Oracle to acquire Talari for SD-WAN

Oracle agreed to acquire Talari Networks, a leading provider of SD-WAN technology. Financial terms were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in 2018.

Oracle said Talari's SD-WAN technology complements its own Session Border Controller (SBC) and network management infrastructure by adding high availability and Quality-of-Experience (QoE) connectivity and cloud application access across any IP network with the reliability and predictability of private networks.

Talari was founded in 2007 and launched its initial beta product in early 2008. The company is based in San Jose, California and has an R&D center in Raleigh, North Carolina. It SD-WAN serves over 500 enterprise customers in 40 different countries across a variety of industries including public sector, financial services, insurance, retail and manufacturing.

Talari’s proprietary Failsafe technology delivers both MPLS-class high availability and high QoE (Quality of Experience) predictable application performance for both TCP-based apps and real-time apps like VoIP and videoconferencing, whether built on a hybrid MPLS plus Internet WAN fabric, or a WAN comprised of only Internet connections.

Talari is headed by Patrick Sweeney, who previously served in multiple executive roles over his 16 years at SonicWall and Dell.

Read More

A10 Networks outlines 5G strategy and roadmap

A10 Networks outlined its strategy, solutions, and roadmap for the 5G era

The company, which is already a leading solutions provider to mobile carriers, currently has pilot 5G deployments with tier-1 carriers worldwide, including with a major Japanese mobile carrier and an Asian Tier 1 mobile operator. With 5G, there are critical requirements for improved security, reliability and performance, through consolidated solutions, which result in lower latency, high reliability and lower TCO.

“A10 is laser focused on 5G networks. We understand the challenges network operators are facing and have invested heavily in solving these challenges,” said Lee Chen, Founder and CEO of A10 Networks. “We have partnered with key technology providers and developed a comprehensive roadmap to address 5G challenges. Our early bets on 5G solutions are paying off as we have won multiple pilot projects and are best positioned to address market needs.”

A10 said its solutions address Gi-LAN, virtualized EPC, and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) environments. A10 solutions also provide full-spectrum security and visibility for the control and user plane operations. The strategy includes both 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) or Standalone (SA):

• 4G to 5G standard compatibility and investment protection: A10 supports existing 4G and 3G network architectures and use cases for the Gi-LAN and EPC, while meeting the more demanding requirements for 5G emerging architectures. These solutions can be deployed in today’s infrastructure, but are future proofed for successful 5G deployments. This includes functional consolidation for application visibility and control, subscriber-aware intelligent traffic steering, Gi/SGi firewall with Carrier-Grade NAT (CGNAT), GTP/SCTP firewall, integrated DDoS, and more.
• Scale for increased subscriber demand: 5G demands are inherently different than 4G, with smaller packet sizes, more throughput, and higher concurrent session counts observed. A10 solutions can scale concurrent sessions to multi-billion levels and throughput to multi-terabit levels in a scale-out cluster. 5G deployments can benefit from compact and efficient options, for example 220 Gbps in 1RU PNFs, or high performance 100 Gbps VNFs.
• Core infrastructure security: With new user plane and control plane security requirements coupled with the increased attack surface and scale brought by 5G and IoT device proliferation, more advanced, scalable and automated approaches are needed for 5G networks. To guarantee uptime, and ensure control and user plane security, components include, GTP firewall, Gi/SGi firewall, control and user plane policy enforcement, DNS protection, security proxies (SEPP), and more. Additionally, A10’s advanced 5G DDoS Protection solution includes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) via Dynamic Attack Pattern Recognition (DAPR), continuous baselining, and One-DDoS for distributed intelligence, for full visibility into all packets, versus traditional sample-based only solutions.
• SDN/NFV for agile infrastructure: A10’s solutions can be delivered in a variety of form factors to meet the demands of the emerging SDN and NFV environments, for example PNFs, VNFs, bare metal and containers. These solutions are integrated with leading SDN and NFV architectures and interoperate with multiple MANO environments for faster network rollout and optimized performance and agility. A10 also provides flexible software licensing and consumption via A10’s FlexPool subscription-based capacity pooling licensing.
• Orchestration and analytics for lower TCO and reduced downtime: A10’s Harmony Controller provides actionable intelligence to manage subscriber services, meet Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) mandates and compliance, and deliver per subscriber analytics. Harmony Controller provides visibility, management, orchestration and automation.
• Eco-system partners for a broader solution: A10’s products integrate with multiple 3rd party solutions and vendors. Ranging from DevOps tools, such as Ansible, to providers of 5G solutions such as Ericsson, NEC, Tech Mahindra, and Lenovo for a comprehensive eco-system.

