First release of open source Kata Containers

The open source Kata Containers project marked its version 1.0 release.

Kata Containers 1.0 delivers the fully integrated code bases of the two technologies contributed to form the foundation of the project: Intel Clear Containers from Intel Corporation and runV technology from Hyper.sh.

The developers q1say Kata Containers offer a fast and secure deployment option for anything from highly-regulated workloads to untrusted code, spanning public/private cloud, containers-as-a-service and edge computing use cases.

The Kata Containers project was launched in December 2017 by the OpenStack Foundation. Arm, Canonical, Dell/EMC, Intel and Red Hat have announced financial support for the project. Other companies supporting the project include 99cloud, AWcloud, China Mobile, City Network, CoreOS, EasyStack, Fiberhome, Google, Huawei, JD.com, Mirantis, NetApp, SUSE, Tencent, Ucloud and UnitedStack.

https://katacontainers.io/

Read More

Telefónica to resell AWS cloud services

Telefónica Business Solutions has agreed to sell Amazon Web Services in its cloud offering portfolio.

Telefónica will train and certify specialists in AWS services and best practices. AWS has agreed to have dedicated resources to support Telefónica and their customers.

Hugo de los Santos, Director Global B2B Products and Services at Telefónica commented, “Our customers are asking for advice and support in their Cloud adoption processes. AWS, with its depth and breadth of services as well as global presence, is a piece that fits perfectly in our Cloud portfolio. Telefónica’s cloud offering thus empowers our customers to run their infrastructure, applications and workloads on the most suitable Cloud service possible.”

Niko Mykkanen, Head of EMEA Partners & Alliances, Amazon Web Services, said: “Service providers are playing an important role in driving innovation and creating value for organizations. We are excited to work with Telefónica to enable the digital transformation of enterprise customers and help them leverage the scalability and breadth of services that AWS offers.”

Read More

Verizon Digital Media implements Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC)

Verizon Digital Media Services has deployed Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC) across its content delivery network, with 125 points of presence globally.

QUIC is a transport protocol developed by Google to improve web page load and transaction speeds. Specifically, QUIC improves web application performance across Chrome and Opera web browsers and select connected devices by decreasing the time required to establish a secure connection. It also continues to deliver an active stream, seamlessly and uninterrupted, when an end user changes IP addresses by continuing to use the old connection ID from the new IP address.

Verizon Digital Media Services said its customers can now enable QUIC through a simple rules engine change that takes effect within minutes, at no additional cost.

“We are always working to improve our network performance for our customers, who are in the business of providing digital media to their end users as quickly, securely and cost-efficiently as possible,” said Frank Orozco, chief technology officer, Verizon Digital Media Services. “Whether it’s streaming a widely watched sports event or accelerating a shopping cart transaction, every millisecond counts.”

https://www.verizondigitalmedia.com/platform/edgecast-cdn/

Read More

OIF plans SDN Transport API interoperability demo presentations

The OIF (Optical Internetworking Forum) will conduct several public read-out events to present the results of the 2018 Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) interoperability demonstration.

This year’s demo, in collaboration with MEF, is focused on accelerating the commercialization of Transport SDN through validating the industry-leading T-API 2.0 northbound interface (NBI) from the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). The multi-vendor demo includes testing new dynamic behavior use cases and deployment scenarios by CenturyLink, China Telecom, SK Telecom and Telefónica. Participating vendors include ADVA, Coriant, Infinera, NEC/Netcracker, Nokia and SM Optics. Centre Tecnològic Telecomunicacions Catalunya is the participating academic and/or research institution and TELUS Communications is participating as a consulting network operator.

The demo incorporates service provisioning scenarios at the LSO Presto reference point in the MEF LSO architecture, using the MEF NRP Interface Profile Specification (MEF 60), which defines T-API extensions in support of Carrier Ethernet services.

