AWS Racks Up Q1 Sales of $3.661 Billion, up 43%

Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivered Q1 2017 sales of $3.661 billion, up 43% year over year. Quarterly operating income was $890 million, up 48% year over year.

Some additional AWS highlights from the quarterly report:

• AWS announced it will open an infrastructure region with three Availability Zones in Sweden in 2018. AWS currently operates 42 Availability Zones across 16 infrastructure regions worldwide, with another five Availability Zones across two AWS Regions in France and China expected to come online this year.
  
• Recent AWS enterprise customer highlights include: Live Nation, the world’s leading live entertainment and ticketing company, announced it is going “all-in” on AWS; Dunkin’ Brands Group, Inc., the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins, migrated their business-critical mobile applications, e-commerce websites, and key corporate IT infrastructure applications to AWS; HERE Technologies, a leading global provider of maps and location services, disclosed that AWS is its preferred cloud infrastructure provider and continues to expand its use of AWS to power its new Open Location Platform services; Liberty Mutual announced it is using AWS to speed implementation of a new state-of-the-art business platform to quickly bring new products and capabilities to their customers and operations; and Snap, Inc. expanded their use of AWS and announced a new, enterprise agreement to use $1 billion of AWS services over the next five years.
  
• AWS announced that customers have migrated more than 23,000 databases using the AWS Database Migration Service since it became generally available in 2016.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-presentations

Read More

Comcast Expands DOCSIS 3.1 to Utah

Comcast announced the launch of a new Internet service offering speeds up to 1 Gbit/s for residential customers throughout Utah based on DOCSIS 3.1 technology and delivered over its existing network infrastructure.

The new gigabit Internet service utilises existing lines that are already deployed in most homes, making faster to provision across communities. To subscribe to the service customers need to do is install a new DOCSIS 3.1-compatible cable modem capable of delivering gigabit speeds. The new service is available for a promotional price of $70.00 per month in certain areas of Salt Lake City, Provo and North Ogden in Utah, or $109.99 per month in the rest of the state.

Comcast announced in February last year plans to bring 1 Gbit/s Internet speeds to residential and business customers utilising DOCSIS 3.1 technology. In November 2016, Comcast announced it was launching an advanced consumer trial of a new DOCSIS 3.1 technology-based Internet service offering speeds up to 1 Gbit/s to residential customers throughout the city of Detroit. In August, it launched a trial of the new gigabit Internet service in the Chicago area.

http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed?post_type=press_release&business=corporate-3&sort=date#news-feed

• Earlier in 2016, Comcast launched advanced consumer trials of the DOCSIS 3.1-based gigabit service in parts of Atlanta and Nashville, Tennessee
  
• In January 2017, Comcast Business announced it was offering DOCSIS 3.1-based Internet service to business customers in its Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Nashville service areas.

Read More

China Unicom teams with Nokia to Trial VSR platform

Nokia announced that it is conducting a live trial in China Unicom's commercial network using the Nokia Virtualized Services Router (VSR) and involving more than 5,000 residential subscribers, designed to enable China Unicom to simplify and accelerate the delivery of broadband utilising a new flexible network based on virtualised network functions (VNFs).

The initial trial with China Unicom is being carried out in the Chinese province of Shandong, with plans to expand to the other parts of the country over the next two years as it moves to the next phase, which will include delivery of IPTV services.

Nokia noted that China Unicom is adopting software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV) to enhance efficiency and increase flexibility, openness and scalability as it evolves to a cloud-ready network. The trial of the Nokia VSR platform is designed to demonstrate improved operational efficiency and faster creation and delivery of new services.

The China Unicom trial involves using the VSR solution as a next-generation, virtualised broadband network gateway (BNG) to support residential subscriber management functions and advanced service capabilities. As part of its initiative to transform its metro service edge, China Unicom plans to migrate BNG services to the virtualised platform to gain the benefits of a cloud environment.

