Friday, March 30, 2018

FCC issues its order to speed rollout of 5G small cells

The Federal Communications Commission issued its expected order streamlining the wireless infrastructure siting review process to facilitate the deployment of 5G small cells. The order addresses the differences between large and small wireless facilities, and clarifies the treatment of small cell deployments. Specifically, the Order:

  • Excludes small wireless facilities deployed on non-Tribal lands from National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review,
  • concluding that these facilities are not “undertakings” or “major federal actions.” Small wireless facilities deployments continue to be subject to currently applicable
  • state and local government approval requirements.
  • Clarifies and makes improvements to the process for Tribal participation in Section 106 historic preservation reviews for large wireless facilities where NHPA/NEPA
  • review is still required.
  • Removes the requirement that applicants file Environmental Assessments solely due to the location of a proposed facility in a floodplain, as long as certain conditions are met.
  • Establishes timeframes for the Commission to act on Environmental Assessments.

Ajit Pai, FCC Chair, stated: "We take a giant leap forward in updating our wireless infrastructure rules.  By cutting unnecessary red tape, weíll make it substantially easier for carriers to build next-generation wireless networks throughout the United States.  That means faster and more reliable wireless services for American consumers and businesses.  That means more wireless innovation, such as novel applications based on the Internet of Things.  And ultimately, that means American leadership in 5G.  Specifically, we clarify today that small cells are inherently different from large towers.  So they shouldnít face identical regulatory review under the National Historic Preservation Act and National Environmental Policy Act.  We also streamline the process for Tribal review notifications through our Tower Construction Notification System."

In dissent, Jessica Rsosenworcel, writes: "It is not a sure thing that the United States will lead the world in 5G wireless.  In fact, the available evidence is that weíre falling behind.  If we want to lead in 5G, we unconditionally need a spectrum auction this year.  South Korea, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Romania are now leading the way with definitive plans for wireless auctions in 2018.  We do not do that here.  If we want to lead in 5G, we need policies to encourage deep fiber investments.  Our wireless facilities will need to be connected to millions of miles of fiber, requiring creative thinking about everything from permitting to securing access to rights of way.  We do not do that here.  If we want to lead in 5G, we need serious policies to address our equipment supply chain challenges.  That means developing a real plan rather than relying on opaque decisions issued from behind the closed doors of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.  We do not do that here.   If we want to lead in 5G, we need to modernize our approach to wireless infrastructure.  We need to streamline the process for the deployment of small cells because over the next eight years we will require as many as 800,000 of them.  Thatís daunting.  At the same time, we need to modernize our approach to larger wireless facilitiesóand thatís daunting, too.  A solution to this infrastructure challenge is long overdueóand while todayís decision purports to be oneóit misses the mark."

FCC approves SpaceX's NGSO Satellite System

The FCC voted authorized SpaceX to construct, deploy, and operate a proposed non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system comprising 4,425 satellites for the provision of fixed-satellite service (FSS) around the world. 

In July 2016, OneWeb was granted approval to build a similar constellation of MEO satellites.

Two months ago, SpaceX successfully launched the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) PAZ observation satellite on behalf of Hisdesat and two satellites of its own.  Tintin A & B are the first two demonstration satellites for SpaceX's planned Starlink broadband satellite service. Both were successfully deployed into polar orbit and are communicating with Earth stations.

In regulatory filing, SpaceX has revealed that its initial system will consist of 4,425 satellites operating in 83 orbital planes (at altitudes ranging from 1,110 km to 1,325 km).  The system will require associated ground control facilities, gateway earth stations, and end-user earth stations. The system will use Ka- and Ku-Band spectrum.  SpaceX has separately filed for authority to operate in the V-Band, where the company has proposed an additional constellation of 7,500 satellites operating even closer to Earth. To implement the system, SpaceX will utilise the availability of significantly more powerful computing and software capabilities.  On the launch broadcast for the PAZ satellite, SpaceX said quite a bit of development work remains ahead on its satellite constellation plans.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Metaswitch positions Composable Network Protocols for disaggregated networking

Metaswitch introduced a portfolio of Composable Network Protocols (CNP) for powering next-generation white box routing platforms with fully-decoupled control plane components and open management interfaces.

The suite of Composable Network Protocols is based on Metaswitch's more than 35 years of protocol development. Its proven and stable IP routing and MPLS networking stacks and layer 2 and 3 protocols are deployed in the products of more than 250 network OEMs, which the company says distinguishes its code from open source alternatives, enabling true software disaggregation while lowering capex, opex and operational risks. Metaswitch's CNP routing and control plane protocols install and operate as binary applications on top of any open network operating system, running stand-alone or combined with any third-party commercial or open source stack.

“Our new white box and open network operating system solution introduces groundbreaking capabilities and flexible purchasing options, while reducing the risk of moving to a fully-disaggregated architecture,” said Martin Lund, CEO of Metaswitch. “Metaswitch has a very strong track record in the development and deployment of hardened protocol stacks for the most demanding applications and OEMs and we look forward to working with an expanded range of customers to help them realize the future of composable networking.”

In addition, Dell EMC has agreed to resell Metaswitch Composable Network Protocols (CNP). Specifically, Dell EMC will combine Metaswitch’s CNP IP routing and MPLS networking stacks with its own EMC OS10 Open Edition on ONIE-enabled platforms. The companies said this joint solution embodies the evolution of networking software as it introduces new levels of software flexibility and programmability in large-scale data center environments for cloud and communications services providers (CSPs).

“The combination of Metaswitch CNP and Dell EMC OS10 Open Edition significantly raises the viability of software disaggregation in production deployments,” said Drew Schulke, VP of networking at Dell EMC. “With this comprehensive portfolio of hardened network protocol stacks, we’ll work closely on addressing the complexities of data center interconnect and wide-area IP/MPLS routing at scale. We’re pleased to be working closely with Metaswitch with its long and successful track record of development and deployment of protocol stacks.”

GoDaddy Goes All-In on AWS

AWS announced that GoDaddy migrating the vast majority of its infrastructure into the AWS cloud as part of a multi-year transition.

GoDaddy will use the breadth of AWS services—including machine learning, analytics, databases, and containers. AWS’s Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (Amazon EKS) will allow GoDaddy to run its many Kubernetes workloads on AWS without change, since Amazon EKS is fully compatible with any standard Kubernetes environment. GoDaddy is also using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) P3 Instances—the most powerful graphics processing unit (GPU) instances available in the cloud—to substantially reduce the time it takes to train machine learning models and increase the performance of its GoDaddy Domain Appraisals tool.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

“As a technology provider with more than 17 million customers, it was very important for GoDaddy to select a cloud provider with deep experience in delivering a highly reliable global infrastructure, as well as an unmatched track record of technology innovation, to support our rapidly expanding business,” said Charles Beadnall, Chief Technology Officer at GoDaddy.


