Intel Architecture Day highlights - Foveros and Sunny Cove

At Intel “Architecture Day" this week in Santa Clara, California, Intel executives outlined a broad strategy to address "an expanding universe of data-intensive workloads for PCs and other smart consumer devices, high-speed networks, ubiquitous artificial intelligence (AI), specialized cloud data centers and autonomous vehicles."

Intel's overall strategy is anchored on six pillars:

Process: Intel expects advanced packaging solutions to enable continued exponential scaling in computing density by extending transistor density to the third dimension.
Architecture: Intel sees a future with a diverse mix of scalar, vector, matrix and spatial architectures deployed in CPU, GPU, accelerator and FPGA sockets, enabled by a scalable software stack, integrated into systems by advanced packaging technology.
Memory: the company believes its is uniquely positioned to combine in-package memory and Intel Optane technology to fill gaps in the memory hierarchy to provide bandwidth closer to the silicon die.
Interconnect: Intel will offer a complete range of leading interconnect products enables the heterogeneous computing landscape at scale. This includes wireless connections for 5G infrastructure as well as silicon-level package and die interconnects.
Security: the company believes it is uniquely positioned to deliver security technologies that help improve the end-to-end and to make security advancements a key differentiator.
Software: Intel will offer a common set of tools that can address Intel silicon for developers. The company says that for every order of magnitude performance potential of a new hardware architecture there are two orders of magnitude performance enabled by software.



Some highlights of Intel Architecture Day:

• Intel demonstrated a range of 10nm-based systems in development for PCs, data centers and networking.
• Foveros: Intel demonstrated a new 3D packaging technology, called "Foveros," which for the first time brings 3D stacking to logic-on-logic integration.
• Foveros will will allow products to be broken up into smaller “chiplets,” where I/O, SRAM and power delivery circuits can be fabricated in a base die and high-performance logic chiplets are stacked on top.
• Intel expects to launch a range of products using Foveros beginning in the second half of 2019. 
• The first Foveros product will combine a high-performance 10nm compute-stacked chiplet with a low-power 22FFL base die. 
• Sunny Cove -- Intel’s next-generation CPU microarchitecture, increases performance per clock and power efficiency for general purpose computing tasks, and includes new features to accelerate special purpose computing tasks like AI and cryptography. 
• Sunny Cove will be the basis for Intel’s next-generation server (Intel Xeon) and client (Intel Core™) processors later next year. 
• Next-Generation Graphics: Intel's Gen11 integrated graphics will offer 64 enhanced execution units, more than double previous Intel Gen9 graphics (24 EUs), breaking the 1 TFLOPS barrier. 
• Intel reaffirmed its plan to introduce a discrete graphics processor by 2020.
• "One API” Software: a new 0“One API” project aimes to simplify the programming of diverse computing engines across CPU, GPU, FPGA, AI and other accelerators. The project includes a comprehensive and unified portfolio of developer tools for mapping software to the hardware that can best accelerate the code. A public project release is expected to be available in 2019.
• Memory and Storage: Intel showed how SSDs based on its 1 Terabit QLC NAND die move more bulk data from HDDs to SSDs, allowing faster access to that data.
• Deep Learning Reference Stack: Intel is releasing the Deep Learning Reference Stack, an integrated, highly-performant open source stack optimized for Intel Xeon® Scalable platforms.

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Amazon activates AWS Europe (Stockholm) Region

Amazon announced the opening of the AWS Europe (Stockholm) Region with three Availability Zones.

AWS Regions are comprised of Availability Zones, which are technology infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations with enough distance to significantly reduce the risk of a single event impacting business continuity, yet near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and are connected via redundant, ultra-low-latency networks.

With Stockholm online, AWS now provides 60 Availability Zones across 20 infrastructure regions globally, with another 12 Availability Zones and four regions in Bahrain, Hong Kong SAR, Italy, and South Africa all coming online by the first half of 2020.

The AWS Europe (Stockholm) Region is AWS’s fifth in Europe, joining existing regions in France, Germany, Ireland, and the UK.

