Amazon Aurora Serverless offers auto-scaling, per-minute pricing

AWS introduced a new deployment option for Amazon Aurora that automatically starts, scales, and shuts down database capacity with per-second billing for applications with less predictable usage patterns.

Amazon Aurora Serverless is a MySQL-compatible database built for the cloud.  AWS said it is best suited for applications with intermittent or cyclical usage patterns. Customers will not need to manage the database servers.

“More and more customers are moving production applications and databases from Oracle and SQL Server to Amazon Aurora because it's a highly available, highly durable, built-for-the-cloud database at one tenth the cost of the older guard database offerings," said Raju Gulabani, Vice President, Databases, Analytics, and Machine Learning, at Amazon Web Services. “

Beta customers included NTT DOCOMO, Cognizant, Pagely, CB Insights, California Polytechnic State University, Currencycloud, and CourseStorm.

https://aws.amazon.com/aurora/serverless

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Cox Business acquires Rapidscale for managed cloud offerings

Cox Business has acquired RapidScale, a leading managed and hybrid managed cloud services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition combines Cox Business' transport and connectivity services with RapidScale's managed and hybrid managed cloud offerings.

RapidScale, which is based in Irvine, California, offers a range of cloud services, including CloudServer, CloudDesktop, CloudOffice, CloudMail, CloudRecovery, CloudApp, and SD-WAN. The company was established in 2010 and is headed by co-founder Randy Jeter.

Cox Business, which generates more than $2 billion in annual revenue., said its newly strengthened connected cloud platform will help businesses improve productivity and reduce IT expenditures.

"Businesses today need a true technology partner to deliver innovation that helps them transform operations, better engage with customers and remain competitive," said Steve Rowley, executive vice president, Cox Business. "Adding RapidScale to the Cox family, grows our business in a strategic manner by improving our cloud platform and enhances our value to business customers, regardless of size or vertical market."

"Joining Cox is an opportunity to continue to innovate and expand our existing products meet businesses IT needs both today and, in the future," said Randy Jeter, co-founder and chief executive officer, RapidScale. "Cox and RapidScale share a commitment to delivering leading technologies with second-to-none customer service."

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Zayo activates Los Angeles to Dallas LH route

Zayo completed a long haul dark fiber route between Los Angeles and Dallas. The route complements Zayo’s existing long haul network, enabling diverse connectivity between major West Coast data center markets to Dallas, one of the largest data center and interconnection markets in the U.S.

Zayo plans to activate 100G wavelength service later this month, along with its full range of high-performance connectivity solutions. Zayo secured an anchor tenant and began development of the 2,000-mile route in 2015, which included upgrades and new construction. Since construction began, Zayo has secured multiple additional dark fiber and wavelengths anchor tenants on the route, supporting return on investment for the strategic project.

“Zayo is committed to success-based investments in our network, and this expansion will help meet the high-bandwidth demands across many industries,” said Jack Waters, CTO and president of Fiber Solutions at Zayo. “We continue to collaborate with key customers and construct critical strategic routes to ensure the availability of high-performance fiber and infrastructure.”

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Teledyne LeCroy's Protocol Analyzer adds PAM4 50G-400G Ethernet

Teledyne LeCroy introduced a trace capture and analysis solution for the 802.3cd and 802.3bs 50/100/200/400GE four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) Ethernet specifications.

The new capability, which is available as a license for the company's SierraNet T328 protocol analyzer, enables higher data rates and enhanced reliability for future-generation data centers and cloud-based services.

Teledyne LeCroy notes that PAM4 signals are more susceptible to errors in noisy environments. To reduce the error rate, systems negotiate transmission parameters that maximize signal quality at the receiver. PAM4 Systems designers are demanding the link-layer analysis capabilities to ensure the negotiation among components is effective.

The SierraNet T328 can now help identify and reduce link-interoperability problems between major fabric components such as switches, routers, network interface adapters, servers, and Network Attached Storage (NAS).

"By providing real-time trace capture, decode, and analysis of the auto-negotiation and link-training functions, the SierraNet T328 has become the de facto standard for high-speed protocol analysis in development, debug, and test applications," stated David J. Rodgers, Ethernet and SAN Product Line Manager at Teledyne LeCroy.

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Intel packs 32TB into its ruler SSD for data centers

Intel announced a 32 terabyte "ruler" SSD for data centers.

Instead of the traditional, 2.5" or 3.5" rectangular box for disk drives, Intel's ruler is a long, thin box designed to slide into a 1" server chassis, plugging in via a PCIe interface at the end of the ruler. The long, thin shape dissipates heats better than conventional designs.

The Intel SSD DC P4500 is built on Intel 3D NAND technology, which stacks memory cells atop each other 64 layers deep.

A prototype of the ruler SSD was first shown at last year's Flash Memory Summit.

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Napatech supplies lawful intercept in central Europe

One of Central Europe's leading cybersecurity government agencies has selected Napatech's FPGA-based SmartNIC software and hardware to strengthen its national security posture within new lawful interception applications. 