“The OIF multi-vendor interop testing is particularly important to Telefónica’s network transformation. We are anxious to validate T-API as the standard NBI for Transport SDN and announce the results in June,” said Juan Pedro Fernández Palacios, Telefónica.

The results of the demo will be presented during a featured workshop and keynote presentation at NGON & DCI Europe 2018 conference in Nice, France.

Private read-outs will also be conducted by CenturyLink (July 10 in Denver) and China Telecom in Beijing (July 19).

Read More

Ixia delivers 200/100/50GE test for its 400GE QSFP-DD system

Ixia, a division of Keysight Technologies, announced first shipment of a 400GE test system with multi-rate 200/100/50GE speed options for the K400 400GE QSFP-DD load module family.

These multi-rate speed options allow network equipment manufacturers to test products at speeds based on the new IEEE 802.3cd draft standard and IEEE 802.3bs standard using the 400GE QSFP-DD module at 200GE, 100GE, and 50GE speeds, from a single port.

Ixia said 56 Gbps technology is at the forefront of Ethernet speed evolution—moving from legacy 25GE, 50GE, and 100GE (based on 28Gbs technology) to the new 200GE, 100GE, and 50GE interfaces expected to come to market this year. The Ixia K400 QSFP-DD load module is the only shipping test solution that can validate these technologies using 400GE-port fan-out media for testing 400GE, 200GE, 100GE, or 50GE multi-speed or single-speed network devices.

“Flexible test solutions are necessary to develop higher speed, multi-rate, high-density Ethernet products for the leaders in the data center space,” said Sunil Kalidindi, vice president product management, at Keysight’s Ixia Solutions Group. “Network devices such as routers, switches and servers must be able to operate at all new speeds in the IEEE 802.3cd draft specification and IEEE 802.3bs on most, or all, ports on their devices.”

Read More

Pica8 launches orchestration software for White Box switches

Pica8 introduced switch orchestration software designed to automatically connect almost any number of multivendor 1G to 100G white box Ethernet switches and run them as if they were a single logical switch with a single IP address.

Pica8 said that by compressing dozens of white box switches int

o a single logical device for configuration and management, its new PicaPilot software reduces network operational complexity by 10-50X.

In lieu of Spanning Tree Protocol, PicaPilot uses MLAG (Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation) to maximize bandwidth utilization and act as PicaPilot’s primary high-availability/reliability mechanism. In addition, PicaPilot automatically redirects traffic in the event of a spine switch or link failure, significantly reducing the possibility of any network downtime.

“The biggest complaint we hear from almost every one of our enterprise customers today is that the complexity and rigidity of their existing legacy networks has got to end,” said Jeff Paine, vice president of marketing at Pica8. “As the first company to ship an open, Linux-based NOS on white box switches over six years ago, we felt it was incumbent upon us to be the one to find a way to crack the final barrier facing our industry – entrenched complexity – which PicaPilot has done by extracting all the complexity from leaf-spine and reducing it to a single layer from a management perspective.111 There is literally nothing simpler or easier to use in the market.”

All versions of PicaPilot for PICOS-enabled switches are priced at under $1,000 for a perpetual license and are available now for deployment on any Pica8-supported switch.

Read More

Holland's Previder builds 400km ring with ADVA's FSP 3000 DCI

Previder, the largest Dutch-based and owned data center company in the Netherlands, has deployed ADVA's FSP 3000 CloudConnect data center interconnect (DCI) platform to meet booming enterprise cloud service demand. Previder has built a 400km ring network to deliver 100GbE and 16 Gbit/s Fibre Channel services to its enterprise customers.

ADVA said the open, multi-protocol network, which also leverages ADVA's OpenFabric cross-connect technology for flexible service delivery, enables the colocation and cloud services provider to maximize the value of its existing infrastructure as it smoothly transitions to 100Gbit/s transport.
The new network also benefits from ADVA’s FSP 3000 QuadFlex capabilities -- an innovative line card technology that enables a single chassis to support multi-Terabit transmissions over long distances without the need for signal regeneration.