“Since the early days of AWS, Nordic organizations have been using AWS’s cloud technologies to help reinvent entire industries, such as Supercell and Rovio in gaming, Scania and Volvo in automotive, and Nokia and Telenor in telecommunications,” said Andy Jassy, Chief Executive Officer, Amazon Web Services. “Tens of thousands of Nordic customers have been using AWS from regions around the world, but many have shared that they also wanted an AWS Region in the Nordics so they can easily operate their most latency-sensitive workloads for end-users in the Nordics while meeting any data sovereignty requirements. We’re excited to deliver our AWS Stockholm Region today to meet these customer requests.”

https://aws.amazon.com/local/nordics/

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FCC sets rules for 2019 5G incentive auction

The FCC adopted new rules that to promote the availability of high-band millimeter wave spectrum .  The airwaves in the combined Upper 37 GHz and 39 GHz bands are the largest amount of contiguous spectrum available for wireless service in the millimeter wave bands — 2,400 megahertz in total — while the 47 GHz band provides an additional 1,000 megahertz of spectrum.

Specifically, the FCC's action:

• Modifies the band plans for the Upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands from 200 megahertz blocks to 100 megahertz blocks to be licensed by Partial Economic Area, which will facilitate the simultaneous auction of licenses in the three bands;
• Adopts an incentive auction mechanism that will offer contiguous blocks of spectrum throughout the Upper 37 GHz, 39 GHz, and 47 GHz bands, while preserving spectrum usage rights for existing licensees; and
• Adopts a pre-auction process that allows incumbent licensees to rationalize their holdings.

The incentive auction of these spectrum bands will have two phases: a clock phase in which bidders may bid on generic license blocks, and an assignment phase in which clock phase winners may bid on specific frequencies.  Incentive payments will be offered to incumbents who choose to relinquish their spectrum usage rights to make new licenses available.

New entrants and participating incumbents may bid for new licenses.  Incumbents that bid for new licenses may use “vouchers” equivalent to their existing holdings for credit toward the amount they bid in the auction.  For an incumbent that chooses not to relinquish all its existing rights, the Report and Order provides methods to modify the incumbent’s licenses so that they align with the band plan and service areas adopted by the Commission.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stated: "Pushing more spectrum into the commercial marketplace is a key component of our 5G FAST plan to maintain American leadership in the next generation of wireless connectivity. Currently, we’re conducting an auction of 28 GHz band spectrum, to be followed by a 24 GHz band auction. And today, we are taking a critical step towards holding an auction of the Upper 37, 39, and 47 GHz bands in 2019. These and other steps will help us stay ahead of the spectrum curve and allow wireless innovation to thrive on our shores."

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-18-180A1.pdf

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FCC boosts funding for rural broadband, sets 25/3 Mbps minimum

The FCC will offer up to $67 million a year in additional support for carriers receiving funding through the Connect America Fund’s Alternative Connect America Cost Model, or A-CAM. The additional funding aims to help small, rural providers, known as rate-of-return carriers, to deliver faster broadband speeds and expanded coverage in rural areas. In return for additional funding, the FCC will require providers to expand availability of service offering downloads of at least 25/3 Mbps service, compared to the current 10/1 Mbps standard.The FCC said this new funding has the potential to increase by 100,000 the number of rural homes and businesses with access to 25/3 Mbps service.

The FCC also acted to open a new window for carriers receiving support through legacy mechanisms to voluntarily move to model-based support through the A-CAM II offer, which incentivizes deployment while reducing regulatory burdens.  In return, these carriers would be required to provide 25/3 Mbps service to all homes and businesses whose costs are fully funded through the A-CAM cost model.

In addition, the FCC is increasing the $1.4 billion annual budget for carriers that continue to get support from legacy mechanisms by initiating an annual inflation adjustment, eliminating 2018 cuts mandated by budgetary rules established under the prior Administration, and setting a guaranteed floor of minimum support for each carrier.  In return, legacy providers would be required to expand deployment of 25/3 Mbps service.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stated: "Today, we take a major step toward closing the digital divide.  The trees are thick:  We’re substantially reforming the high-cost universal service support program for some of the country’s smallest rural carriers, and the program’s rules are complicated to say the least.  But the forest is easy to see:  We’re helping to ensure that rural Americans can participate in the digital economy. We’re changing the system for rural carriers and consumers alike in three basic ways.  Each will result in material improvements in rural connectivity."

https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-increases-universal-service-support-faster-rural-broadband

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AT&T Fiber launches in 12 new metros

AT&T launched fiber broadband service in 12 new metros, bringing its total to 84. During 2018, AT&T passed over 3 million locations, bringing its total to 10 million locations passed.

