Arrcus builds Network OS for white box data center infrastructure

Arrcus, a start-up based in San Jose, California, emerged from stealth to unveil its software-driven, hardware agnostic network operating system for white boxes.

Arrcus said it sees an opportunity to help enterprises transform the way they manage their networks, liberating them from vertically integrated proprietary solutions and opening the door to horizontally diversified choices of best-in-class silicon and hardware systems.

The company's new ArcOS networking operating system has been ported to both Broadcom’s StrataDNX Jericho+ and StrataXGS Trident 3 switching silicon platforms.

ArcOS is built on a modular micro-services paradigm and offers advanced Layer 3 routing capabilities. Key elements include a hyper-performance resilient control plane, an intelligent, programmable Dataplane Adaptation Layer (DPAL), a data-Model Driven Telemetry for Control Plane, Data Planes and Environmental, and a consistent YANG/OpenConfig APIs for easy programmatic access.  These capabilities in conjunction with Broadcom’s StrataDNX Jericho+ platform enable the support for the full BGP internet routing table.

Arrcus cites the following use cases:

• Spine-Leaf Clos for Datacenter workloads
• Internet Peering for CDN providers and ISPs
• Resilient Routing to the Host
• Massively Scalable Route-Reflector clusters in physical/container form-factors

Arrcus also announced $15 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst and Clear Ventures. Advisors include include Pankaj Patel, former EVP and CDO of Cisco; Amarjit Gill, serial entrepreneur who founded and sold companies to Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, EMC, Facebook, Google, and Intel; Farzad Nazem, former CTO of Yahoo; Randy Bush, Internet Hall of Fame, founder Verio (basis of NTT’s DataCenter Business); Fred Baker, former Cisco Fellow, IETF Chair and Co-Chair of the IPv6 Working Group; Nancy Lee, ex-VP of People at Google, and Shawn Zandi, Director, Network Engineering at LinkedIn.

“We use ‘network different’ as our fundamental approach to enable the freedom of choice through our product innovation and challenging the status quo.  Arrcus has assembled the world’s best networking technologists, is bringing new capabilities, and changing the business model to make it easier to design, deploy, and manage large scale networking solutions for our customers,” stated Arrcus co-founder and CEO Devesh Garg.

• Arrcus is headed by Devesh Garg, who previously was president of EZchip (acquired by Tilera) and founding CEO of Tilera (acquired by EZchip). He also served at Bessemer Venture Partners and Broadcom. Other Arrcus co-founders include Keyur Patel, who was a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco; and Derek Yeung, a former Principal Engineer at Cisco.

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Microsoft Azure Service Fabric Mesh enters beta

Microsoft announced the public preview release of Azure Service Fabric, which is its new distributed systems platform for managing scalable microservices and container-based applications for Windows and Linux.

Microsoft describes Service Fabric as a foundational technology for its core Azure infrastructure, as well as other Microsoft cloud services such as Skype for Business, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database, Dynamics 365, and many more.

Azure Service Fabric Mesh will be a fully-managed service that enables developers to deploy and operate containerized applications without having to manage VMs, storage or networking configuration, while keeping the enterprise-grade reliability, scalability, and mission-critical performance of Service Fabric.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-service-fabric-mesh-is-now-in-public-preview/

Azure Kubernetes Service enters general availability

Thursday, June 14, 2018  Kubernetes, Microsoft Azure  No Comments

Microsoft announced that its Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is now generally available in ten regions across three continents. Microsoft expects to add ten more regions in the coming months.

The new Kubernetes service features an Azure-hosted control plane, automated upgrades, self-healing, easy scaling, and a simple user experience for both developers and cluster operators. Users are able to control access to their Kubernetes cluster with Azure Active Directory accounts and user groups. A key attribute of AKS is operational visibility into the managed Kubernetes environment. Control plane telemetry, log aggregation, and container health are monitored via the Azure portal.

Microsoft also announced five new regions including Australia East, UK South, West US, West US 2, and North Europe.

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Telecom Egypt + Liquid Telecom link Cairo-to-Cape Town terrestrial fiber

Telecom Egypt and Liquid Telecom signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to complete the first terrestrial fibre network stretching all the way from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt.

Under the MoU, Liquid Telecom will link its network from Sudan into Telecom Egypt’s network via a new cross border interconnection – bringing together a 60,000km network that runs from Cape Town, through all the Southern, Central, and Eastern African countries, and has now reached the border between Sudan and Egypt.

