Radisys Contributes LTE-RAN Software for M-CORD to Open Source

Radisys has open sourced its industry-validated and tested LTE RAN software, making it available under the Apache 2.0 license for ON.Lab’s open Mobile-CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) 5G architecture.

The M-CORD reference solution brings the CORD framework to the mobile edge of the network for 5G services.

Radisys said that by delivering an open source RAN for M-CORD, its is enabling communications service providers to fast track their migrations from the traditional Central Office to virtualized data centers built with open source components.

“By making Radisys’ LTE RAN software open sourced, Radisys further cements its commitment to the open source movement as integral part of our corporate strategy to enable communications service providers to avoid vendor lock-in and reduce time-to-market,” said Brian Bronson, president and CEO, Radisys. “Radisys’ LTE RAN software is field-hardened and proven globally in deployments around the world. By bringing our LTE RAN to the open source community through M-CORD, we can enable a 5G platform today while also focusing on delivery of a 5G RAN solution.”

“Coming on the heels of Radisys delivering the industry’s first Evolved Packet Core open source software for M-CORD, the addition of an open source LTE RAN solution to M-CORD provides communications service providers with an accelerated path to deploying 5G services,” said Guru Parulkar, executive director, ONF, ON.Lab and Stanford Platform Lab. “Radisys has been a leading proponent of M-CORD as a system integrator and this new open source software offering underscores its unparalleled commitment to M-CORD’s success. We look forward to continuing our collaboration efforts with the Radisys team and supplying open source architectures that aid in the deployment of 5G.”

Radisys’ open source LTE RAN reference solution for the M-CORD reference architecture will be available March 2017. Radisys’ own M-CORD solution is a compilation of the company’s open source LTE RAN and EPC reference architecture pre-integrated and deployed on its DCEngine platform – an open hardware solution based on the OCP-ACCEPTED CG-OpenRack-19 specification from the Open Compute Project. The combination of this open software and hardware solution with Radisys’ integration, validation and custom development services delivers a service provider-ready solution.

http://www.radisys.com

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Radisys and China Unicom Partner on M-CORD

Radisys and China Unicom are partnering to build and integrate Mobile CORD (M-CORD) development PODs that use open source software.

M-CORD, built on top of ONOS and the CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter) open source project, combines data center economics and the agility of the cloud with the benefits of a virtualized and disaggregated mobile core, as well as access infrastructure and mobile edge computing for innovation and deployment of 5G services.

Under the partnership, Radisys, acting as a CORD systems integrator, will leverage CORD’s open reference implementation to bring China Unicom’s network cloud agility and improved economics.  The companies will work together to develop deployment scenarios for this solution in China Unicom’s network.

Radisys said M-CORD makes mobility more cost-efficient, more software-programmable and more cloud-elastic. The emerging platform is seen supporting 5G services in three key areas: mobile edge services, virtualized Radio Access Network (RAN), and virtualized Evolved Packet Core (EPC). Additionally, Radisys and China Unicom will develop together an open reference implementation of a virtualized RAN (vRAN) and an open reference implementation of next-generation mobile core architecture with observability and analytics.

“As China Unicom evolves its network from 4G to 5G, it requires a fully virtualized and disaggregated infrastructure to better serve its residential, enterprise and mobile customers,” said Joseph Sulistyo, senior director of open networking solutions, Radisys. “We’re confident that together we can build and integrate an M-CORD POD to facilitate a robust 5G mobility infrastructure, thereby enabling China Unicom to rapidly deploy new 5G services on its network.”

“China Unicom is collaborating with Radisys to collectively develop technology enablers and use cases for 5G services,” said Dr. Tang Xiongyan, CTO, Network Technology Research Institute, China Unicom. “Radisys will also provide us with its recommended deployment scenarios and feasibility analysis as well as an effective prototype demonstration of the solution in our mobile network. We’re encouraged that its efforts will yield great results for our subscribers.”

See the M-CORD Demonstration at Mobile World Congress

Radisys and ON.Lab will demonstrate M-CORD use cases running on commodity hardware and on DCEngine at Mobile World Congress, February 27-March 2 in its Booth 5I61 in Hall 5.

http://chinaunicom.com.cn
http://www.radisys.com

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AWS Gears Up Massive Multiplayer Games

Amazon Web Services' GameLift service has added support for games built with any C++ or C# game engine, including Amazon Lumberyard, Unreal Engine, Unity, and custom developed engines.

Amazon GameLift enables developers to scale their dedicated multiplayer game servers to support millions of players using AWS’s highly available cloud infrastructure, without investing thousands of hours in upfront engineering.