Napatech said its reconfigurable computing platform was selected by the cyber agency and its IT services partner as the foundation for their next-generation lawful interception system. The solution provides lossless, line-rate networking performance from 1 to 100 Gbps, with high-precision nanosecond timestamping. Its open-system approach allows it to be deployed in standard server platforms, radically reducing system costs and making wide-scale deployments practical. Finally, the highly programmable nature of the FPGA-based SmartNICs ensures the platform can easily and quickly adapt to new applications that adversaries may exploit to evade surveillance.

Jarrod J. S. Siket, chief marketing officer of Napatech, said: "Government and enterprise IT organizations are deploying a wide range of software applications on standard server platforms. Our reconfigurable computing platform improves the performance of networking and security applications with the most challenging performance requirements."

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Cohere selects RedShift for UC threat detection and fraud prevention

Cohere Communications, which offer IT support services including cyber protection and crisis management, is deploying RedShift Networks’ Unified Communication Threat Management (UCTM) solution to provide its customers with a comprehensive managed VoIP solution.  The rollout adds an additional layer of security to Cohere’s existing Unified Security Management (USM) Solution.

Cohere said its USM delivers a fully outsourced, end-to-end solution – enabling their customers to seamlessly secure critical systems and sensitive data.

Steven Francesco, Cohere Communications’ Chairman and CEO, said: “Secure voice communications is an essential part of our offering. Our partnership with RedShift Networks, a leader in the space, will further support our mission to provide customers with an all-encompassing Cyber framework – protecting their firm’s network from intruders and potentially catastrophic loss of information, services, and reputation.” Combining our USM Solution with RedShift Networks’ leading solutions, we are aiming to ensure that businesses can proactively respond to evolving threats and fully secure their most valuable assets – their customer and business data.”

“As more and more companies are attacked by damaging security threats such as Ransomware and service-impacting Botnets, it is clear that all companies – regardless of size – require a comprehensive security solution that protects their firm from the network to the core, said Steven Francesco, Chairman and CEO of Cohere Communications. “By joining forces with RedShift Networks, we are providing a comprehensive VoIP detection and response platform, supported by industry experts to ensure our customers are protected against current threats.”

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Dropbox delivers Q2 sales of $339.2 million, up 27% yoy

Dropbox reported Q2 revenue of $339.2 million, an increase of 27% from the same period last year. GAAP gross margin was 73.6%, as compared to 65.4% in the same period last year. Non-GAAP gross margin was 74.5%, as compared to 66.7% in the same period last year. GAAP net loss was ($4.1) million, as compared to ($26.8) million in the same period last year. Non-GAAP net income was $48.0 million, as compared to $20.0 million in the same period last year.

• Paying users totaled 11.9 million, as compared to 9.9 million for the same period last year. 
• Average revenue per paying user was $116.66, as compared to $111.19 for the same period last year.
• Dropbox also announced that Dennis Woodside, chief operating officer, is stepping down.

“We delivered another solid quarter of revenue growth in Q2, reflecting the strength of our unique business model,” said Dropbox Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Drew Houston. “We added over a dozen new product features to our user and admin experiences, and strengthened our infrastructure, all while driving a 30% free cash flow margin.

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Horizons 3e preps for launch -- extending Intelsat's EpicNG

Horizons 3e, a next-gen satellite owned by a joint venture between Intelsat and SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation of Japan, arrived at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana, where it will undergo final preparations before its scheduled launch on an Ariane 5 rocket on the 7th of September, 2018.

Horizons 3e was built by Boeing and is based on the Intelsat EpicNG design. Horizons 3e is the sixth of Intelsat EpicNG high throughput satellites and will complete Intelsat EpicNG’s global coverage. It is also the first Intelsat EpicNG satellite to feature entire Ku-band spot beams utilizing multiport amplifiers that optimize power across the satellite, and features the highest throughput of the entire Intelsat EpicNG fleet with full beam interconnectivity in two commercial bands.

http://www.intelsat.com/global-network/satellites/epicng/

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Talari's SD-WAN gains recommended rating from NSS Labs

Talari Networks received a “Recommended” Rating from NSS Labs in its first-ever Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) Group Test.

In its inaugural SD-WAN test, NSS Labs evaluated nine of the industry’s leading SD-WAN products were examined to help enterprises understand the merits of products in the market and identify the capabilities best suited to meet their use case requirements. The tests covered key areas of differentiation for SD-WAN products on Quality of Experience (QoE) for VoIP, QoE for video, and network performance.

Talari says its Failsafe SD-WAN technology delivers MPLS-class high availability and QoE for enterprise WANs using Internet connections to augment and/or replace their low bandwidth, expensive MPLS circuits.

"While the SD-WAN market is growing quickly, it has also gotten muddled by the sheer number of vendors claiming to have a high-quality enterprise solution." said Talari CEO Patrick Sweeney. "The NSS Labs SD-WAN Group Test provides greater clarity by giving hard core technical answers on which vendors meet the needs of enterprises, versus other SD-WAN products that can’t pass, or will not submit to, independent testing."

https://www.nsslabs.com/test/software-defined-wide-area-network-sd-wan/

https://www.talari.com/

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