“Our DCI technology meets the most exacting density, security and energy demands. It’s the ultimate tool to enable forward-looking cloud operators like Previder to expand its colocation environment and deliver even more attractive on-demand connectivity offerings,” commented Yann Evain, sales director, Benelux, ADVA.

TrueCom, a local ADVA partner, also played a key role in the process.

Read More

Fujitsu deploys Juniper's AppFormix for cloud management

Fujitsu Limited has deployed Juniper’s AppFormix cloud management platform to support its K5 enterprise cloud service in Japan.

Fujitsu’s K5 is described as the world’s largest open-source based platform for enabling digital business transformation across the public, private and hybrid cloud.

Juniper said its AppFormix management was selected to address the growing operational needs of Fujitsu’s K5 platform as it expands to new regions.

“AppFormix is delighted to be an integral part of Fujitsu’s K5 Cloud Service platform, an exciting partnership in our challenge against complexity. We look forward to the continued advancement of AppFormix solutions in support of Fujitsu’s operational needs going forward, especially for the potential global deployment of K5 as a continuation of our long-term, firm partnership,” stated Sumeet Singh, Vice President of Engineering at Juniper Networks.

Juniper to Acquire AppFormix for Cloud Optimization

Thursday, December 01, 2016  Appformix, Cloud, Juniper, Mergers And Acquisitions, Silicon Valley, Start-Ups  No Comments

Juniper Networks agreed to acquire AppFormix, a start-up based in San Jose, California, specializing in cloud operations management for enterprise DevOps teams. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The AppFormix software platform provides real-time analytics, capacity planning, and orchestration tooling in a shared dashboard that gives cloud operators and applications developers a better way to understand performance across the entire cloud stack.  AppFormix works with popular cloud environments like AWS, OpenStack, Azure and Kubernetes.

In 2015, AppFormix raised $7 million in funding from August Capital.

Juniper said the acquisition will bring the power of analytics through machine learning and telemetry to Juniper's customers.

"The networking industry is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, and new technologies like analytics and machine learning are enabling companies to have more insight into their network than ever before," said Pradeep Sindhu, founder, vice president and CTO at Juniper Networks. "We recognize our customers' needs and desires for a self-driving infrastructure; one that is optimized, secure and automated. With the acquisition of AppFormix, we're accelerating our vision to use software automation and intelligence to deliver a smarter network and more simplified operations for our customers around the world."

http://www.juniper.net
http://www.appformix.com

• AppFormix was headed by Sumeet Singh, who previously served as Principal Development Manager for Microsoft Azure, and, before that, as Data Center Architect - Principal Engineer at Cisco Systems.

Read More

SpaceX launches 5 Iridium NEXT satellites, 2 GRACE-FO satellites

SpaceX successfully launched five Iridium NEXT satellites and two GRACE-FO satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The launch used the Falcon 9 rocket.

Falcon 9’s first stage for this mission was previously used in January for the Zuma mission from Cape Canaveral in Florida. After today's launch, SpaceX did not attempt to recover the first stage again.

The Iridium NEXT project is replacing the replacing all of the company's satellites with new ones for enabling next-generation broadband for specialized applications, like safety services, data and communications, remote monitoring, tracking, etc. This was the sixth of eight launch missions by SpaceX for Iridium NEXT. In total, 81 satellites are being built, with 66 in the operational constellation, nine serving as on-orbit spares and six as ground spares.

The two Geosciences (GFZ) GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellites belong to the NASA/German Research Centre. As the twin satellites fly over
areas of higher and lower mass, the distance between them changes slightly due to gravitational forces. By precisely measuring these changes, the distribution of Earth’s mass can be mapped monthly and tracked over time. This data can be used to monitor changes in ice sheets and glaciers, underground water storage, water in large lakes and rivers, and sea level, providing a unique view of Earth’s evolving climate and its water and energy cycles, with far-reaching societal benefits

Read More