China Mobile picks Nuage for public/private cloud

China Mobile (Suzhou) Software Technical Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Mobile, has selected Nokia's Nuage Networks as the SDN platform for China Mobile's public and private enterprise cloud services offering. The deployment includes the Nuage Networks VSP with cloud implementations on virtual machines, Kubernetes (K8S) containers and OpenStack Ironic-based bare metal servers.

Nokia said that in the past two years its joint venture in China, Nokia Shanghai Bell, has helped deploy the Nuage Networks VSP solution to deliver China Mobile's public and private cloud services in 10 data centers, the largest deployment containing over 1,000 servers. Nokia Shanghai Bell ranked No.1 and won 55% share in this project. This project cemented Nokia Shanghai Bell's status as the leading SDN vendor powering CMCC existing cloud services. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"Having a strong relationship with CMCC based on the work we've already done with them, we were especially pleased to be chosen to continue with this important project. The Nuage Networks solution allows CMCC to offer some very dynamic, high performing and attractive cloud services for their customers," stated Sunil Khandekar, CEO for Nokia's Nuage Networks.

Ambarella intros next gen CV2 computer vision processor

Ambarella, which specializes in low-power, HD and Ultra HD video processing semiconductors, announced its next generation CV2 computer vision processor, which will provide up to 20 times the computer vision performance of CV1 in a fully-integrated SoC. Key features of the 10nm CV2 Computer Vision SoC:

  • CVflow processor with CNN/deep learning support
  • 4Kp60/8-Megapixel AVC and HEVC encoding with multi-stream support
  • Multi-sensor support for 3-channel electronic mirror and 4-channel AVM systems, multi-channel stereo sensing systems (up to 4 stereo pairs), and multi-imager IP cameras
  • Quad-core 1.2-GHz ARM™ Cortex A53 with NEON DSP extensions and FPU
  • Advanced security features, including OTP for secure boot, TrustZone and IO virtualization
  • Real-time hardware-accelerated 360-degree de-warping and Lens Distortion Correction (LDC) engine

Ambarella also demonstrated a fully autonomous EVA (Embedded Vehicle Autonomy) vehicle on Silicon Valley roads.

Ambarella's autonomous car leverages the company's embedded computer vision processors. The company said its EVA’s high-resolution stereovision cameras deliver the 360-degree short and long distance viewing capability required for advanced perception and precise self-location. EVA includes sensor fusion of the vision information with Radar and map data to provide the information necessary for path planning and merging maneuvers without the need for additional LiDAR systems.

“High resolution 8-Megapixel stereovision combined with superior perception in challenging lighting conditions allows EVA to “see” its surroundings with much higher reliability than was previously possible,” said Professor Alberto Broggi, General Manager of Ambarella Italy. “Moving to an implementation based on dedicated Ambarella CVflow processors brings us much closer to making self-driving cars a practical reality.”

Motorola Solutions completes acquisition of Avigilon for a video surveillance

Motorola Solutions completed its previously announced acquisition of Avigilon, a supplier of advanced security surveillance solutions, for CAD$27.00 per share, valuing the transaction at approximately US$1.0 billion including Avigilon’s net debt.

Avigilon, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, holds more than 750 U.S. and Canadian patents related to video surveillance. The company's portfolio includes video analytics, network video management software and hardware, surveillance cameras, and access control solutions. Avigilon products are used by a range of commercial and government customers including critical infrastructure, airports, government facilities, public venues, healthcare centers and retail.

Avigilon will operate as a separate unit of Motorola Solutions, with James Henderson, president and chief operating officer for Avigilon, reporting to Jack Molloy, executive vice president, worldwide sales and services for Motorola Solutions.

AT&T picks Ericsson's AVP 2000 Contribution Encoder

AT&T has selected Ericsson Media Solutions’ AVP 2000 Contribution Encoder to help deliver high-quality UHD encoding to enhance its coverage of a premier golf tournament

The deployment also includes Ericsson Media Solutions’ HEVC Encoder Module, which provides high-performance compression technology to enable the delivery of AT&T’s widely viewed content across multiple devices.

Angel Ruiz, CEO, Ericsson Media Solutions, says: “With the demand for ultra-high definition services and more immersive sporting experiences at an all-time high, it is vital that service providers give their customers the best possible viewing experience. The AVP 2000 and its HEVC technology provide the necessary performance and control to achieve the highest possible bandwidth efficiency across all delivery networks, while also offering the best performance and broadest capability across all applications and codecs. We are proud to work alongside AT&T and help them to deliver consistent, high quality and seamless coverage of one of the biggest sporting events this year.”

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

AT&T outlines plans for Software-Defined Network in 2018 and beyond

AT&T, which has previously stated plans to virtualize and software-control 75% of its core network functions by 2020, said that it is on target to reach the 65% virtualization milestone this ahead, coinciding with the rollout of mobile 5G service.

In a blog post, Chris Rice, Senior Vice President – AT&T Labs, Domain 2.0 Architecture and Design, outlines several major open source initiatives that the company has been spearheading to drive network transformation.

  • ONAP – The operating system for Network Clouds. Since formation a year ago, the project now brings together over 50 of the largest network and cloud operators and technology providers from around the globe, representing more than 60% of the world’s mobile subscribers. AT&T is leading the software contribution and together with project members plans to deliver the second ONAP release, Beijing, in the second quarter of this year.
  • DANOS – The operating system for individual white box servers that power a virtualized network. And we recently announced we are taking white boxes, running on DANOS, to scale in our network and will plan to install as many of 60,000 of these white box routers to support our 5G build out over the next few years.
  • Acumos – An industry-first AI platform and marketplace, co-created with Tech Mahindra, that makes it easy to chain multiple microservices together in a simple drag-and-drop interface. And The Linux Foundation recently announced the public availability of Acumos, meaning anyone can now access the platform and begin building AI applications. We’re also releasing our Acumos whitepaper, where we highlight our direction and efforts in this area.
  • Akraino Edge Stack – A complete software platform for edge computing systems and applications. The Linux Foundation also recently announced that Intel among others have signed on as members of the community. We’re seeing early indicators of progress that are encouraging, and this growing collaboration will help to expedite the maturity and adoption of edge cloud.


AT&T also plans to roll out over 60,000 white box routers over the next several years across the U.S. to enable advanced services on its mobile 5G infrastructure. These white box routers run the “Disaggregated Network Operating System,” or dNOS, which uses technology from its acquisition of Vyatta.