The trial specifically includes Nokia's field-proven VSR designed for x86 server environments, with the vBNG functionality based on the Nokia Service Router Operating System (SR OS). Nokia VSR is designed to deliver a range of BNG service functions for an enhanced end-user experience, as well as providing high throughput. For the trial Nokia's VSR is also being used to deliver functions, such as network address translation (NAT) to facilitate the migration to IPv6.

http://www.nokia.com/en_int/news/releases

• In September last year, Nokia announced the expansion of its partnership with China Unicom covering the supply of its high-capacity core router, the 7950 Extensible Routing System (XRS). Nokia stated that China Unicom had initially deployed the 7950 XRS into metro networks in six provinces - Beijing, Shandong, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai - and under the latest agreement planned to deploy it in an additional four provinces, namely Heilongjiang, Henan, Zhejiang and Hunan, to improve services for fixed and mobile broadband subscribers.

Read More

NEP The Netherlands deploys Juniper solution to transform IP-based production platform

Juniper Networks announced that NEP The Netherlands, a leading media technology specialist and a company of U.S.-based NEP, is deploying its solutions to create what is believed to be the first IP multi-camera production platform for TV.

For the project, the Juniper Networks QFX Series switching technology was selected by NEP to deliver a range of TV services including 4K video on demand, interactive split screen and 360-degree virtual reality. Juniper stated that the company is expanding that platform with the addition of applications designed to deliver greater flexibility and improve efficiency and service quality.

Juniper noted that by transforming its production systems from a traditional broadcast SDI (serial digital interface) environment to a cloud-based, open IP platforms, NEP can realise benefits including faster service delivery, lower costs and more flexibility. As an example, Juniper noted that cloud-based production allows flexible deployment of key directing elements, such as the director's control room and audio, video and EVS operators at the studio.

With the deployment, NEP's pre-and post-production functions run in the cloud created by Juniper's QFX switches, which run on the Junos OS, designed to serve as universal building blocks for automated, programmable fabric architectures. It was noted that the high-performance production environment is required to support applications transferring hundreds of gigabits of uncompressed video.

NEP clients, which include major television broadcasters, cable networks and event producers, demand quality solutions for functions such as remote and cloud-based production, video display, host broadcasting, post production, playout and uplink communication. Juniper's scalable QFX switches are designed to provide NEP with the flexibility to support any type of production service.

Leveraging an IP-based cloud production platform, NEP is able to centralise resources and thereby share them more efficiently and more effectively across locations and productions. In addition, the centralisation of resources can help to reduce location and studio costs when covering live events.

Juniper stated that NEP plans to expand its capabilities via the addition of two more studios, four cloud production galleries, 30 playout channels and support for live 4K OTT delivery from sports venues. The use of Juniper's open, standards-based technology will also facilitate upgrades, for example from HD to 4K and 8K, by enabling capacity to be increased or support for a new compression algorithm added without the need to make changes to the network.

NEP The Netherlands, a unit of U.S.-based NEP, with offices in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Canada, develops production workflows and distribution solutions for customers. In the Netherlands it has studios in Hilversum, Utrecht and Amsterdam. The company has an advanced dark fibre network that connects to central facilities for editing, playout and storage.

http://newsroom.juniper.net/

Read More

Pluribus introduces Netvisor-based Adaptive Cloud Fabric virtualised architecture

Pluribus Networks, developer of technology enabling software-defined networking (SDN) via its programmable, open source-based operating system Netvisor announced the next evolution of its SDN strategy with the introduction of the Adaptive Cloud Fabric virtualised architecture.

Based on the Netvisor network virtualisation software, the new Adaptive Cloud Fabric is designed to offer a simple, dynamic and secure approach to building a distributed network architecture with the capabilities of cloud-scale, elasticity and adaptability for the modern data centre.

The Pluribus Adaptive Cloud Fabric provides an optimised and resilient operating environment designed to address the requirements of enterprise and service providers with the need to support transaction-intensive applications. The fabric distributes intelligence, integrates a range of advanced network services, provides visibility of all traffic traversing the network and is designed to facilitate the transition to a software-defined data centre.

The Adaptive Cloud Fabric operates without a controller and is claimed to deliver a more dynamic and elastic network with the ability adapt to changing requirements and a range of deployment scenarios to help streamline operations, improve efficiency and lower costs.

