Open source Istio cloud service mesh reaches 1.0 release

The Google-inspired, Istio open-source project announced its 1.0 release.

Istio is intended to be a service mesh that collects logs, traces and telemetry, and adds security and policy without embedding client libraries. The software offers APIs for integrating with systems for logging, telemetry and policy.

Google describes Istio as a key step toward delivering its Cloud Services Platform. Istio could be used for measuring traffic between services: requests per second, error rates and latency.

Google notes that IBM is a key collaborator and co-founder of Istio, and Lyft’s Envoy proxy is a key component of the project. Datadog, SolarWinds, Sysdig, Google Stackdriver and Amazon CloudWatch offer plugins to integrate Istio with their products. Other companies supporing Istio include Cisco, Red Hat, and VMware.

https://cloud.google.com/istio/

https://istio.io/

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Sprint now has over 15,000 small cells up and running

Sprint's CTO, John Saw, published an update on the company's next-gen network buildout. Here are some highlights:

• Upgraded thousands of macro sites for all three of its spectrum bands (800 MHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.5 GHz).
• Expanded 2.5 GHz to nearly two-thirds of its macro sites, up from approximately half of sites covered just a few quarters ago.
• Current has more than 15,000 small cells on-air with its combination of strand mounts and mini macros to expand 2.5 GHz coverage.
• Deployed approximately 7,000 strand mount 2.5 GHz small cells on cable infrastructure in Q1. Since the quarter ended, efforts have continued to accelerate, and today Sprint has more than 10,000 strand mount small cells deployed. 
• Distributed more than 65,000 2.5 GHz Sprint Magic Boxes to improve indoor data speeds on average by 200%.  To date, Sprint has distributed more than 260,000 Sprint Magic Boxes to businesses and homes in more than 200 cities. Announced a new version of the Sprint Magic Box designed for the hospitality industry.
• Speedtest Intelligence data from Ookla shows Sprint's 4G LTE network is the most improved network in the U.S. with national average download speeds up 30.9 percent year-over-year, more than any other national carrier.
• In its first quarter of FY18, Sprint continued field testing and optimizing Massive MIMO radios in locations such as Dallas, Los Angeles and New York City. Some sites are now running commercial traffic and the initial performance results are very promising. Today we're seeing a more than 4X increase in speed on these sites, as well as increased coverage and cell edge performance.
• In the first half of 2019, Sprint plans to launch mobile 5G in nine markets initially – Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. 

http://newsroom.sprint.com/sprints-next-gen-network-build-gains-momentum.htm

Sprint adds to its list of first 5G cities

Wednesday, May 16, 2018  5G, Sprint  

Sprint named three additional cities where it plans to deploy 5G in the first half of 2019. Sprint's full list of first 5G markets now includes Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix,and Washington, D.C.

"Today we have a great LTE network, and with Sprint 5G, we’ll deliver for our customers mobile data speeds that are up to 10 times faster, with significantly improved reliability and coverage," said Kevin Crull, Sprint’s chief strategy officer, who today is presenting his keynote address at 5G North America. "This next generation of wireless technology will create incredible new connections to people and things, and services and experiences that are so unique they will make an impact on the lives of our consumers."

Sprint's 5G approach leverages its 2.5 GHz spectrum and Massive MIMO cell sites, which are capable of delivering up to 10 times the capacity of current LTE systems. The radios support split-mode, enabling Sprint to deliver 4G LTE and 5G on the same radio simultaneously.

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Sprint's service revenue grows again after four years

Sprint's wireless service revenue grew sequentially for the first time in more than four years and postpaid ARPU grew sequentially for the first time in nearly five years.

For the quarter, Sprint reported net income of $176 million, operating income of $815 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $3.3 billion.

"Sprint continued to deliver solid results this quarter while embarking on our transformative merger with T-Mobile," said Sprint CEO Michel Combes, "By balancing growth and profitability, we were able to grow wireless service revenue sequentially, continue to add retail phone customers, generate net income for the third consecutive quarter, and improve the network."

Some highlights:

• Sprint ended the quarter with 54,567,000 connections, down slightly from the preceding quarter but up from 53,698,000 a year earlier. The company serves 32,187,000 post paid connections, 9,033,000 prepaid connections, and 13,347,000 wholesale connections.
• Prepaid service revenue grew both sequentially and year-over-year.
• CAPEX for the quarter was $1.1 billion, up from $800 million in the previous quarter

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Luna divests its Optoelectronics division to OSI

Luna Innovations has sold its Optoelectronic Solutions (OPTO) business to OSI Optoelectronics, a subsidiary of OSI Systems, for up to $18.5 million.