"White box represents a radical realignment of the traditional service provider model,” said Andre Fuetsch, chief technology officer and president, AT&T Labs. “We’re no longer constrained by the capabilities of proprietary silicon and feature roadmaps of traditional vendors. We’re writing open hardware specifications for these machines, and developing the open source software that powers these boxes. This means faster hardware upgrades, since anyone can build to these specs. And software upgrades that move at internet speed. We’re doing this all while keeping costs low so we can focus on expanding our nationwide mobile 5G footprint for our customers as quickly as possible."

http://about.att.com/innovationblog/att_framework

FirstNet's Dedicated Evolved Packet Core Goes Live

AT&T confirmed that the dedicated evolved packet core for FirstNet is now live nationwide.

FirstNet is the country’s first nationwide public safety communications platform dedicated built by AT&T in public-private partnership with the First Responder Network Authority.

The FirstNet network core is built on physically separate hardware from the AT&T network. It provides first responders with their own separate, nationwide broadband network and it is being certified by the First Responder Network Authority. The packet core forms the basis for the unified, interoperable and nationwide communications system.

First responders on the FirstNet evolved packet core can now access "First Priority", which turns FirstNet’s always-on access to priority and preemption up a notch, giving first responders 2 more priority levels. With 3 options at their fingertips, public safety agencies will have the ability to assign priority levels based on their command structure or shifting needs. The launch also unlocks an Incident Management Portal, which allows official to uplift critical users to the highest priority levels. Using the Incident Management Portal, they can make these adjustments in near real time to help first responders.  Public safety can also temporarily uplift other non-first responder users that are essential to managing an incident – like utilities or transportation. Future public safety capabilities will include mission-critical Push-to-Talk, z-Axis location-based services, etc.

A controlled introduction is now underway. A number of FirstNet-ready devices have been announced, including popular mobile devices like the Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+, and rugged mobile devices like the Sonim XP8 and XP5s (coming soon). The FirstNet SIM will also work with other devices, but firmware updates may be required.

The NETGEAR Nighthawk M1 Mobile router – a mobile hotspot router – is another product that will accept the FirstNet SIM.

“This is what public safety has spent years advocating for,” said Scott Edson, executive director, Los Angeles Regional Interoperable Communication System (LA-RICS). “We knew giving first responders a network that they could truly call their own was possible from our work on LA-RICS – 1 of 5 FirstNet early builder projects. But to see public safety’s network core roar to life nationwide, well, there are no words for how meaningful that is. We at LA-RICS look forward to connecting our sites to the FirstNet network core.”

“Outdated communications capabilities are a threat to public safety. We’ve seen it repeatedly when disasters strike – from September 11, the Boston Marathon and Parkland,” said Ed Davis, former Boston police commissioner. “We’ve been advocating for the future of communications to bring us a modern solution that will empower us with next generation tools. And with FirstNet, that future is here, giving us an experience we can’t get on any commercial network.

OpenContrail is rebranded as "Tungsten Fabric"

OpenContrail, which is the SDN framework originally created by Juniper Networks and open sourced in 2013 and which is now hosted by The Linux Foundation as an open-source network virtualization platform for the cloud, has changed its name to Tungsten Fabric.

Tungsten Fabric provides a single point of control, observability and analytics for networking and security. It is integrated with many cloud technology stacks, including Kubernetes, Mesos, VMware and OpenStack. It supports private cloud, hybrid cloud and public cloud deployments such as AWS and GCE. Tungsten Fabric includes a high-performance vRouter that connects container, VM and bare-metal applications, and a controller which orchestrates network overlays, switch fabrics and router gateways.

The Linux Foundation said Tungsten Fabric is now deployed at massive global scale, across public and private IaaS, CaaS and PaaS environments ranging from hyperscale cloud providers and telecom operators to enterprises.

Tungsten Fabric’s mission is "to build a ubiquitous, easy-to-use, scalable, secure and cloud-grade SDN stack that provides a network fabric capable of connecting diverse environments."

Contributors and community members include Aricent, AT&T, Bell, Cavium, CertusNet, CloudOps, CodiLime, Intel, Juniper Networks, Lenovo, Mellanox, Mirantis, Netronome, Orange, SDN Essentials, TechTrueUp, and Yandex.

“We are pleased to create Tungsten Fabric with a neutral governance under The Linux Foundation,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, networking, The Linux Foundation. “The set up allows Tungsten Fabric to collaborate with other Linux Foundation and Networking projects. We’re looking forward to expanded collaboration across a growing software-defined ecosystem.”

https://tungsten.io

The DANOS Project promises a Unified Network Operating System

The Linux Foundation will host a new Disaggregated Network Operating System (DANOS) project to enable community collaboration across network hardware, forwarding and operating system layers.

DANOS is initially based on AT&T’s “dNOS” software framework of an open, cost-effective and flexible alternative to traditional networking operating systems.

A first code release is expected the second half of 2018.

“We are pleased to welcome DANOS to The Linux Foundation community of open, collaborative innovation,” said Arpit Joshipura, General Manager of Networking, The Linux Foundation. “DANOS will provide an open NOS framework that leverages existing open source resources and complementary platforms such as switches and white box routers. We invite others in the broader ecosystem to join the effort to accelerate innovation and creation of an industry-standard disaggregated NOS.”

“As far as we know, DANOS is an industry first: an open-source, carrier-grade operating system for wide area networks,” said John Medamana, Vice President, Packet Optical Network, AT&T. “DANOS is a milestone for us and the industry, and we’re excited to see how developers and other users implement and build upon it.”

“ONF has been a champion of disaggregation, white boxes and open source and in this regard, we are happy to see DANOS launched as a carrier-grade, open source network OS for white boxes,” said Guru Parulkar, Executive Director, ONF. “We are looking forward to DANOS and ONF’s recent open source platform Stratum, thin switch OS, working together.”

AT&T’s whitepaper on the dNOS framework is available here: http://about.att.com/content/dam/innovationblogdocs/att-routing-nos-open-architecture_FINAL%20whitepaper.pdf

NVIDIA brings 10x performance for Deep Learning System

At its annual GTC conference in San Jose, NVIDIA introduced its 2 petaflop, DGX-2 Deep Learning System, promising a 10x performance boost on deep learning workloads compared with the previous generation from six months ago.

Key advancements in NVIDIA platform include a 2x memory boost to NVIDIA Tesla V100 datacenter GPU, and a revolutionary new GPU interconnect fabric called NVIDIA NVSwitch, which enables up to 16 Tesla V100 GPUs to simultaneously communicate at a record speed of 2.4 terabytes per second. NVIDIA also introduced an updated, fully optimized software stack.

These advancements enable the NVIDIA DGX-2 server to deliver two petaflops of computational power -- the equivalent of 300 servers occupying 15 racks of datacenter space, while being 60x smaller and 18x more power efficient.

“The extraordinary advances of deep learning only hint at what is still to come,” said Jensen Huang, NVIDIA founder and CEO, as he unveiled the news at GTC 2018. “Many of these advances stand on NVIDIA’s deep learning platform, which has quickly become the world’s standard. We are dramatically enhancing our platform’s performance at a pace far exceeding Moore’s law, enabling breakthroughs that will help revolutionize healthcare, transportation, science exploration and countless other areas.”