The Adaptive Cloud Fabric can be deployed across the data centre or in specific racks, pods, server farms or hyper-converged infrastructure such as Nutanix, vSAN and VxRail. In addition, multiple geographically distributed data centres can be interconnected into a fabric over any WAN or dark fibre infrastructure. The dynamic architecture provides multi-terabit capacity with predictable latency and can support millions of concurrent connections.

Pluribus' Adaptive Cloud Fabric is based on the Netvisor software running on open networking switch hardware, offering a virtualised network OS (NOS) and providing a Layer 2 and 3 networking foundation, distributed fabric intelligence and virtualised switch hardware, similar to how VMware virtualises a bare metal server.

In addition, Netvisor vPort technology serves to extend intelligence and control to all connected endpoints, VMs, containers and mobile devices across the fabric, tracking the location, identity, policy and history for each endpoint and dynamically sharing the status to all member devices in real-time.

The fabric also features APIs that enable integration with automation tools such as Ansible and programming languages such as Python, plus integration with VMware vCenter for centralised automation of virtual application infrastructure and orchestration of physical and virtual resources and workloads.

Netvisor OS integrates telemetry for visibility across the fabric, allowing monitoring for 10, 25, 40 and 100 Gbit/s interfaces without the need for dedicated network probes. The Netvisor software can run on Open Compute Project (OCP), and Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) hardware-compliant switches, including from Dell EMC, Edgecore and Pluribus Freedom series network switches.

http://www.pluribusnetworks.com/company/news-item/adaptive-cloud-fabric-simplifies-sddc/

Read More

SUNET of Sweden deploys ADVA 100 Gbit/s technology in national R&E network

ADVA Optical Networking announced that the Swedish University Network (SUNET) has deployed its 100 Gbit/s core technology as part of a new national optical transport network.

The research and education infrastructure, which spans 8,000 km across Sweden and extends into Norway, is designed to deliver coherent high bandwidth connectivity to over 100 organisations. The new system incorporates ADVA's ROADM technology, which will allow SUNET to quickly meet growing demand for new services and bandwidth.

The deployment provides a 10-fold increase in the capacity of SUNET's transport infrastructure, which serves clients including national museums, scientific institutions, government agencies and 35 universities. In addition, the ROADM functionality serves to create a flexible, meshed network topology, where links between sites can be configured instantly via adding or dropping wavelengths on multiple fibres. This improves availability and, combined with Raman amplifier technology, helps to reduce latency.

The new network in based on ADVA's FSP 3000 platform and features an open optical line system (OOLS), which supports operation with tunable DWDM router interfaces provided by Juniper Networks' MX2000 universal edge routers. The converged solution is designed to provide an efficient solution delivering low latency together with scalability to enable future expansion. ADVA noted that the compact footprint and low power consumption of the FSP 3000 has been optimised via tunable interfaces on Juniper MX2000 routers.

Leveraging ADVA's OOLS technology, the converged packet transport solution also prepares SUNET for the transition towards software-defined networking (SDN), which will help the operator to further enhance transport efficiency and support new applications in the future. The solution was installed by ADVA integrator partner NetNordic.

http://www.advaoptical.com/en/newsroom/press-releases-english.aspx

• In July of last year, ADVA announced that Swedish ISP Bahnhof has selected its FSP 3000 solution with 100 Gbit/s core technology for a national backbone network. For the project, Bahnhof deployed the platform to upgrade its existing infrastructure to address growing bandwidth demand from enterprise and residential customers. The meshed DWDM 100 Gbit/s solution with multi-degree ROADM serves cities across southern Sweden from Stockholm to Malmo, as well as connecting to Copenhagen in Denmark and Oslo in Norway.

Read More

CoreSite's Q1 Revenues up 24% YoY

CoreSite Realty reported first-quarter total operating revenues of $114.9 million, representing a 24.3% increase year over year. CoreSite reported net income attributable to common shares of $16.3 million, or $0.48 per diluted share, for the three months ended March 31, 2017, compared to $11.3 million, or $0.37 per diluted share for the three months ended March 31, 2016, an increase of 29.7% on a per-share basis.

During the quarter, Coresite executed 128 new and expansion data center leases comprising 46,484 net rentable square feet (NRSF), representing $9.7 million of annualized GAAP rent at an average rate of $209 per square foot.

