Apple to invest $10B in US data centers

In its widely-reported announcement that it will repatriate an estimated $245 billion in overseas earnings, Apple also disclosed plans to invest over $30 billion in capital expenditures in the U.S. over the next five years. Over $10 billion of this CAPEX will be investments in U.S. data centers.

Apple currently has data centers and co-located facilities in seven US states, including North Carolina, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and a recently announced project in Iowa. The company has just broken ground on a new data center in Reno, Nevada located next to its existing facility in the city.

Apple will also increase the size of its Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $1 billion to $5 billion.

In December, Apple announced plans to invest $390 million in Finisar to support the high-volume production of Finisar's vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), which are used power Apple’s TrueDepth camera on the iPhone X as well as the proximity-sensing capabilities of AirPods.  The iPhone X's TrueDepth camera enables Face ID, Animoji and Portrait mode selfie capabilities.

The $390 million investment comes from Apple's $1 billion Advanced Manufacturing Fund supporting innovation and job creation by American manufacturers.

Finisar plans to reopen its 700,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Sherman, Texas. Volume production should be underway in the second half of 2018. The companies estimate this will create more than 500 jobs at the facility. Finisar operates another plant in nearby Allen, Texas. With both plants in full operation, Finisar's payroll in northern Texas is expected to be $65 million.

Read More

OIF advances Common Electrical I/O for 56 Gbps

The OIF has published “Common Electrical (I/O) CEI 4.0” with a focus on Serdes standards for 56 Gbps.

The result is a number of carefully optimized channel definitions, paving the way for a range of interoperable solutions at 56 Gbps data rates. Key to this effort was aiming for the lowest possible power dissipation for each application while balancing link budget and latency. At this time the OIF is releasing CEI 4.0 with the following new clauses:

• CEI-56G-USR-NRZ: Ultra Short Reach, die-to-die inside muti-chip-modules, NRZ modulation
• CEI-56G-XSR-NRZ: Extra Short Reach, chip-to-driver, NRZ modulation
• CEI-56G-VSR-PAM4: Very Short Reach, chip-to-module, PAM-4 modulation
• CEI-56G-MR-PAM4: Medium Reach, chip-to-chip, one connector, PAM-4 modulation
• CEI-56G-LR-PAM4: Long Reach, chip-to-chip, two connectors over backplane, PAM-4 modulation
• CEI-56G-LR-ENRZ: Long Reach, chip-to-chip, two connectors over backplane, ENRZ modulation

“The industry continues to face challenges for diverging requirements regarding link latency and concerns with power consumption at the higher data rates,” said Klaus-Holger Otto of Nokia and the OIF Technical Committee Chair.  “Documenting channel definitions in more granular reaches and multiple  modulation schemes allows for the optimization of silicon chip designs, channel architectures and network operator use cases. These parameters for 56 Gbps will be used as building blocks for protocol specifications written by other organizations across the industry so the forum wanted to provide definitions that met their unique needs.”

http://www.oiforum.com/wp-content/uploads/OIF-CEI-04.0.pdf

Read More

Telia to deploy Nokia Cloud Packet Core

Telia Company has chosen Nokia's cloud packet core solution for all of its operations in Nordics and Baltics, covering Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania. Telia will evolve their physical common multi-country evolved packet core to a common cloud native solution on a shared cloud infrastructure.  Nokia will be the sole vendor for this part of Telia's Next Generation Core.
The deployment will include Nokia's Cloud Mobility Manager and Cloud Mobile Gateway. Financial terms were not disclosed.

"There is tremendous potential with the continued growth of mobile broadband, and with new services and 5G in the near future. To take advantage of these opportunities, Telia must deploy a new generation cloud-native packet core that is able to connect to a greater variety of devices and deliver a broader range of services over multiple access technologies. Nokia uniquely combines field-proven cloud-native software, cloud technologies and mobile and IP routing expertise to help Telia speed up service delivery, deliver greater scale and capacity and operate its network more efficiently. Plus, because our cloud packet core is built on our robust, field proven router software (SROS), it provides Telia with a solid foundational framework for the evolution of its 4G and the path forward to 5G," stated Sri Reddy, senior vice-president of Nokia's IP and Optical business.