Verizon to offer public safety private core

Verizon announced plans to offer its own public safety private core network.

The dedicated private core will enhance Verizon’s 4G LTE network and be tuned for public safety uses. Additionally, Verizon offers public safety customers preemption and mobile broadband priority service at no additional charge.

Verizon said its public safety private core provides several key features to public safety customers including traffic segmentation, priority and preemption, improved security, and enhanced service management and control. It is connected to Verizon’s Radio Access Network (RAN) which utilizes spectrum in various bands including the 700 MHz, 800 MHz Cellular, 1.9 GHz PCS, and 1.7/2.1 GHz AWS bands. The public safety core separates data traffic of public safety mobile users from commercial users across Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Public safety users will have their data immediately recognized as public safety with priority access at the tower and through the network. The private core leverages leading edge networking technology to provide security, flexibility and reliability.

“Public safety answers the call when we need them most,” said John Stratton, Verizon executive vice president and president of global operations. “We remain committed to providing them innovative communications solutions that help them help us, and we are honored by the trust they put in Verizon every day.”

Verizon's public safety private core will be generally available on March 29, 2018.

Ciena adds ONAP elements to its Blue Planet Platform

Ciena announced enhanced policy capabilities into its Blue Planet intelligent automation platform that incorporates the architectural framework from the Linux Foundation’s open-source Open Networking Automation Platform (ONAP) to aid network providers’ evolution to more adaptive, software-centric networks. Specifically, Ciena Blue Planet is adding support for ONAP virtual network function (VNF) descriptors and packaging specifications to the already supported ETSI ISG NFV Release 2 specification.

Ciena said its new Blue Planet policy subsystem will support advanced closed-loop automation use cases, such as preventing a potential failure or dynamically scaling capacity to support growing bandwidth demands.

“The future of networking lies with openness and the concept of ‘choice’, allowing network operators to select best-of-breed technologies and solutions. These Blue Planet enhancements bring us closer towards the common goal of software-led, policy defined, network transformation. They also help forge a path for more adaptive networks that can self-learn, self-configure, self-heal, and self-optimize by constantly assessing network status,” stated Steve Alexander, Chief Technology Officer, Ciena. 

Digital Realty maintains Five Nines data center reliability

Digital Realty has achieved “five nines” of uptime for its data center suites for the 11th consecutive year, exceeding 99.999 percent availability throughout 2017.

Digital Realty recently surpassed 1.7 billion operating minutes across its 205 datacenters, encompassing approximately 27 million square feet in 33 metropolitan areas globally. Over the past 11 years, the number of data center suites operated by Digital Realty has increased from 74 suites at the start of 2007 to over 750 by the end of 2017.

“Achieving ‘five nines’ of uptime for the 11th year demonstrates our commitment to resiliency and to being a true business partner to all of our customers, from enterprises to telecommunications customers and cloud service providers,” said A. William Stein, Digital Realty’s Chief Executive Officer. “We are especially proud of this milestone given our rapid growth and remain focused on ensuring that all of our facilities meet the same stringent standards for design, construction and operations.”

Marvell integrates its Automotive Ethernet Switch into NVIDIA DRIVE

Marvell confirmed that its 88Q5050 secure automotive Ethernet switch is integrated into the NVIDIA DRIVE Pegasus platform for autonomous vehicles.

Marvell said its secure switch can handle multi-gigabit applications for OEM car manufacturers to deliver an in-car network that supports sensor fusion, cameras, safety and diagnostics. Its switch design employs a deep packet inspection (DPI) engine and trusted boot functionality to ensure a robust level of security. The switch also supports both blacklisting and whitelisting addresses on all its Ethernet ports to further enhance its security especially against denial of service attacks.

The NVIDIA DRIVE Pegasus computing platform has been designed to handle Level 5 driverless vehicles and compute over 320 trillion operations per second. The platform combines deep learning, sensor fusion, and surround vision to understand what’s happening around the vehicle in real-time. The Marvell 88Q5050 layer 2 managed secure IP switch enables the fast and safe transmission of this data for next generation connected vehicles.

“The 88Q5050 is Marvell’s latest addition to the automotive portfolio of wired and wireless network solutions and is designed to prevent malicious attacks or compromises to data streamed in and out of the vehicle. Marvell has over 20 years of Ethernet IP experience and this partnership with NVIDIA demonstrates our continued commitment to innovating and leading in automotive technology. Marvell is excited about the future of automotive and will utilize its extensive portfolio to accelerate the adoption of automotive Ethernet,” said Thomas Lagatta, executive vice president of Sales and Marketing at Marvell.

Oracle debuts Autonomous Database in the Cloud - 1/2 cost of AWS

Oracle Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison introduced the first service based on new Oracle Autonomous Database -- a self-managing, self-securing, self-repairing database cloud service called Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Cloud.  The service uses machine learning to deliver performance, security capabilities, and availability with no human intervention, at "half the cost of Amazon Web Services."

The warehouse provisioning service spins up a secure data warehouse with automatic backup, encryption, and a high availability architecture in seconds. The company says its Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Cloud is so fast that guarantees the same workload at half the cost of Amazon Web Services.

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Cloud delivers all of the analytical capabilities, security features, and high availability of the Oracle Database without any of the complexities of configuration, tuning, and administration -- even as warehousing workloads and data volumes change.

"This technology changes everything," said Ellison. "The Oracle Autonomous Database is based on technology as revolutionary as the Internet. It patches, tunes, and updates itself. Amazon's databases cost more and do less."


Monday, March 26, 2018

Video: Five things to know about adding automation into your network

This video looks at five things you need to know about adding automation and orchestration to your network for your VNFs. NFV is going to be a keep part of 5G architecture. Presented by Paul Brittain, Senior Product Manager, Metaswitch.

See our whitepaper with Telia on this topic: https://www.metaswitch.com/knowledge-center/white-papers/cloud-native-vnf-operation-automation

See video: https://youtu.be/NMuvvsX8690


Leading operators expand ONF mission to create Reference Designs as Gold Standards

AT&T, China Unicom, Comcast, Google, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Group, Telefonica, and Turk Telekom have agreed to back a new strategic plan for the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) focused on developing reference designs for open source, next-generation SDN solutions.

The operators will work together inside the ONF to create Reference Designs (RDs) to serve as “gold standards” for combining component projects into common platforms upon which operators will build solutions.  Each RD will be championed by a select group of operators, and will be designed with participation by invited supply chain partners sharing the vision and demonstrating active investment in building open source solutions.

The work activity will span all network layers, including mobile infrastructure, the edge cloud, multiaccess edge, and optical transport. The ONF has assembled partnerships with OEMs, systems integrators, VNF vendors, platform software developers, next-gen ODMs and chip companies.