Luna’s OPTO division designs and manufactures fully integrated photonic solutions. Luna acquired the business in 2015 as part of its merger with Advanced Photonix. The division reported revenue of $13.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2017. As part of the transaction, employees associated with the OPTO division located in Camarillo, CA and Montreal, Quebec, are expected to transfer to OSI.

Luna said it plans to use transaction proceeds to invest in its core fiber optic based test and measurement platform.

OSI Systems is a vertically integrated designer and manufacturer of specialized electronic systems and components for critical applications in the homeland security, healthcare, defense, and aerospace industries.

“The transaction demonstrates strong execution of our strategy to focus our business on our core, fiber optic based test and measurement technology platform,” said Scott Graeff, President and Chief Executive Officer of Luna.

“The addition of Luna’s Optoelectronic Solutions business is well aligned with our focus on expanding and enhancing our product portfolios,” said Manoocher Mansouri, OSI Optoelectronics’ President. “As a leader in this area, this acquisition is expected to be a complementary addition with its highly regarded, customized solutions.”

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T-Mobile US reveunues rise 4% to $10.6 billion

T-Mobile U.S. said its Q2 total revenues rose 4% to $10.6 billion -- service revenues were up 7% to $7.9 billion, leading the industry for growth the 17th consecutive quarter.  Net income was up 35% to $782 million and diluted earnings per share (EPS) came in at $0.92.

“T-Mobile just recorded its best Q2 in company history,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “That means 21 quarters with over one million net adds, record-high service revenues, industry-leading postpaid phone net additions, and record-low postpaid phone churn. Our business is strong, our strategy is working and we won’t stop!”

Some highlights:

• Total net customer additions were 1.6 million in Q2 2018, bringing the total customer count to 75.6 million. 
• Branded postpaid net customer additions were 1.0 million in Q2 2018, up 200,000 from Q2 2017. Strength in postpaid phone net additions and postpaid other net additions, driven by wearables, drove the year-over-year increase.
• Branded postpaid phone net customer additions were 686,000 in Q2 2018, up 153,000 from Q2 2017. This marks the 18th consecutive quarter in which T-Mobile has led the industry in this category. Sequentially and year-over-year, branded postpaid phone net customer additions increased due to continued growth in existing and Greenfield markets, the growing success of new customer segments such as T-Mobile for Business, T-Mobile ONE Unlimited 55+, and T-Mobile ONE Military, as well as record-low churn.
• Branded postpaid other net customer additions were 331,000 in Q2 2018, up 47,000 from Q2 2017. Year-over-year the increase was due to higher gross customer additions from connected devices, specifically the Apple watch, partially offset by lower DIGITS gross customer additions and higher deactivations from a growing customer base.
• Branded postpaid phone churn was a record-low of 0.95% in Q2 2018, down 15 basis points from Q2 2017, primarily due to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty from ongoing improvements to network quality, industry-leading customer service and the overall value of our offerings in the marketplace.
• Branded prepaid net customer additions were 91,000 in Q2 2018, down 3,000 from Q2 2017.
• Branded prepaid churn was 3.81% in Q2 2018, down 10 basis points compared to Q2 2017.

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Apstra publishes Intent-Based Taxonomy model

Apstra published an Intent-Based Taxonomy model to help network operators cut through the marketing hype.

“We are introducing a model intended to help CTOs and network operators evaluate and differentiate the maturity of IBN solutions with an objective set of criteria, beginning with Level 0 (low maturity/incomplete) offerings going up to Level 3 (mature/complete) offerings which enable companies to leverage full benefits of IBN approach,” said Sasha Ratkovic, CTO and Founder of Apstra.

Level 0 IBN: Basic Automation

These offerings have the ability to:

• Generate device configurations from declarative specifications. For example: scripts running Ansible modules or other declarative libraries such as NAPALM.
• Support a heterogeneous infrastructure.
• Ingest real-time network status in a protocol- and transport-agnostic way.
• At this level there is no presence of a single source of truth, which is a fundamental aspect of a mature IBN implementation, as it enables reasoning whether or not the intent has been met.

Level 1 IBN: Single Source of Truth

An implementation classified as Level 1 implements a single source of truth containing the intent and the network operational state. It contains data and state artifacts related to all aspects of a network service lifecycle: design, build, deploy, and validate. Level 1 can give you answers to important questions about the state of your intent and your infrastructure.

