Edgecore debuts disaggregated PON OLTs for 10G

At SDN NFV World Congress in The Hague, Edgecore Networks introduced disaggregated open OLT products to enable service providers to deploy 10G PON services and GPON services with the lower costs and greater software control of SDN-managed open network infrastructures.

The Edgecore ASGvOLT32 and ASGvOLT64 GPON OLTs will provide 32-ports and 64-ports respectively of GPON, with uplink ports of 2 x 100GbE and 8 x 25GbE. The ASXvOLT16 10G OLT provides 16 XFP ports supporting 10G XGS-PON or NG-PON2, plus 4 x 100GbE uplinks.

The Edgecore open OLTs include the open source software components ONIE, Open Network Linux, Open Optical Monitoring (OOM) API, the Redfish hardware management API, and the OpenOLT Adapter (vOLTHA driver) for operation in SDN Enabled Broadband Access (SEBA) or R-CORD open infrastructures defined through the Open Network Foundation (ONF). The Edgecore open OLTs will also be compatible with commercial OLT software from Aricent. The Edgecore XGS-PON OLT is commercially available as part of an end-to-end full turnkey solution from DASAN Zhone Solutions.

Edgecore will contribute the complete hardware designs and introduce GPON OLT products in conformance with the “Deutsche Telekom Open GPON-OLT Specification” that has been approved through the OCP Telco Project.

Edgecore also announced that its ASXvOLT16 10G PON OLT has been fully approved by the Open Compute Project as an OCP-Accepted™ product, which is immediately available and conforms to the “AT&T Open XGS-PON 1RU OLT” specification in OCP.

“Deutsche Telekom is collaborating with open communities like OCP and ONF, and directly with leading open network vendors like Edgecore, to specify and accelerate the availability of open whitebox hardware manageable from open software platforms to reduce costs and improve performance for broadband access and other services,” said Armin Sumesgutner, SVP Fixed Mobile Engineering Deutschland, Deutsche Telekom. “We are pleased that Edgecore will provide commercial GPON OLT products as fully open hardware designs that conforms to the specification we contributed to OCP.”

“Edgecore has been working closely with leading service providers worldwide, and with the OCP, ONF and TIP communities to offer disaggregated hardware products that enable open network deployments for broadband access, edge computing, mobile backhaul, and edge switching use cases,” said George Tchaparian, CEO, Edgecore Networks. “The addition of open GPON OLTs to our OCP-Accepted 10G OLT will allow service providers to offer a mix of PON services from an SDN-enabled open hardware and software infrastructure, thereby lowering costs and increasing service flexibility.”

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Wind River and BT showcase the 5G Edge

At SDN NFV World Congress 2018 this week in The Hague, Wind River is showcasing edge cloud compute applications in collaboration with BT.

The demo features Wind River Titanium Cloud, a deployment-ready virtualization software platform, running on a BT cellular base station. The proof of concept platform, which functions as an edge cloud compute node, highlights multiple 5G edge cloud computing use cases, including those for next-generation, connected automobiles and also for augmented/virtual reality:

• Remote vehicle control for traffic/route management
• Vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication for collision avoidance
• Augmented reality for multi-person sessions without gameplay disruption

“5G will demand ultra-low latency and dynamic compute architectures for the cloud,” said Charlie Ashton, senior director of business development for Telecommunications at Wind River. “Wind River provides a flexible and secure cloud-based infrastructure that can be deployed at any network location. In order to successfully meet changing market needs, it is important to work with leading operators who, like BT, are uniquely positioned to deploy cloud compute at the right edge locations to support growing 5G applications.”

“The rise of Edge Cloud Compute will require flexible cloud infrastructure and the deployment of dynamic applications wherever and whenever they are needed. BT’s network is evolving to meet these demands,” said Maria Cuevas, head of mobile core networks research at BT. “BT is working with industry partners like Wind River to tackle the technical challenges around Edge Cloud Compute and develop solutions that meet customers’ future needs.”

http://www.windriver.com/markets/networking

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Netcracker intros cloud-based SDN/NFV solution as a service

At SDN NFV World Congress, Netcracker unveiled its new Netcracker Business Cloud solution, an end-to-end cloud-based SDN/NFV solution as a service designed to help service providers fast track their cloud transformation initiatives.

Netcracker said that by offering the industry’s first end-to-end, cloud-based SDN/NFV and IT solution—from VNFs to orchestration, OSS, BSS, portals and a digital marketplace—as a service, the solution enables faster time-to-market while opening disruptive business models for service providers.

Netcracker Business Cloud offers deployment flexibility using Netcracker’s cloud or a multi-cloud environment comprised of a service provider’s private cloud and public clouds, with Netcracker taking responsibility for the end-to-end service. For large service providers with OpCo and ServCo models, Netcracker Business Cloud offers the flexibility to host the solution in a single location and deliver it as a service to the affiliates, enabling them to offer next-gen B2B services quickly. While it is a full-stack solution, its flexible, microservices-based architecture allows operators to use only parts of the solution they need to further augment or replace their own cloud solutions.

Netcracker Business Cloud, as part of its end-to-end offering, also includes comprehensive consulting and go-to-market services, making it a full turnkey solution.

“As the world’s largest SDN/NFV event, this is the perfect opportunity for us to showcase how we are working with our customers to help them move to the cloud as quickly and efficiently as possible,” said Ari Banerjee, Vice President of Strategy at Netcracker. “We are demonstrating a revolutionary approach to the adoption of SDN/NFV that will rapidly reduce the time operators need to roll out new services. It truly is a game changer for the industry.”

http://netcracker.com/NBC

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Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica Deutschland reach fiber deal

Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica Deutschland announced a network sharing deal under which at least 5,000 Telefónica Deutschland mobile base stations will be connected via Deutsche Telekom's fiber-optic network in the long term.