The ONF, which was founded in 2011 and is based in Menlo Park, California, has been behind leading open source projects such as ONOS, Trellis and CORD. These projects have gained significant traction with operators as eighteen tier-1 operators are actively testing and trialling these solution. At least two tier-1 operators are moving into production with projects in 2018.

“The ONF is pleased to share our new 2018 strategic plan for market transformation,” said Andre Fuetsch, President and Chair of the ONF Board, and Chief Technology Officer and President, AT&T Labs. “This plan will position ONF as a premier, operator-driven community and will better align and accelerate open systems solutions to the marketplace. The plan is highlighted by two major components: 1) operators and ONF will work together to create common modular reference designs using components such as white boxes and open source platforms, and 2) operators and ONF will work on driving the components of the reference designs to be production-ready, and in selected areas will create integrated implementations of the designs.”

“Operators’ commitment to take open source solutions into production represents the next big step in realizing the full potential of software-defined, disaggregation and open source. It is also heartening to see operators’ determination to enable a new supply-chain that is well aligned with their goals. Clearly this is a landmark moment and it will set our industry on a new course for years to come. I am delighted that operators consider the ONF their partner in pursuit of this important agenda,” said Guru Parulkar, Executive Director for the ONF.

The Acumos AI Project moves to the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation launched the Acumos AI Project, a federated platform for managing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications and sharing AI models.

AT&T and Tech Mahindra contributed the initial Acumos code.

"An open and federated AI platform like the Acumos platform allows developers and companies to take advantage of the latest AI technologies and to more easily share proven models and expertise," said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. "Acumos will benefit developers and data scientists across numerous industries and fields, from network and video analytics to content curation, threat prediction, and more."

Acumos, which is now freely available for download, provides users with a visual workflow to design AI and ML applications, as well as a marketplace for freely sharing AI solutions and data models. The Acumos framework is user-centric and simple to explore. The Acumos Marketplace packages various components as microservices and allows users to export ready-to-launch AI applications as containers to run in public clouds or private environments.

In addition, The Linux Foundation has formed an umbrella organization called the LF Deep Learning Foundation. Its mission is "to support and sustain open source innovation in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning while striving to make these critical new technologies available to developers and data scientists everywhere."

 Founding members of LF Deep Learning include Amdocs, AT&T, B.Yond, Baidu, Huawei, Nokia, Tech Mahindra, Tencent, Univa, and ZTE. With LF Deep Learning, members are working to create a neutral space where makers and sustainers of tools and infrastructure can interact and harmonize their efforts and accelerate the broad adoption of deep learning technologies. https://www.acumos.org

Southeast Asia-Japan 2 subsea cable to bring 144 Tbps of capacity

A consortium consisting of  China Mobile, Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom, Chuan Wei, Facebook, KDDI, SK Broadband, Singtel and Vietnam's VNPT, signed an agreement for the construction of the Southeast Asia-Japan 2 subsea cable network. NEC has been selected as the lead contractor.

The SJC2 submarine cable will span 10.500 kilometers, connecting Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, Korea and Japan. It will have eleven cable landing stations in the region and is expected to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2020. The cable will feature up to eight pairs of high capacity optical fibre with an initial design capacity of 144 Terabits per second (Tbps).

In Japan, SJC2 will land at KDDI's two stations at Chikura and Shima, providing geographical diversity.

GTT attracts funding from Adelph Capital and Crestview

A group of investors, led by Aleph Capital Partners LLP and Crestview Partners, has committed to invest $175 million in GTT common stock at the closing of the acquisition of Interoute by GTT.

“Aleph and Crestview’s investment is a strong vote of confidence in our vision to create a disruptive market leader with substantial scale, unique network assets and award-winning product capabilities to fulfill our clients’ growing demand for cloud networking services in Europe, the U.S. and across the globe,” said Rick Calder, GTT president and CEO.

GTT's acquisition of Interoute would add 72K km of European fiber to its transatlantic cables


Interoute's European fiber backbone spans 72,000 route kilometers connects nearly 200 data centres and colocation facilities.  Interoute also owns 15 of its own data centers and 33 colocation facilities. Its customers include international enterprises, as well as the world’s major service providers, ICPs and OTT providers. The company also operates 18 Interoute Virtual Data Centres (VDCs) globally, including three in Asia-Pacific, which are tied into its fiber backbone. In October 2017, Interoute launched its "Edge SD-WAN" service.

Interoute offers transport services (wavelength, Carrier Ethernet, managed bandwidth, storage connect, IP transit, cloud connect) and infrastructure services (dark fiber and data center colocation).

Interoute reported revenues of €718 million and adjusted EBITDA of €165 million for the 12 months ending September 30, 2017.

GTT said the merger contributes significant infrastructure, edge and hosted services to its network, as well as over 1,000 strategic enterprise and carrier clients, primarily headquartered in Europe.

In January 2017, GTT acquired Hibernia Networks and its five subsea cables, including Hibernia Express, the lowest latency transatlantic cable system, and eight cable landing stations, new global points of presence, and key clients in the financial services, media and entertainment, web-centric and service provider segments.

Huawei Marine to build subsea cable in southern Chile

Chile's Comunicación y Telefonía Rural S.A. (CTR) has retained Huawei Marine to deploy the Fiber Optic Austral (FOA) subsea cable system.

FOA, which will be the southernmost submarine cable in the world, will connect three regions in southern Chile.

Huawei Marine will provide an end-to-end submarine cable solution using its 100G universal platform to provide a seamless optical network architecture between submarine and terrestrial networks. The system has a design capacity of 16 Tbps and a length of 2,800 kilometers. It is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

HIVE Blockchain plans crypto mining data centre in Norway

HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd., which owns GPU-based digital currency mining facilities in Iceland and Sweden for minting digital currencies like Ethereum, announced plans for a major new facility north of the Arctic Circle.

HIVE Blockchain has agreed to acquire Kolos Norway AS for approximately US$9.9 million.  Kolos' primary asset is a 64-hectare property located in Ballangen, Norway, approximately 225 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle and in proximity to hydroelectric facilities able to supply 1 GW of excess capacity to the planned data centre.

"This is another major milestone in our continuing global expansion as a leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure company," said Harry Pokrandt, CEO and Director of HIVE. "Kolos will be a flagship data centre project for HIVE for years to come and has the potential to expand to more than 1.0 GW, or 1,000 MW, of green hydroelectricity consumption dedicated to blockchain infrastructure. For context, our advanced mining operations in Iceland and Sweden will collectively represent 44.2 MW of consumption – also from green sources."

Zayo supplies metro fiber in Paris to Interdata

Zayo announced a contract to supply approximately 50km of new fiber to Interdata, a systems and infrastructure integrator based in the Paris metropolitan area.