Read More

Radisys enhances its MediaEngine for NFV-Accelerated Media Processing

Radisys announced enhancements to its virtualized MediaEngine platform that deliver 30 percent capacity increases on Intel architecture-based servers and support a broader range of public and private cloud environments.

Radisys' MediaEngine is also gaining support for HW-Assist, an architecture that can utilize additional available processing from DSPs and GPUs in off-the-shelf servers as well as Open Compute Project architecture platforms to delivers advanced cloud media processing and transcoding for HD voice, video calling and unified communications services. The company says HW-Assist could result in a data center footprint that is 6 to 10 times smaller than that of off-the-shelf servers’ CPU-based media processing alone.

“As the trend to NFV has accelerated, the cost of virtualizing media processing on a large scale has been prohibitive. This has forced many service providers to a two-pronged strategy: moving application and control to the cloud, while deferring the move of data plane and signal processing intensive capabilities like media processing,” said Al Balasco, vice president, MediaEngine, Radisys.

Read More

Alibaba Cloud plugs into CoreSite Silicon Valley and No. Virginia

CoreSite is now offering private connectivity to Alibaba Cloud Open Cloud Exchange data centers in Silicon Valley and Northern Virginia.

Customers can now get direct connectivity to Alibaba Cloud, including enhanced security, optimal network performance, and compatibility with the full suite of Alibaba Cloud services including Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Elastic Compute Service and Object Storage Service.

As one of the largest global cloud services providers, we are pleased to partner with CoreSite to extend the reach of Alibaba Cloud services,” said Karen Lu, General Manager, Alibaba Cloud North America. “By leveraging the CoreSite ecosystem, we will be able to provide more customers access to our comprehensive worldwide suite of cloud computing services in order to help grow their businesses.”

Read More

Tel Aviv-based VDOO raises $13M for IoT security

VDOO, a cybersecurity start-up based in Tel Aviv, Israel raised $13 million in initial funding for its efforts to create an end-to-end platform for the automated analysis and certification of security on connected devices.

VDOO said its solution performs a security gap analysis on IoT devices, against the specific security requirements for each device type, and provides a detailed recommended plan of action to fill security gaps. Once security features have been implemented, VDOO validates that security requirements have been met and provides physical and digital certifications. The on-device digital certification agent monitors the security state of the device and communicates it to other systems such as gateways, firewalls, and edge solutions; which provides post-deployment security, ensuring the device is not being compromised.

VDOO was founded by Netanel Davidi, Uri Alter, both of whom previously founded Cyvera, a company that developed endpoint security solutions and which was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2014. A third founder of VDOO is Asaf Karas, who brings 2 decades of cyber experience with the IDF.

The venture round was led by 83North (formerly Greylock IL) and included participation by Dell Technology Capital and other strategic individual investors, including David Strohm, Joe Tucci, and Victor Tsao.

Read More

Anomali raises $40 million for threat mgt and collaboration

Anomali, a start-up based in Redwood City, California announced $40 million in an oversubscribed Series D funding round. The company specializes in threat management and collaboration solutions, announced today that it has closed an oversubscribed.

Anomali cited significant momentum in 2017, including the introducing new capabilities in its ThreatStream, Anomali Enterprise and STAXX solutions, enabling advanced threat forensics and threat sharing capabilities. The company also:

• launched a 48-bank threat sharing community in the United Arab Emirates,
• testified before the Homeland Security Committee regarding the importance of threat sharing,
• partnered with the Bank of England to collect, integrate, hunt and investigate cyber security intelligence data, and
• published a series of Cybersecurity Country Profiles, including Russia, China and Iran.

“2017 was another remarkable year for Anomali, in which we saw record customer growth and product innovation. We are thrilled to add Lumia Capital, DTCP, Telstra and Sozo Ventures to the Anomali family and are already preparing major initiatives with our newest partners,” said Hugh Njemanze, chief executive officer, Anomali. “Our latest investors ideally position us for growth in Europe, Japan and Australia.”