Deutsche Telekom said the commitment enables its to dedicate more resources to its own network expansion. T

Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica Deutschland concluded their first mobile backhaul contract in 2011.

"This agreement is an important step toward ensuring the future viability of Germany's mobile communications infrastructure," said Dirk Wössner, Managing Director of Telekom Deutschland, on the occasion of the signing. "Everyone will win from this cooperation, because Deutsche Telekom and Telefónica can both capture synergies. The resources that we save will be dedicated directly to our own network upgrades and the development of 5G. Deutsche Telekom is building and operating the largest fiber-optic network in Germany by far. We are very pleased that we will now be utilizing our infrastructure together with Telefónica – because it will benefit Germany and millions of people." The cooperation also shows that telecommunications providers seek to cooperate without regulatory intervention, said Wössner.

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Millicom to acquire Panama's Cable Onda for US$1 billion

Luxembourg-based Millicom agreed to acquire a controlling 80% stake in Cable Onda, the largest cable and fixed telecommunications services provider in Panama, for approximately US$1.002 billion in cash. The deal values 100% of Cable Onda at an enterprise value of $1,460 million.

Cable Onda is the leader in Panama’s broadband internet, pay-TV, fixed telephony and B2B telecommunications markets, serving more than 500,000 customers using mostly its state-ofthe-art
Hybrid Fibre-Cable (HFC) network. For the half-year ended June 30, 2018, Cable Onda generated revenue of $195 million and EBITDA of $83 million, for a margin of 42.4%. Capex for
the period was $46 million.

As of December 31, 2017, Millicom provided mobile services to approximately 51 million customers, with a cable footprint of more than 9 million homes passed. In 2017, Millicom reported revenues of $6.0 billion and EBITDA of $2.2 billion. In Latin America, Millicom is present in Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Paraguay.

Mauricio Ramos, CEO of Millicom said: “Our acquisition of Cable Onda is consistent with our strategy of accelerating the deployment of high-speed data networks in Central and South America. With the addition of Panama, we now have contiguous country operations from Guatemala to Colombia, which will significantly enhance our B2B capabilities, given the country’s increasingly important role as a business hub for the region. We are excited about expanding to Panama, an investment grade country with a diversified, dollarized, and robust economy. Disposable income levels in Panama are now among the highest in Latin America, yet penetration rates for digital services remain comparatively low. We look forward to working with our strong local partners to extend the company’s market leadership and bring Digital Lifestyle services to even more Panamanians and contribute to the ongoing socio-economic development of the country.”

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CyrusOne invests in Brazilian data center

CyrusOne is making a $12 million investment in ODATA Brasil S.A. and ODATA Colombia  in exchange for a 10% equity interest in S.A.S. (collectively “ODATA”).

“CyrusOne is a leader and innovator in the data center industry, and their design and construction expertise will be valuable in delivering timely, cost-efficient builds to hyperscale companies.”

ODATA is focused on hyperscale cloud companies. The company currently has over 12 MW of capacity with plans to develop over 100 MW in Brazil, and will soon be launching construction in Colombia. ODATA is majority owned by Patria Infrastructure Fund III, managed by Patria Investments (“Patria”), a leading private equity firm in Brazil.

In connection with this investment, CyrusOne and ODATA entered a commercial agreement covering leasing activity with CyrusOne customers in the ODATA portfolio. In addition, Kevin Timmons, CyrusOne’s chief technology officer, will join the ODATA board of directors.

“We are excited to partner with Patria and the ODATA team as they scale their business throughout Latin America. To date, Brazil and other LATAM markets have largely been served by a limited number of providers, leading to few options and high costs for our customers. The combination of our collective resources will form the basis of a powerful platform from which we can better serve these customers’ increasingly global needs,” said Gary Wojtaszek, president and chief executive officer of CyrusOne. “Through Patria, which holds a number of investments across the communications infrastructure space, customers in ODATA’s facilities will have access to both dark fiber and lit services via Vogel Telecom, another portfolio company. At the same time, we will work with ODATA, helping the company build a scalable platform that can deliver high quality facilities at the lowest cost.”

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Rancher's new release targets improved Kubernetes cluster ops

Rancher Labs released version 2.1 of its container management software, introducing next generation automatic cluster operations and application management, as well as a migration path for users moving from Rancher’s Cattle orchestrator to Rancher Kubernetes.

“Rancher continues to be the de facto choice for enterprises looking to run containers and Kubernetes in production,” said Sheng Liang, CEO and co-founder of Rancher Labs. “With Rancher 2.1, we’re providing key upgrades to the product that further enables any enterprise to embrace Kubernetes and accelerate development, reduce infrastructure costs and improve application reliability.”

Rancher 2.1 brings scalability improvements, as well as the ability to define and manage Kubernetes Clusters as code with Rancher. Additionally, Rancher is now enabling users to snapshot and export the complete configuration of Kubernetes clusters managed by Rancher, and later on restore Kubernetes clusters by importing the same configuration file.

http://www.rancher.com

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Facebook's Portal offers video calling. built-in Alexa

Facebook introduced two consumer video conferencing devices featuring smart camera and microphones as well as built-in Amazon Alexa capabilities. The service provides video conferenced between Facebook and Messenger contacts.

The smart cameras use AI to track the users as they move about within view.

Connectivity is provided via Wi‑Fi (802.11a/b/g/n/ac) with dual band MIMO (2.4GHz and 5GHz), and Bluetooth 4.2.

Facebook said it has striven to provide the highest level of security and that its Portal service does not have Facebook ads at this time, although third-party services using the platform may have embedded ads.

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