The solution includes two diverse, dark fiber rings connecting the company’s data centers in Paris and Nozay. Completion of the rings will enable Zayo to reach a large data center campus in France just south of Paris.

“The dark fiber will provide Interdata with dedicated, secure infrastructure with the performance and resilience they require,” said Annette Murphy, Zayo’s managing director of Europe. “Our reputation and extensive experience in deploying dark fiber is the reason Interdata chose Zayo for this major networking project.”

Zayo said it continues to invest in the European market having previously acquired AboveNet, Geo, Neo and Viatel.

Microchip Technology unveils MEMS oscillators for automotive

Microchip Technology Inc.unveiled a new DSA family of automotive grade Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) oscillators.

The company says its MEMS devices provide 20 times better reliability, 500 times better tolerance to shock and five times better vibration resistance than traditional quartz-based crystal devices. The DSA family also includes the industry's first multiple output MEMS oscillator, offering customers a solution that can replace multiple crystals or oscillators with one device. The solutions could be used for applications such as Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), in-vehicle Ethernet and autonomous driving.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

NEC provides 10G-EPON for KDDI's "au Hikari Home 10 giga"

NEC supplied the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Passive Optical Network (10G-EPON) system for KDDI's  "au Hikari Home 10 giga" an FTTH service for individual subscribers.

"au Hikari Home 10 giga" enables bi-directional service at up to 10 Gbps.

NEC's 10G-EPON system consists of an Optical Line Terminal (OLT) installed within KDDI facilities and an Optical Network Unit (ONU) installed inside the homes of individual subscribers.

The small and high-density packaging of an OLT is only the size of a 4U 19-inch rack, yet it houses up to 8,192 ONUs, which helps to minimize the space required for telecommunications carriers to install them.

NEC also noted that it reduced the size of the ONU by about 65% compared to NEC's conventional products.

"The need for high-speed and large-capacity Internet is expected to continue rising with the sophistication and high-definition of content and the increase in mobile data traffic such as Wi-Fi offload. In addition to this 10G-EPON system for KDDI, NEC will continue to work on the development of optical access technologies that support the strengthening of telecommunications carrier services," said Kazuhiro Tagawa, Deputy General Manager, Network Solutions Division, NEC Corporation.

Orange leads 2017 Global Provider Ethernet LEADERBOARD

Orange retains the top position on Vertical Systems Group’s 2017 Global Provider Ethernet LEADERBOARD, while AT&T moves up to second, displacing Colt.

The results are as follows (in rank order based on retail port share): Orange Business Services (France), AT&T (U.S.), Colt (U.K.), CenturyLink (U.S.), BT Global Services (U.K.), Verizon (U.S.) and NTT (Japan). The Global Provider LEADERBOARD, the industry’s benchmark for multinational Ethernet network market presence, ranks companies that hold a 4% or higher share of billable retail ports at sites outside of their respective home countries.

The Challenge Tier of Global Providers includes companies with share between 2% and 4% of this defined market. Seven companies qualify for the year-end 2017 Challenge Tier (in alphabetical order): Cogent (U.S.), Global Cloud Xchange (India), SingTel (Singapore), T-Systems (Germany), Tata Communications (India), Telefonica Worldwide (Spain) and Vodafone (U.K.). Global Cloud Xchange is the new entrant gaining a Challenge Tier citation, moving up from the Market Player tier.

“With very slim margins separating the leading global service providers, Orange remains in first position, AT&T advances to second, and CenturyLink makes its debut,” said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. “To serve this specialized global market, key providers are increasing deployments of higher speed Ethernet connectivity to MPLS, VPLS and cloud services, while transitioning customers to more dynamic, advanced SDN-based hybrid WAN and SD-WAN offerings.”

The Market Player tier includes all Global Providers with port share below 2%. Companies in the year-end 2017 Market Player tier are as follows (in alphabetical order): Bell (Canada), Bezeq (Israel), CAT Telecom (Thailand), China Telecom (China), Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan), Eir (Ireland), Embratel (Brazil), euNetworks (U.K.), Exponential-e (U.K.), Globe (Philippines), GlobeNet (Brazil), GTT (U.S.), HGC Global (Hong Kong), Indosat (Indonesia), Interoute (U.K.), KDDI (Japan), Korea Telecom (Korea), KPN (Netherlands), Liberty Global (Netherlands), Masergy (U.S.), PCCW Global (Hong Kong), PLDT Global (Philippines), Rogers (Canada), Rostelecom (Russia), Spark (New Zealand), Sparkle (Italy), Sprint (U.S.), StarHub (Singapore), TDC (Denmark), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia), Telia (Sweden), Telin (Singapore), Telkom South Africa (South Africa), TelMex (Mexico), Telstra (Australia), Vector (New Zealand), Virgin Media Business (U.K.), Zayo (U.S.), and other providers selling Ethernet services outside their home country.

TE SubCom builds subsea cable landing infrastructure in Los Angeles

TE SubCom is beginning construction of a beach landing platform in Los Angeles to serve multiple subsea cables. Easements, permitting and agreements are complete and groundbreaking will begin imminently.

TE Subcom said LAX beachhead project will use horizontal directional drilling to install bore pipes for the shore-end landing due to the minimal impact this type of operation has on the environment of the beach and tidal area.

Chris Carobene, vice president of marine services at TE SubCom said, “Starting the construction of these bore pipes is a significant milestone for us. The project will enable a gateway to greater information capacity and significantly increased speed. We are eager to begin and looking forward to completion of the work.” Carobene added, “We continue to progress the project according to schedule and look forward to aiding our customers with this critical enabling infrastructure”.

Foxconn Interconnect Technology advances 400G, 100G BiDi, CXP2

Foxconn Interconnect Technology showcased its latest 400 Gbps Interconnect solutions at the recent Optical Fiber Communications (OFC) Conference & Exhibition in San Diego.

QSFP-DD product and technology demonstrations:

  • Live traffic up to 400 Gbps will be run over interconnects utilizing FIT QSFP-DD cables, cages and connectors.
  • 400G QSFP-DD SMF DR4 technology demonstration.
  • QSFP-DD products: FIT will be showcasing its growing line of QSFP-DD cage, connector and interconnect products.

"FIT is committed to the development of 50G, 100G and 400G PAM4 based products and technologies that will add to one of the broadest portfolios of transceivers, cages/connectors, direct attach copper (DAC), and active optical cables (AOC) on the market," said Steve Shultis, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Foxconn Interconnect Technology.

FIT also announced the general availability of its 100 Gbps Bidirectional (100G BiDi) QSFP28 multimode fiber (MMF) transceiver module for 100 Gigabit Ethernet.