AWS also announced that Amazon GameLift includes new matchmaking functionality that intelligently selects the closest available game server based on each player’s location, giving players the lowest possible latency by leveraging AWS’s broad global footprint. Game developers only pay for the compute, storage, and bandwidth resources their games use, with no upfront commitments or monthly contracts. To get started with Amazon GameLift, visit

“The majority of leading game companies use AWS, and our customers have consistently asked us for an easier way to deploy, operate, and scale dedicated game servers for their multiplayer games,” said Chris Dury, General Manager, Amazon GameLift. “We built Amazon GameLift to save developers time and money while delivering world-class experiences for their players. We are excited to now offer Amazon GameLift’s benefits to more game developers by adding support for any C++ and C# game engine.”

http://aws.amazon.com/gamelift

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Verizon Enterprise Picks Ericsson for NFV Services

Verizon Enterprise Solutions has selected Ericsson for its virtualized global Managed Network Services offerings, including Software Defined Wide Area Networking (SD WAN) services. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ericsson said it will supply enabling technologies to allow Verizon customers to take advantage of self-service ordering and configuration, end-to-end automation and flexible payment models resulting in more efficient service delivery. The self-service offerings are expected to include security packages, WAN optimization and data center load balancing for tighter service integration and better performance.

Specifically, Ericsson is providing to Verizon end-to-end dynamic orchestration, closed-loop service assurance and virtual network function (VNF) onboarding and testing. The solution is based on Ericsson's orchestration offering in conjunction with consulting and systems integration services. Ericsson Cloud Manager, including model-driven configuration management, and Ericsson Order Care provide the orchestration engine while the VNF Factory enables efficient onboarding and validation of VNFs into Verizon's ecosystem, while reducing its time to market for new Verizon enterprise services.

Shawn Hakl, Vice President of Networking and Security Solutions, Verizon, says: "This project grew out of Verizon's long-standing relationship with Ericsson and builds on the successful launch of our mobile offering that leverages Ericsson's cloud orchestration solutions to provide VPN capabilities for mobile devices. We are jointly developing on Ericsson's innovative and comprehensive platform to enable a wide range of secure virtual networking services to our enterprise customers."

"Our latest work together in NFV Orchestration will help Verizon to continue to lead the industry with its hybrid managed networks at scale. Verizon offers the flexibility, speed and scale required for proactively meeting the needs of enterprise customers worldwide," stated Jean-Philippe Poirault, Head of Business Unit IT & Cloud Services at Ericsson.

https://www.ericsson.com/news/2080007

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Zayo Selected by Webscale Cloud Provider for Metro Dark Fiber

Zayo announced a contract to supply metro dark fiber in Chicago to a global webscale cloud provider.

Zayo said this project will connect six data center locations with 20 diverse segments totaling 280 strands across all segments, with up to 26 strands per segment. The solution is built on Zayo’s dense metro network in Chicago, with more than 90 percent of the solution leveraging in-place network.

“Zayo is well positioned to meet the needs of global cloud providers for connectivity, both within their enterprise and to business customers,” said Joe Stockhausen, vice president, Dark Fiber Solutions, Central Region at Zayo. “Our fiber density, network diversity and ability to meet aggressive delivery requirements were differentiators that won us this deal.”

http://www.zayo.com

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Netcracker Unveils Cloud-Based Online Charging System

Netcracker Technology unveiled a next-gen Cloud-Based Online Charging System (OCS) for helping Service Providers transform their billing for the digital world.

Key capabilities of Netcracker's Cloud OCS include:

• Always-on availability at a lower cost. A software-based approach reduces hardware dependency, keeps costs down and delivers unparalleled availability and real-time functionality.
• Cloud elasticity and scalability. OCS supports horizontal and vertical scalability across all layers.
• Converged revenue management scenarios. Unlike legacy OCS that focused on specific rating and charging schemes, Netcracker's Cloud-Based OCS enables and supports converged revenue management capabilities across all business lines, including pre-paid and post-paid models for all types of services. It also centralizes storage for all rating, charging, subscriber and policy information onto a single product. This simplified data management and its catalog-driven configurations also means that service providers can lower integration costs and reduce the time it takes to bring new and innovative digital services to market.
• Support for VoLTE, virtualized, 5G and IoT services. Netcracker's Cloud-Based OCS, with its faster speeds and extremely low latency, creates the ideal platform for service providers to monetize real-time interactive multimedia offerings, such as augmented reality, virtual reality and real-time online games.
• Deployment flexibility across any physical and virtual environment. Netcracker's Cloud-Based OCS' architecture is designed to be deployed and operated in any environment, including physical, any type of cloud (private, public or hybrid) and virtualized infrastructure. This minimizes the reliance on complex, custom-built hardware and lowers total cost of ownership for service providers.
• Embedded analytics. Closed-loop alignment with analytics and campaign management enables service providers to deliver the right offer to the right customer at the right time.

"Traditional revenue management platforms have not been able to keep pace with the needs of communications service providers as they transform into digital service providers," said Sanjay Mewada, Chief Strategy Officer at Netcracker. "Netcracker has evolved its OCS to address these precise needs. Our Cloud OCS, with its unparalleled elasticity, always-on availability and embedded analytics, removes the barriers to digitalization and allows our customers to rapidly monetize digital offerings, such as VoLTE, 5G, virtualized and IoT services."

http://www.netcracker.com

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Sweden's EQT Investment Firm to Buy Lumos Networks for $950 Million

Lumos Networks, a fibre-based service provider in the Mid-Atlantic region, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by the EQT Infrastructure investment strategy for $18.00 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $950 million.