We continued our momentum from Q4 and started the year strongly in the first quarter. Importantly, we continued to execute on our business objectives while increasing efficiency and effectiveness across our organization,” said Paul Szurek, CoreSite’s Chief Executive Officer. “We are pleased to see sustained solid leasing activity, with new and expansion sales of nearly $10 million in the first quarter well distributed across each of our key verticals of network providers, cloud-service providers and enterprises.

http://www.coresite.com

Read More

Comcast is Pleased with FCC’s Broadcast Incentive Auction

Comcast issued the following statement after the conclusion of the quiet period associated with the FCC’s Broadcast Incentive Auction:

“We are very pleased with the outcome of the FCC’s Broadcast Incentive Auction. In the Reverse auction, NBC sold spectrum at attractive prices in New York (NBC - WNBC), Philadelphia (Telemundo - WWSI), and Chicago (Telemundo - WSNS) and will receive total proceeds of $481.6 million. Additionally, with the purchase of $1.7 billion of spectrum that covers 88 percent of our footprint and most of the footprint of each of our top 25 markets, Comcast made a strategically compelling investment at historically low prices. We have no current plans for the acquired spectrum and note that the spectrum will not be cleared by the FCC and available for use for several years. The launch and growth of our Xfinity Mobile product is not dependent on this purchased spectrum.”

http://www.comcast.com

Read More

A10 Posts Solid Quarter, Revenue up 12%

A10 Networks reported Q1 2017 revenue of $60.3 million, up 12 percent year-over-year. GAAP net loss was $3.9 million or $0.06 per share.

“The first quarter was a solid start to the year with revenue growth driven by our security and cloud-focused solutions gaining momentum among cloud provider, service provider and web-scale customers,” said Lee Chen, president and chief executive officer of A10 Networks. “We believe the cloud presents a long-term growth opportunity for A10, and we are focused on bringing new solutions to market that give customers the visibility, agility, flexibility and security they need for their cloud deployments.”

http://www.a10networks.com

Read More

Lightwave Logic Demos Modulation with P2IC enabling 25G

Colorado-based Lightwave Logic, a company developing photonic devices and non-linear optical polymer materials for optical data communications and telecommunications applications, announced it has achieved bandwidth suitable for 25 Gbit/s data rates in an all-organic polymer ridge waveguide intensity modulator prototype.

The company noted that the 25 Gbit/s capability demonstration marks a significant improvement over its initial 10 Gbit/s device modulator that it reported last December.

Lightwave Logic explained that a modulator converts electronic information into light pulses that can traverse optical cables used in data centres, for data communications and high performance computing applications. To achieve a 100 Gbit/s data rate, modulators are typically configured in groups of four, each supporting 25 Gbit/s data rate.

Lightwave Logic's polymer photonics integrated circuit (P2IC) is similar to an electronic integrated circuit, but incorporates two or more optical functions on a single substrate platform. P2IC devices are expected to allow increased component density, with numerous photonic functions enabled using electro-optic polymer materials. This can provide scalable photonic devices offering lower cost together with higher performance.

In December 2016, Lightwave Logic announced it had achieved high-speed modulation utilising its first all-organic polymer ridge waveguide intensity modulator prototype. The company stated that the prototype could enable bandwidth sufficient to support data rates of around 10 Gbit/s, and that it anticipated increasing this performance to 25 Gbit/s.

Recently, Lightwave Logic announced that Dr. Michael Lebby, who established Intel's photonics division, would assume the role of CEO, effective May 1, 2017, succeeding Tom Zelibor who will remain as board chairman. It also recently elected Dr. Fred Leonberger, formerly with JDS Uniphase, to its board.

Commenting on the announcement, Lightwave Logic CEO Tom Zelibor said, "Enabled by the P2IC polymer system, this prototype device is suitable for data rates at 25 Gbit/s, and I believe it can be scaled to operate up to 50 Gbit/s… which would be the key to… addressing the next large market, 400 Gbit/s nodes".

http://www.b2i.us/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?ResLibraryID=83346&GoTopage=1&Category=2157&BzID=2252&G=914

Read More