A key advantage is that the 100G BiDi module facilitates an easy upgrade path from 10 Gbps or 40 Gbps line rates to 100 Gbps by reusing existing duplex LC MMF fiber cable infrastructure. The 100G BiDi modules support link distances up to 70m OM3, 100m OM4, and 150m OM5 MMF. The company notes that because 40G BiDi QSFP+ transceivers have already been widely adopted in the industry, 100G BiDi QSFP28 optics are a smooth generational upgrade. Both 40G BiDi and 100G BiDi efficiently use 2 laser colors per link, instead of more complex and costly solutions using 4 laser colors. In addition, 40G BiDi and 100G BiDi limit the range of those colors in order to get improved cable performance with existing Enterprise OM3 and OM4 MMF cabling infrastructure. FIT's solution is designed using 50 Gbps PAM4 integrated circuits and optical signaling with mature 2-color (850 and 900nm) VCSEL technology highly leveraged from 40 Gbps to 100 Gbps.

In addition, FIT announced general availability and volume production of its CXP2 optical transceiver module and CXP2 active optical cable (AOC). These 300G (12x25Gbps) pluggable fiber optic solutions can be used to build a high-density, multi-lane interconnect fabric using mature VCSEL technology, which is strongly desirable for applications such as chassis interconnect in high-end switches, routers, server clustering, and high-performance computing.

Key features of FIT's CXP2 optical solutions include:

  • Proven 850 nm technology with high reliability and consistent high quality: Fully-equipped with 12-channel arrays of VCSEL transmitter and PIN receiver technologies. Guaranteed performance over corner conditions at distances up to 100m OM4 multimode fiber.
  • Multi-rate support: Each lane can operate up to 25.78 Gbps NRZ and is compatible with legacy data rates in CDR bypass mode. Suitable for 25GE, InfiniBand EDR, PCI Express, and proprietary data rates.
  • Feature-rich programmability: Individual channel control of Tx&Rx CDR capability, Tx equalization, Rx amplitude and emphasis. Support for in-system firmware upgrade.
  • Digital diagnostics support: Both transceiver module and AOC support temperature and supply voltage monitoring as well as per-channel laser bias current, laser power, and receiver input power monitoring.
  • World 1st in high volume optical CXP2 production shipment: FIT is the first vendor offering CXP2 optical products with demonstrated high volume manufacturing capability.

Gartner: Worldwide IoT security spending to reach $1.5 billion in 2018

Worldwide spending on IoT security will reach $1.5 billion in 2018, a 28 percent increase from 2017 spending of $1.2 billion, according to Gartner.

Gartner predicts that through 2020, the biggest inhibitor to growth for IoT security will come from a lack of prioritization and implementation of security best practices and tools in IoT initiative planning. This will hamper the potential spend on IoT security by 80 percent.

Gartner is also predicting that by 2021 regulatory compliance will become the prime influencer for IoT security uptake, especially in industries such as finance and healthcare where critical infrastructure protection mandates will appear.

"In IoT initiatives, organizations often don't have control over the source and nature of the software and hardware being utilized by smart connected devices," said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner. "We expect to see demand for tools and services aimed at improving discovery and asset management, software and hardware security assessment, and penetration testing. In addition, organizations will look to increase their understanding of the implications of externalizing network connectivity. These factors will be the main drivers of spending growth for the forecast period with spending on IoT security expected to reach $3.1 billion in 2021 (see Table 1)."

IAR Systems acquires Secure Thingz

IAR Systems Group AB, based in Uppsala, Sweden agreed to acquire Secure Thingz, a provider of advanced security solutions for embedded systems in the Internet of Things (IoT).

IAR Systems, which already owned approximately 20 percent of the shares in Secure Thingz, will pay approximately 230 MSEK (US$27.9 million) for the remaining 80%. IAR will finance the acquisition either with support from a credit facility or by a directed share issue.

Secure Thingz, which is based in Cambridge, UK and with an office in San Jose, California, was founded in 2016 by staff from ARM. The company develops and sells products and services for implementation of embedded security in connected devices. The company has provided security solutions for the Renesas Synergy Platform through its Secure Deploy platform offerings. Secure Thingz is headed by Haydn Povey, who previously led Arm's strategy for security across mobile, enterprise and IoT domains. Before that, Haydn Povey led the development and introduction of the Arm Cortex-M microprocessor family, which now dominates the embedded and IoT-markets and whose large market impact enabled the rapid adoption of 32-bit microcontroller technology around the globe. Haydn Povey will continue to operate Secure Thingz as CEO.

In February 2018, IAR Systems and Secure Thingz introduced a jointly developed product called Embedded Trust that enables companies to safeguard intellectual property against overproduction and counterfeiting, manage software updates in a robust way, and protect end users from malware intrusion and theft or loss of data.

"With the increasing number of connected devices, our customers are facing new challenges. One of the major challenges is how to deliver secure products in a world where even minor failures can lead to major consequences," comments Stefan Skarin, CEO, IAR Systems. "As a first step, our customers need help mainly protecting themselves against overproduction and IP theft, and we are responding to this need with a new offering that provides possibilities to create modern workflow where security is included from start. The acquisition of Secure Thingz is a step in our increased ambition for future growth through new technology, new markets, new business models, and new relationships. It also secures our position as a frontrunner in a changing industry."

"We are very excited to become a part of the highly competent IAR Systems team," says Haydn Povey, CEO, Secure Thingz. "We have already established a smooth collaboration with the development of Embedded Trust, and our combined resources within technology, sales and customer support will enable us to accelerate the development of the innovative security solutions that the digital products market so desperately needs."

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Telstra delivers cloud voice for Microsoft Office 365 in Australia

Telstra has partnered with Microsoft to deliver native voice calling services from the Microsoft cloud with the launch of Telstra Calling for Office 365.

The Telstra Calling for Office 365 service, which will be available for Telstra’s Australian business customers from the middle of 2018, lets customers securely access cloud collaboration tools combined with voice infrastructure.

“We are always looking for ways we can make it easier for our customers to connect. Telstra Calling for Office 365 brings the full scope of Office 365’s cloud productivity and collaboration apps – including video conferencing and meeting broadcast capabilities – alongside Telstra voice calling. By combining what have traditionally been separate collaboration channels, we’re helping to increase productivity while simplifying the experience for employees," stated Michelle Bendschneider, Executive Director of Global Products, Telstra.

MobilSense acquires MobilePhire

MobilSense Technologies, a Los Angeles-based provider of managed mobility services (MMS) software, agreed to acquire MobilePhire, a mobile data management (MoDM) company. Financial terms were not disclosed.

MobilePhire, which was created by ex AT&T employees, enables real-time analytics and policy controls for data users without the need for installed agents on monitored mobile devices.

MobileSense said this acquisition will extend its capabilities for controlling data consumption on cellular networks.

MobilSense's automation software helps corporate customers manage mobility expenses. The company says its 700+ customers have accumulated over $250 million in mobility savings.