As part of the strategic partnership, Liquid Telecom and Telecom Egypt will share network infrastructure and explore further areas of collaboration, including joint network services, a peering arrangement and a voice interconnection agreement.

The Cape to Cairo network - often referred to as “the One Africa” broadband network - has been in the making for over ten years and serves some of the largest global companies with some of the fastest network speeds on the continent.

“Completing our vision of building a single network running on land, all the way from Cape to Cairo is a historic moment for the company and for a more connected Africa. This network not only represents a remarkable engineering achievement that has overcome some of the most challenging distances and terrains on the continent, but it is also supporting the rise of Africa’s digital economies,” said Strive Masiyiwa, Founder and Executive Chairman of Econet.

“This MoU is a great step in our strategy to penetrate the African market and avail Telecom Egypt’s most advanced technology and global infrastructure services to customers across Africa. We look forward to working alongside Liquid Telecom to develop new network services and products that will help stimulate intra-regional trade,” said Ahmed El Beheiry, Telecom Egypt’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.

https://www.liquidtelecom.com/news-events/news.html

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Ericsson, Telstra and Intel complete first 5G data call over 3.5GHz

Ericsson, Telstra and Intel completed the first end-to-end 5G non-standalone (NSA) 3GPP data call on a commercial mobile network at Telstra’s 5G Innovation Centre on the Gold Coast Australia in a multivendor setup.

The 5G data call was made over Telstra’s 5G NSA enabled commercial network using the following components:

• Ericsson’s base station comprising Baseband 6630, AIR 6488 and 4G / 5G system software
• Telstra’s licenced 5G Band 42 (3.5 GHz) and 4G Band 1 spectrum (2100 MHz)
• A Telstra retail SIM
• Network connection to an Ericsson virtualized 5G packet core (vMME and vEPG) running on Ericsson’s NFVi - the 5G slice was connected into the existing Telstra mobile network, which supports other functions such as backhaul, user authentication, billing and provisioning
• Intel 5G Mobile Trial Platform for the 5G NR UE, running an early 3GPP Rel15 Intel 4G module and a 5G NSA implementation

"Demonstrating this 5G data call end-to-end using my own personal SIM card on Telstra’s mobile network is the closest any provider has come to making a ’true’ 5G call in the real world-environment, and marks another 5G first for Telstra. We continue to work with global technology companies Ericsson and Intel as well as global standards bodies to advance the deployment of commercial 5G capability in Australia,” stated Telstra’s Group Managing Director Networks Mike Wright.

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CenturyLink offers private access to Oracle Cloud

CenturyLink is launching a dedicated and private access service to Oracle Cloud.

The CenturyLink Cloud Connect Solutions and Oracle’s FastConnect service will be delivered via both Wavelengths and MEF 2.0-certified Carrier Ethernet services.

“Our integration with Oracle FastConnect provides our customers a network experience that matches their cloud experience,” said Chris McReynolds, vice president of core network services, CenturyLink. “In today’s rapidly changing IT environment, our customers need a network that can adapt with their cloud workloads. Our Ethernet Services connectivity offers real-time network visibility and dynamic bandwidth, providing enterprises with control and scalability across their entire cloud ecosystem.”

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Orange acquires Basefarm for cloud infrastructure in Europe

Orange Business Services has agreed to acquire Basefarm Holding AS, a major player in cloud infrastructure and critical application services in Europe, for EUR 350 million.

Basefarm, which recorded revenues of over EUR 100 million in 2017, has an operational presence in several European countries, particularly in Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria and in Germany.

Orange Business Services said the acquisition of Basefarm represents an advancement of its development strategy, complementing its existing catalogue of offers. The addition of Basefarm will also complete the geographical reach of Orange’s services, enabling it to become a leading player in Europe.

“We are very proud to announce the acquisition of Basefarm, which will mark a major milestone in our international development. In particular, the company’s integration will enable us to significantly extend our Big Data and critical application management services on a rapidly consolidating market. In addition to our ability to offer access to public or private cloud infrastructure, it is above all our capacity to propose enriched, automated services to our customers, wherever they are in the world, that will enable us to support companies as they transform onto new, digital models based on cloud-computing, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence,” said Helmut Reisinger, Chief Executive Officer of Orange Business Services.

• The Basefarm group consists of four companies; Basefarm AS (Norway), Basefarm BV (Netherlands), Basefarm AB (Sweden) and The unbelievable Machine Company Gmbh (Germany and Austria). ABRY Partners holds a 90% stake in Basefarm. The company was founded in 2000, is based in Oslo, and is headed by Fredrik Olhsen.

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