Level 2 IBN: Real-Time Change Validation

Building on top of Level 1, Level 2 IBN solution enables you to ask the right questions, at the right time to help assess the impact of business rule or policy changes, as well as the operational status changes and failures in real time.

Level 3 IBN: Self Operation

Does the IBN solution validate and close the loop between the intent and operational state by providing observability, and deliver corrective actions on a path to self-operating networks? This step is impossible to tackle if one has not built solid foundations in Levels 2 and 3.

http://blog.apstra.com/intent-based-networking-taxonomy?hs_preview=QVPEvKsI-5993347491

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R&M intros a high-density fiber patch panel for data centers

R&M (Reichle & De-Massari AG) introduced its "Mercury" network patch panel for data centers in the American market.

The high-density fiber platform can house up to 288 LC terminations per 2RU. The company says its design allows data centers to implement the physical network infrastructure in a much more flexible manner. Mercury is stackable in either 2RU or 6RU steps, providing up to 6,912 LC fiber terminations per rack. If duct space is scarce, up to 30 percent of duct space can be saved with the 200μm fiber option.

Mercury is specifically designed for ribbon fiber, which saves up to 50 percent of installation time compared with single-fiber deployments, and which is gradually replacing traditional single-fiber cabling for increased bandwidth, efficiency, and space optimization. Mercury can be configured for 200µm or 250µm fiber given the available duct space. This enables a reliable and advanced cable infrastructure throughout the data center.

"R&M developed Mercury to address the need in the United States for ever increasing need for additional fiber connections, duct space optimization and flexibility," said Dieter Studer, marketing manager, R&M USA Inc. "Mercury allows R&M's U.S. customers to expedite their data center projects with minimized installation time in the secured zone, and to scale when needed with seamless installation of additional panels."

https://www.rdm.com/

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Linux Foundation Networking Fund continues to add members

The Linux Foundation Networking Fund (LFN) announced eight new Silver and Associate members: ARRIS, Affirmed Networks, CAICT, Equinox International, MYCOM OSI, OpenAirInterface Software Alliance, SDNLAB and SnapRoute.

They join 104 other technology leaders as members of LFN.

“Earlier this year we decided to unite many of our open source networking projects under the LFN umbrella in order to provide greater cohesion and streamline efforts across projects,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager of Networking and Orchestration, The Linux Foundation. “The continued, global growth of LFN membership shows that organizations see value in the rapid development of open source solutions and standards that will define tomorrow’s networks and support emerging communications technologies and services.”

The new members will contribute to LFN’s seven networking projects: FD.io, ONAP, OpenDaylight, OPNFV, PNDA, SNAS.io, and Tungsten Fabric. LFN supports the momentum of the open source networking sector by integrating the governance of participating projects in order to enhance operational excellence, simplify member engagement, and increase collaboration. ARRIS International plc, Affirmed Networks, Equinox International, MYCOM OSI and SnapRoute have joined as Silver members while CAICT, OpenAirInterface Software Alliance, and SDNLAB have joined as Associate members.

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Aerohive says 28% of revenue now comes from subscriptions

Aerohive Networks reported total revenue for the second quarter of fiscal year 2018 of $40.5 million, compared with $42.2 million for the second quarter of 2017. Subscription and support revenue was $11.2 million, or 28% of total revenue, for the second quarter of fiscal year 2018, compared with $10.1 million, or 24% of total revenue, for the second quarter of 2017. GAAP net loss was $2.8 million for the second quarter of fiscal year 2018, compared with a net loss of $3.8 million for the second quarter of 2017. GAAP gross margin was 66.0% for the second quarter of fiscal year 2018, compared with 67.7% for the second quarter of 2017. Non-GAAP net income was $0.9 million for the second quarter of fiscal year 2018, compared with a net income of $0.7 million for the second quarter of 2017.

“We’re pleased with our performance in the second quarter, as we continue to improve our execution and strengthen our financial foundation. We grew our Enterprise business by double digits, which has further lowered our dependence on the U.S. K-12 market,” stated David Flynn, President and Chief Executive Officer.

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Nutanix's president steps down, joins new start-up

Sudheesh Nair has stepped down as President of Nutanix, where he has served since February 2011.

Nair has taken a new role as CEO of ThoughSpot, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California that is focusing on search and AI-driven analytics. Ajeet Singh, who is co-founder and executive chairman at ThoughtSpot, was also a co-founder of Nutanix.

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