A10 also said it will continue to provide industry-leading scale in both VNFs and PNFs, including scale-out agile deployments with containerized solutions for virtual mobile edge compute requirements. This includes physical, virtual, and containerized offerings.

https://www.a10networks.com/press-releases/a10-networks-outlines-5g-strategy-solutions-roadmap-help-mobile-carriers

Read More

OIF project tackles Requirements for Integrated Packet Optical SDN

The OIF announced its newest project — “Requirements for Integrated Packet Optical SDN.” The goal is to outline requirements for a multi-layer SDN reference architecture as a use case for packet optical transport networks.

The project will generate functional requirements, a reference architecture and use cases for packet/optical networks guided by the vision to enable agile, open network solutions that simplify operations and optimize resource utilization.

“Most of the existing SDN standards work, including OIF’s recent SDN Transport Application Programming Interface (T-API) multi-vendor interoperability demo, addresses the technical details,” said Junjie Li of China Telecom and OIF Network Operator Working Group Chair. “However, it is critical to also work across layers and build a standardized universal open framework at the solution level that will normalize architecture, interfaces and behaviors to advance the industry as a whole.”

http://www.oiforum.com

Read More

1-minute Video: Cisco on new 5G opportunities for Service Providers

5G is opening new opportunities for Service Providers initially in 3 areas, says Michael Glickman, SVP, Global Service Provider Segment, Cisco. These include (1) SDWAN (2) applications that leverage networking slicing (3) uniting enterprise networking with 5G access.

https://youtu.be/jm8f_v9tVFI

Read More

Nokia updates CloudBand Infrastructure Software

Nokia announced a significant update to its CloudBand Infrastructure Software, which gives CSPs the capability to unify their Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure/Virtualized Infrastructure Manager, or NFVI/VIM, in order to support centralized and distributed edge cloud deployments and workloads.

The new release streamlines operational procedures by providing a single NFVi/VIM for all cloud deployment needs, such as support and management for both VM and containerized workloads.

Nokia CloudBand Infrastructure Software includes OpenStack software directly from the open source community to address several challenges facing OpenStack adopters; for example, providing timely maintenance and feature updates and localized infrastructure security compliance. It also includes full Software Defined Networking domain controller pre-integration to give customers an end-to-end solution with lower integration costs and improved time-to-market.

Guy Shemesh, Head of CloudBand at Nokia, said: "Nokia's latest CloudBand Infrastructure Software improves on OpenStack's operational state and removes risk and complexity for CSPs. CloudBand Infrastructure Software supports a combination of IT and Telco network cloud deployments, including stringent radio requirements, as well as Enterprise cloud needs. It is the best-in-class solution for converged cloud management solutions. This next-level solution is being swiftly rolled out for Nokia customers."

Nokia cited a number of major deployments in for its CloudBand management and orchestration (MANO), including CloudBand Infrastructure Software, such as StarHub; BSNL to support the roll out of 4G and Voice over LTE services in India; and T-Mobile to support their nationwide, multi-band 5G network rollout across the United States.

Read More

ADVA supplies in-service fiber monitoring to Pilot

Pilot, which provides fiber-based business connectivity services in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, is utilizing the ADVA ALM to instantly isolate faults in the fiber plant and take immediate targeted action.

ADVA said it is able to offer real-time insight into the integrity and performance of Pilot's fiber infrastructure, significantly improving the robustness and efficiency of its network. The solution is already deployed throughout New York and is being rolled out in Pilot's Washington DC and Philadelphia networks. The ADVA ALM will also be used to assure Pilot's next-generation GPON architecture, ensuring the fiber infrastructure meets the demands of the network. ADVA's partner M2 Optics, a provider of custom optical infrastructure and test solutions, also played a key role in the project, implementing the solution and providing network design expertise.

Pilot is one of the first service providers to utilize the high-density 64-port variant of the ADVA ALM.

"For a service provider as dedicated to always-on availability as Pilot, our ALM is the ultimate solution. Uniquely affordable and space-efficient, it delivers comprehensive fiber assurance 24/7. Now Pilot can be certain of detecting degradations and initiating countermeasures before services are affected and SLAs are violated," commented James Nachazel, VP, sales, North America, ADVA. "With our ALM, it's easy to separate faults in active devices from problems in the fiber plant. Another key advantage of our ALM is its transparent, service-agnostic monitoring, which is completely independent of transported data. That means it delivers total assurance with no interference to applications."

https://pilotfiber.com/
https://www.advaoptical.com

Read More

Ciena enhances its channel partner program

Ciena has enhanced its channel partner program by embracing customization, personalization, and strategic business planning for its partners.

The company says its new Ciena Partner Network (CPN) will better align with the rapidly changing IT landscape. The goal is to provide greater flexibility and customization to all partners inclusive of managed service providers, resellers, integrators, distributors, or service partners.