With the integration of MobilePhire, customers can now experience, from a single vendor, full-service MMS capabilities while also securely viewing and controlling mobile network data usage.

"In our quest to find a solution to our clients' growing needs for granular data control capabilities on employee devices," indicates Dave Stevens, CEO of MobilSense, "MobilePhire was the only company with a primary mission and objective to build a cellular network firewall solution with tools to block access to non-business sites and limit uncontrolled employee data usage.  MDM vendors have attempted to address the data management challenge with an emphasis on limiting the installation of apps on employee devices. This is only a partial solution that lacks the effectiveness of embedded control points within the carrier network and misses the mark on delivering visibility to actual site usage details."


Friday, March 23, 2018

Dropbox shares pop 40% in IPO

Shares in Dropbox popped by over 40% to over $29 on the first day of trading on Nasdaq.

The Nasdaq listing is DBX.  The initial public offering (IPO) price range as $18 to $20.

Dropbox passed the milestone of over 500 million registered users in March 2016. At the time, the Dropbox API was generating over 500 billion calls per year.  Collectively, these users have made 4.5 billion connections to share content.

Tintri's CFO Steps Down

Tintri, which supplies enterprise cloud storage solutions, announced that Ian Halifax, CFO at Tintri, will leave the company on April 30, 2018. The company said the departure is not based on any disagreement with the company’s accounting principles or practices or financial statement disclosures.

Earlier this month, named Tom Barton as its new CEO, replacing Ken Klein, who departed following the company's recent and disappointing Q4 financial report.
Barton previously served as CEO of Rackable Systems and held senior executive roles at Planet Labs, Canara and Red Hat.

In December, Tintro reported quarterly revenue of $31.8 million, down 6% year-over-year There was a quarterly net loss per share of ($1.21) per share GAAP, and ($0.79) per share non-GAAP. At the time, the company said it was reviewing its strategic options.

Tintri completed its IPO on 30-June-2017.

Qualcomm's Board is Reelected

Qualcomm announced that all 10 of its Director nominees have been re-elected to the Qualcomm Board of Directors: Barbara T. Alexander, Jeffrey W. Henderson, Thomas W. Horton, Ann M. Livermore, Harish Manwani, Mark D. McLaughlin, Steve Mollenkopf, Clark T. “Sandy” Randt, Jr., Francisco Ros, and Anthony J. Vinciquerra.

Qualcomm Board will not renominate Paul Jacobs


Qualcomm's Board of Directors will not renominate Dr. Paul Jacobs as a director. The decision was taken after Jabos informed the Board that he is exploring the possibility of making a proposal to acquire Qualcomm. Dr. Jacobs relinquished his role as Executive Chairman of the Qualcomm Board of Directors last week, days prior to President's decision to block Broadcom's proposed acquisitio...


Thursday, March 22, 2018

AT&T looks to combine XGS-PON with ONAP for virtualized optical access network

AT&T and the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) announced a collaboration to integrate the ONFs' work on multi-gigabit passive optic networks (PON) with the service automation system, ONAP.

The effort will integrate VOLTHA (Virtual Optical Line Termination Hardware Abstraction), the open source software stack powering PON networks, with ONAP.

AT&T said the idea is to develop virtualized and disaggregated network access for PON networks. The integration will build upon AT&T's ongoing field trials of XGS-PON, which is a fixed wavelength symmetrical 10Gbps passive optic network technology. It also builds upon previous GPON and CORD trials.

The current XGS-PON trial is testing multi-gigabit high-speed internet traffic and providing a AT&T DIRECTV NOW video experience to trial participants. To build the network, AT&T used the following open source software.


  • AT&T Open XGS-PON OLT: an OCP Accepted white box OLT
  • ONOS: the ONF SDN controller that hosts virtual OLT control applications
  • vBNG: a virtual broadband network gateway application to manage subscribers
  • VOLTHA (Virtual Optical Line Termination Hardware Abstraction): an ONF software project that provides hardware abstraction and a highly available SDN driver for OLT devices.
  • VOLTHA, the software powering the PON network trials, was developed by an ONF project community and used the latest in DevOps development techniques to enable rapid prototyping and accelerated delivery to the field trial. AT&T's Foundry in Atlanta developed the vBNG software and AT&T provided overall system integration and field operations for the trial.

"Our network is constantly evolving. Collaboration and openness across AT&T, the ONF, and VOLTHA teams will be key to bringing this 10 Gbps broadband network to customers faster," said Igal Elbaz, senior vice president, Wireless Network Architecture and Design, AT&T. "Now that we've proven the viability of open access technology in our trials, we can start the integration with our operations and management automation platform – ONAP."

"AT&T's Access team has been an important collaborator in ONF's mission to provide open source platforms for software defined broadband access and we look forward to building on this collaboration as we integrate with ONAP," said Guru Parulkar, Executive Director, ONF.

AT&T completes software-based XGS-PON field trials

AT&T completed field trials of a 10 Gbps XGS-PON virtualized network using Open Source Access Manager Hardware Abstraction (OSAM-HA) software in Atlanta and Dallas.

OSAM-HA, which was previously known as Virtual Optical Line Termination Hardware Abstraction (VOLTHA), enables a virtualized Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) function to manage subscribers. OSAM is a vendor agnostic operational suite for managing consumer and business broadband access network elements and capabilities; separate from vendor-specific Access Element Management Systems (EMS).

XGS-PON is a fixed wavelength symmetrical 10Gbps passive optic network technology.  During the trials, the XGS-PON system tested multi-gigabit high-speed Internet traffic and provided a seamless AT&T DIRECTV NOW video experience to participants.

One observation from the trial is that AT&T found it possible for GPON and XGS wavelengths to coexist across a single fiber interface.

“Our network is constantly evolving. We’ll continue to execute our software-based network strategy to technologies like 5G, virtualized RAN, and G.FAST over time. Ultimately, instead of deploying islands of technology that have SDN control, we want to orchestrate the entire end-to-end network through ONAP,” said Eddy Barker, assistant vice president, Access Architecture and Design, AT&T.

ONAP stands for Open Network Automation Platform. It’s our virtual access project within the Linux Foundation and will use the first iteration of OSAM-HA technology.

AT&T releases its Virtual Optical Line Termination Hardware Abstraction to ONF

AT&T is contributing its Virtual Optical Line Termination Hardware Abstraction (VOLTHA) code into the Open Networking Foundation (ONF).

VOLTA provides the framework behind AT&T's XGS-PON access network in the cloud. AT&T is currently performing proof-of-concept testing of VOLTHA in its labs and are planning to deploy XGS-PON field trials before the end of 2017.

AT&T described its decision to contribute its VOLTHA code as one more step in its commitment to move toward open source software and SDN/NFV frameworks.