The latest funding round was led by Lumia Capital, with the participation of Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners (DTCP), Telstra and Sozo Ventures. Returning investors included GV, General Catalyst, IVP and Paladin Capital Group. This announcement marks a total of $96 million total investment raised by Anomali over four rounds of funding.

• Anomali is headed by Hugh Njemanze, who previously co-founded ArcSight in May 2000 and served as CTO as well as Executive Vice President of Research and Development.

Read More

John Chambers launches venture capital firm

John Chambers, the former Chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, is launching a new venture capital firm to invest in global start-ups dedicated to the digital future. His son, John J. Chambers, is playing a key role as Head of Growth in the business. Shannon Pina, who worked at Cisco as Chambers' executive communications manager , will serve as Chief of Staff.

JC2Ventures, which is based in Palo Alto, California, already lists eight portfolio companies in which it has invested: Airware, Aspire, Dedrone, OpenGov, Pindrop, Privoro, Sprinklr, and Uniphore.

 

Read More

Finisar's Jerry Rawls steps down, Michael Hurlston takes over as CEO

Michael Hurlston has been appointed as CEO and a director of Finisar following the retirement of Jerry Rawls as Chairman and CEO of Finisar. Rawls will continue to serve as a Director of the Company. Finisar's Lead Director Robert Stephens has been appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors.

"On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to thank Jerry for his tireless and inspired leadership of Finisar over the past nearly 30 years," stated Robert Stephens. "Under Jerry's leadership, Finisar has grown from its founding in Quonset hut in Menlo Park, California to a world-leading optics company with cutting-edge products and approximately $1.4 billion in revenues in its most recently completed fiscal year. We are deeply grateful to Jerry for his innumerable contributions to Finisar's growth and success to-date and are confident that he has positioned the Company solidly for the great opportunities in our industry today."

Michael Hurlston most recently served as a Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Mobile Connectivity Products/Wireless Communications and Connectivity Division at Broadcom Limited. Previously, he held senior leadership positions in sales, marketing and general management at Broadcom. Prior to joining Broadcom in 2001, Mr. Hurlston held senior marketing and engineering positions at Oren Semiconductor, Inc., Avasem, Integrated Circuit Systems, Micro Power Systems, Exar and IC Works. Mr. Hurlston is also a Director of Ubiquiti Networks, Inc. and a member of the Board of Advisors of Vilynx Inc. Mr. Hurlston received a B.S.E.E., an M.S.E.E. and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Davis.

Read More

Samsung ramps 16-Gigabit GDDR6 for advanced graphics

Samsung Electronics Co. has commenced mass production of the industry’s first 16-gigabit (Gb) Graphics Double Data Rate 6 (GDDR6) memory for use in advanced graphics processing for gaming devices and graphics cards as well as automotive, network and artificial intelligence systems.

Samsung's new 16Gb GDDR6 memory is built on advanced 10-nanomter (nm) class process technology, and performs at an 18-gigabits-per-second (Gbps) pin speed with data transfers of 72 gigabytes per second (GBps), which represents a more than two-fold increase over 8Gb GDDR5 with its 8Gbps pin speed.

Read More

ADTRAN reports disappointing Q4 following slowdown with tier 1 US carrier

ADTRAN reported Q4 2017 sales of $126.5 million compared to $163.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2016. Net income was a loss of $11.1 million compared to income of $7.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2016. Earnings per share, assuming dilution, were a loss of $0.23 compared to income of $0.16 for the fourth quarter of 2016.

Non-GAAP earnings per share were $0.05 compared to $0.21 for the fourth quarter of 2016.

ADTRAN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tom Stanton stated, “As we previously disclosed, our results for the quarter were negatively affected by a merger-related review and spending slowdown by a domestic Tier 1 customer. While this disruption continues to impact our business, our overall expectations regarding our domestic and international programs and opportunities remain positive. The company’s engagement with leading service providers across the globe is extremely strong, with high interest and acceptance of our next-generation Software Defined Access solutions. ADTRAN is well positioned to help our carrier and MSO customers successfully manage the transition to a fully realized Gigabit and beyond marketplace by providing the industry’s most innovative and complete portfolio of transformative SD-Access solutions so that any subscriber, in any market, can realize the full potential of the network.”

Read More