introducing this quarter are closely aligned with major industry trends and the needs of large organizations worldwide. We believe the migration of applications to public and private clouds, the build-out of hybrid cloud infrastructures, the explosion of SSL-encrypted traffic, and the need to provide security for applications, including the burgeoning array of IoT applications, all represent major market opportunities in the current quarter and beyond.”

http://www.f5.com

Read More

Global Capacity Expands Network Edge Nationwide

Global Capacity announced its nationwide Ethernet service expansion with a network investment in 346 central offices.

Global Capacity said its investment in central office facility equipment enables it to leverage the existing copper infrastructure to deliver from 1 Mbps up to 100 Mbps access directly to customers, satisfying the growing demand for hybrid and SD-WAN network solutions.

"As demand for our Ethernet offerings continues to soar, Global Capacity recognizes the need to respond quickly to businesses to provide scalable solutions that can meet demand as they grow," comments Jack Lodge, President, Global Capacity. "Global Capacity will continue to expand Ethernet coverage in 2017 to address the need to connect to high-value destinations, including private and public Cloud, business applications, internet and data centers."

With this expansion, Global Capacity increases the density of its Ethernet services footprint, making the following services available to an additional 302,188 new commercial addresses in 264 cities across 36 metro markets in 20 states:

Ethernet over Copper (EoC): Offers symmetric speeds ranging from 1 Mbps up to 100 Mbps to over 2.2 million business addresses. Global Capacity Ethernet over Copper affords businesses with access to high-bandwidth, resilient and cost-efficient service. EoC gives businesses that are in buildings without fiber connectivity a strong, high-speed option. Service is based on location availability.

Asymmetric Ethernet (AsyE): Offers asymmetric speed up to 50/10 Mbps. Global Capacity Asymmetric Ethernet fills the gap for businesses where other broadband services fall short. It offers COS business-class uptime guarantees and MPLS and Voice application support. Service is based on location availability.

http://www.globalcapacity.com

Read More

Ciena Blue Planet Adds Analytics

Ciena is integrating analytics and machine learning into its Blue Planet portfolio to help service providers improve the end user experience and simplify network operations.

Specifically, Blue Planet Analytics combines analytics with orchestration and policy. It utilizes machine learning on data collected from multiple sources, including multiple network vendors, layers and physical or virtual domains. It can also take advantage of third party big data cluster systems such as Hadoop, Cloudera, and Hortonworks.

Ciena said the new capability and related applications gives operators the ability to visualize and identify trends in order to create more profitable services, better predict capacity requirements, and anticipate potential network and service disruptions before they take place.

“We’ve long anticipated how today’s emerging trends like 5G, IoT and virtualization would fundamentally change networks and drive new business models. A natural extension of our Blue Planet software suite, our new Analytics capability and NHP application give operators a powerful mechanism to improve network performance and speed our customer’s transition to a more intelligent, automated, and profitable network,” stated Nirav Modi, Vice President and General Manager, Blue Planet, Ciena.

http://www.ciena.com

Read More

PTC'17: Internationalising Data Centres for China

China is likely to become the world's largest data centre market. Chayora is a world-class infrastructure developer based in Hong Kong with a primary focus on building data centre platforms in China.

In this video, Chris Miller, Global Client Director at Chayora, discusses the company's operational strengths and prospects for growth in China.

Filmed at PTC'17 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

https://youtu.be/lzxY-lxONog

Read More

Apstra Demos Wedge Switch Running its OS

Apstra, a start-up based in Menlo Park, California, released its Apstra Operating System (AOS) 1.1.1 and an integration with Wedge 100, Facebook’s second generation top-of-rack network switch.

Apstra said its distributed operating system for the data center network will disaggregate the operational plane from the underlying device operating systems and hardware. Sitting above both open and traditional vendor hardware, AOS provides the abstraction required to automatically translate a data center network architect’s intent into a closed loop, continuously validated infrastructure. The intent, network configurations, and telemetry are stored in a distributed, system-wide state repository.

“At Apstra we believe in giving network engineers choice and control in operating their network and we are excited to be part of the network disaggregation movement,” said Mansour Karam, CEO and Founder of Apstra, Inc. “We are delighted to have been invited to demonstrate AOS integrated with Wedge 100 today. AOS provides network engineers with advanced operational control and situational awareness of network services, and enables them to design, deploy, and operate a truly Self-Operating Network™ (SON) without vendor lock-in.”

http://www.apstra.com

Facebook Deploys Backpack -- its 2nd Gen Data Center Switch

Tuesday, November 08, 2016  Data Centers, Facebook, Switch  No Comments

Facebook unveiled Backpack, its second-generation modular switch platform developed in house at Facebook for 100G data center infrastructure. It leverages Facebook's recently announced Wedge switch.

Backpack is designed with a clear separation of the data, control, and management planes. It uses simple building blocks called switch elements. The Backpack chassis is equivalent to a set of 12 Wedge 100 switches connected together. The orthogonal direct chassis architecture opens up more air channel space for a better thermal performance for managing the heat from 100G ASICs and optics.  Facebook will use the BGP routing protocol for the distribution of routes between the different line cards in the chassis.

The design has already entered production and deployment in Facebook data centers.  The company plans to submit the design to the Open Compute Project.

https://code.facebook.com/posts/864213503715814/introducing-backpack-our-second-generation-modular-open-switch/

Read More

Cisco Acquires AppDynamics for $3.7 Billion

Cisco agreed to acquire AppDynamics, a start-up based in San Francisco, for approximately $3.7 billion in cash and assumed equity awards. AppDynamics will be run as a new software business unit in Cisco's IoT and Applications business.

AppDynamics offers an Application Intelligence Platform that helps businesses proactively monitor, manage, analyze and optimize complex software environments, providing real-time, actionable IT operational and business insights into application performance, user experience, and business outcomes — all in real time. AppDynamics said its helps ensure maximum application and business performance, greatly improved DevOps collaboration for faster delivery, and enhanced analytical insight leading to better decision-making.

Cisco said real-time visibility and intelligence at the network, security and application layers is transformational for companies.

"Applications have become the lifeblood of a company's success. Keeping those apps running and performing well has never been more important. Unfortunately, that job has only gotten harder, as IT departments and developers struggle with a tangled web of disconnected, complex data that's hard to understand," said Rowan Trollope, Cisco senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Internet of Things and Applications Business Group. "The combination of Cisco and AppDynamics will allow us to provide end to end visibility and intelligence from the network through to the application; which, combined with security and scale, and help IT to drive a new level of business results."

"AppDynamics is empowering companies to build and successfully run the applications they need to compete in today's digital world," said David Wadhwani, AppDynamics CEO and president. "With digital transformation, companies must re-define their relationships with customers through software. We're excited to join Cisco, as it will enable us to help more companies around the globe."

http://www.cisco.com
http://www.appdynamics.com

Read More