“Our new partner program complements our Adaptive Network approach to help Ciena clients and partners adapt to changing market conditions. By moving away from the traditional program structure to a more collaborative, personalized and empowering approach, our CPN program delivers unprecedented flexibility and customization that harnesses the unique value of each partner,” Sandra Glaser Cheek, Vice President, Global Partners and Alliances at Ciena.

Read More

Habana Labs raises $75M for AI processors, including Intel investment

Habana Labs, a start-up based in Tel-Aviv, Israel, raised $75 million in an oversubscribed series B funding for its development of AI processors.

Habana Labs is currently in production with its first product, a deep learning inference processor, named Goya, that is >2 orders of magnitude better in throughput & power than commonly deployed CPUs, according to the company. Habana is now offering a PCIe 4.0 card that incorporates a single Goya HL-1000 processor and designed to accelerate various AI inferencing workloads, such as image recognition, neural machine translation, sentiment analysis, recommender systems, etc.  A PCIe card based on its Goya HL-1000 processor delivers 15,000 images/second throughput on the ResNet-50 inference benchmark, with 1.3 milliseconds latency, while consuming only 100 watts of power. The Goya solution consists of a complete hardware and software stack, including a high-performance graph compiler, hundreds of kernel libraries, and tools.

Habana Labs expects to launch an training processor - codenamed Gaudi - in the second quarter of 2019.

The funding round was led by Intel Capital and joined by WRV Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures and others, including existing investors. This brings total funding to $120 million. The company was founded in 2016.

“We are fortunate to have attracted some of the world’s most professional investors, including the world’s leading semiconductor company, Intel,” said David Dahan, Chief Executive Officer of Habana Labs. “The funding will be used to execute on our product roadmap for inference and training solutions, including our next generation 7nm AI processors, to scale our sales and customer support teams, and it only increases our resolve to become the undisputed leader of the nascent AI processor market.”

“Among all AI semiconductor startups, Habana Labs is the first, and still the only one, which introduced a production-ready AI processor,” said Lip-Bu Tan, Founding Partner of WRV Capital, a leading international venture firm focusing on semiconductors and related hardware, systems, and software. “We are delighted to partner with Intel in backing Habana Labs’ products and its extraordinary team.”

https://habana.ai/

Read More

Kaloom raises $10 million for its software-defined fabric for whiteboxes

Kaloom, a start-up based in Montreal with offices in Santa Clara, California, announced $10 million in Series A1 funding for its Software Defined Fabric (SDF) for automating and optimizing data center networks based on open networking white box switches.

The latest financing was led by the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, and Somel Investments, with the participation from MBUZZ Investments. This cash infusion brings Kaloom’s total investments to $20.7 million.

“We see a strong need among current beta and other potential customers to do something ‘bottom up’ with the networking fabric, where the switches self-discover and self-provision themselves automatically in a network that ultimately supports programmability,” said Laurent Marchand, CEO and founder of Kaloom. “The latest funding round is validation of Kaloom’s approach and where we believe the industry is moving; enabling us to grow faster than planned and respond to growing customer demand.”

“In a very short period, Kaloom has developed world class software for data centers. We are excited to see such strong interest in the company and its solution and see a bright future with Kaloom. After our initial investment for Kaloom’s launch in 2017, we are pleased to continue to support the company’s growth,” said Gaétan Morin, President and CEO of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ.

Kaloom also announced tha appointment of Mike Rymkiewicz as its new vice president of sales, and Thomas Eklund as Kaloom’s vice president of marketing.

• Kaloom's SDF, which is designed to virtualize the data center, leverages P4-based programming capabilities initially in switching silicon from Barefoot Networks. A physical data center can be partitioned into multiple independent and fully isolated virtual data centers (vDCs). Each vDC operates with its own Virtual Fabric (vFabric), which can host millions of IPv4 or IPv6 based tenant networks. Its software-defined fabric offer interfaces to standard orchestration systems and SDN controllers such as Openstack (ML2), Kubernetes Container Networking Interface (CNI) and OpenDaylight (NETCONF). Initially, supported white boxes include Accton, Delta and Foxconn, which have been designed for hyperscale and distributed data centers. The SDF features self-forming and self-discovery capabilities, as well as zero-touch provisioning of the virtual network and virtual components with automated software upgrades.
  
• The Kaloom Software Defined Product Family consists of the following components:
  Kaloom Software Defined Fabric
  Kaloom vRouter
  Kaloom vSwitch
  Kaloom vGW (virtual gateway)

Read More

Intel adds $15 billion to stock repurchase authorization

Intel's board of directors approved a $15.0 billion increase in its authorized stock repurchase program. The company had $4.7 billion remaining under its existing repurchase authorization as of Sept. 29, 2018.

The company notes that it has returned approximately $177 billion to stockholders through dividends and stock repurchases from 1990 through the third-quarter of 2018.

Read More