Under the terms of the agreement, EQT Infrastructure will acquire all of Lumos Networks' common stock for $18.00 per share, representing a premium of 18.2% to the Lumos Networks closing price of $15.23 on February 17, 2017. The offer price also represents a 34.9% premium to the volume-weighted price average over the last 12 months of $13.35 and a 16.5% premium to $15.45, the average closing price for the past 20 trading days.

Lumos Networks serves carrier, enterprise and data centre customers, offering end-to-end connectivity in 24 markets in Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Kentucky. It has a fibre network of 9,204 fibre route miles and 475,507 total fibre strand miles that connects 1,297 fibre-to-the-cell sites, 1,642 FTTC connections, 36 data centres, including 7 company owned colocation facilities, 1,984 on-net buildings and around 3,300 on-net locations.

Recently, Lumos announced it had acquired Charlotte, North Carolina based DC74 Data Centers for $23.5 to $28.5 million, depending on future growth earn-out projections. It also recently announced closing of its acquisition of Clarity Communications, with a 730 mile fibre network with 75 on-net locations, mainly in North Carolina.

EQT stated that the transaction has been approved by all voting members of the board of directors. Completion of the transaction, subject to shareholder approval, regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions,
is expected during the third quarter of 2017.

EQT, based in Sweden, is an alternative investments firm with approximately Euro 31 billion in raised capital in 21 funds with portfolio companies in Europe, Asia and the U.S. Portfolio companies include Norwegian broadband provider Broadnet, IP-Only, a provider of data communications and data centre services in Sweden, subsea telecom infrastructure provider IslaLink.

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Ixia Posts Preliminary Q4 Revenue of $128 Million

Ixia reported preliminary total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2016 of $128.2 million, compared with $138.5 million reported for the 2015 fourth quarter and $123.9 million reported for the 2016 third quarter. On a GAAP basis, the company expects to record net income for the 2016 fourth quarter of $5.4 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, compared with net income of $5.8 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, for the 2015 fourth quarter, and net income of $4.8 million, or $0.06 per diluted share, for the 2016 third quarter. Non-GAAP net income for the 2016 fourth quarter was $17.7 million, or $0.21 per diluted share, compared with non-GAAP net income of $18.7 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, for the 2015 fourth quarter, and non-GAAP net income of $15.2 million, or $0.18 per diluted share, for the 2016 third quarter.

"We achieved strong results in the fourth quarter with increased momentum for our network visibility solutions, and we expect earnings and revenue in-line with our guidance. Revenue for our network visibility solutions grew 22% year-over-year, driven by increased demand in the enterprise. With our continued focus on operational excellence and financial discipline we generated strong cash flow from operations during the quarter, bringing our total for the year to $81 million,” said Bethany Mayer, Ixia’s president and chief executive officer.

http://www.ixiacom.com

Keysight to Acquire Ixia for $1.6 Billion

Monday, January 30, 2017  Ixia, Keysight, Mergers And Acquisitions, Testing  No Comments

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...

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MaxLinear Launches 32 Gbaud Linear Coherent TIA for 200G

MaxLinear, a major supplier of RF and mixed-signal integrated circuits for broadband, the connected home, data centre, metro and long-haul fibre networks and wireless infrastructure, has introduced the
MxL9105 dual-channel linear coherent transimpedance amplifier (TIA) targeting 100/200 Gbit/s DWDM coherent transmission systems.

Delivering characteristics including low input referred noise density, total harmonic distortion (THD), power dissipation and channel crosstalk with high channel bandwidth, the new MxL9105 device is designed to meet the performance requirements of next-generation intradyne coherent receiver (ICR) designs for long-haul and metro network applications.

MaxLinear's MxL9105, which is now sampling, is a dual-channel TIA supporting a per-channel data rate of 32 Gbaud, while programmable channel bandwidth capability allows receiver sensitivity to be optimised with photo detectors (PDs) from a range of manufacturers. In addition, low input referred noise density and low power consumption make the solution suitable for a range of 32 Gbaud ICR module designs, including type 1 and 2 and the latest micro-ICR modules.

The MxL9105 also supports low differential output swings required for next-generation low-power coherent DSPs, while high transimpedance gain makes it suitable for metro network applications where high signal loss may be experienced due to the prevalence of older fibre and multiple interconnects.

The pin-out assignment and functionality provided by the MxL9105 are compatible with legacy 32 Gbaud coherent TIAs to help reduce the need for re-design and re-qualification by customers.

http://www.maxlinear.com

• In September 2016, MaxLinear announced its MxL9207 quad-channel lithium niobate (LiNbO3) Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulator driver for next-generation 100 Gbit/s optical DWDM coherent systems. Offering support for DP-QPSK/BPSK coherent designs for ultra-long-haul applications, the device provides a per-channel data rate of 32 Gbaud with low jitter and low power dissipation. 

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