The newly launched metros are: Amarillo, Texas; Beaumont, Texas; Bowling Green, Ky; Florence, S.C.; Gainesville, Fla.; Hattiesburg, Miss.; Lake Charles, La.; Northeast Miss.; Panama City, Fla.; Pensacola, Fla.; Topeka, Kan.; and Waco, Texas.

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ECI intros 1.2T Dual Channel Blade for its Apollo DWDM transport

ECI introduced its TM1200, a 1.2T blade (dual 600G channel) for its Apollo DWDM transport systems, enabling programmable, adaptive optical networking.

ECI said its new TM1200 blade delivers unmatched spectral efficiency and elasticity through software controllable continuous modulation. Whereas traditional line-side modulation was only programmable in large increments – such as 100G, 200G or 400G – often relying on different line cards, the new TM1200 delivers software-controlled continuous modulation in 50 Gbps increments up to 600 Gbps line rate, rather than supporting specific modulation schemes. This maximizes capacity in a granular manner to best match client needs and variable channel conditions.

Additional benefits:

• Optimal return on fiber investment: By operating at the edge of the Shannon limit, the TM1200 squeezes the maximum capacity from each channel on a fiber, delaying the need to add new fiber and optical networking infrastructure.
• Enables a highly adaptive and flexible optical layer: Working in conjunction with ECI's colorless, directionless, contentionless, flexible spectrum ROADMs, and client services aware SDN control, the TM1200 can continuously optimize client traffic to fiber capacity.
• Dynamic restoration: Excess capacity can be allocated dynamically to fully or partially restore client services that are disrupted by fiber or equipment failures elsewhere in the network.
• Power efficiency: At a 600 Gbps line rate, the ECI TM1200 has a 10-fold improvement in power efficiency compared to other solutions, consuming less than 0.18W per Gbps, fully populated.

“Optical networks are evolving to be intelligent, agile and self-adjusting, and play an integral role in building the necessary infrastructure to handle the increased demand on global networks. Service providers are looking for networking solutions that can be acutely responsive to evolving customer demands and fluctuating business needs – beyond what they can predict,” said Jimmy Mizrahi,
executive vice president, Global Portfolio at ECI.

https://www.ecitele.com

ECOC 2018: Acacia presents 600G Coherent Transmission

Thursday, September 20, 2018  Acacia  

At the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) in Rome, Acacia Communications demonstrated its AC1200 coherent module with dual-core design enabling 1.2 Tbps error-free transmission over fiber with 600 Gbps per wavelength.

The Acacia AC1200 module supports transmission capacity of up to 1.2 Tbps in a footprint that is 40 percent less than the size of the 5” x 7” modules that support transmission speeds of 400 Gbps today.

The module is based on Acacia’s Pico DSP ASIC, which utilizes two wavelengths that can be configured to support from 100 Gbps to 600 Gbps capacity each. The Acacia AC1200 supports a suite of advanced three-dimensional (3D) shaping features that may be optimized to enable performance approaching theoretical limits on a wide range of network configurations.

Acacia shipped its first AC1200 module customer samples in March 2018 and anticipates production to begin by the end of 2018.

MEF18 PoC - MEF 3.0 Service Spanning Four Operators

Thursday, December 06, 2018  #MEF18, ECI, Equinix, Liquid Telecom, Sparkle  

MEF18 Proof of Concept, 29 - 31 Oct - Fulfillment and Activation of an Intercontinental MEF 3.0 Service Spanning Four Operators. PoC Participants: Tata Communications, Sparkle, Equinix, Liquid Telecom, ECI, Amartus, and Spirent.

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Japanese carrier deploys Infinera's mTera in metro backbone

A leading Japanese service provider and affiliate of Power Nets Japan (PNJ) has selected Infinera’s mTera Universal Transport Platform to scale its metro network infrastructure. The Infinera mTera will be deployed to support high-capacity interconnect between core data center sites in one of Japan’s major metropolitan areas. At the same time, the highly flexible solution will create a more efficient means of delivering local and regional end-user services, including data center interconnect, private cloud, and high-speed internet access.

The Infinera mTera offers the utilities-based service provider a flexible multiservice transport solution that supports software-defined Universal Switching, including Optical Transport Network (OTN), Carrier Ethernet, MPLS-TP, and SONET/SDH in a single, power-efficient system architecture, with the option of an integrated DWDM layer based on reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM)-on-a-blade technology. The ultra-compact, power-efficient mTera offers 7 Tbps of universal switching capacity per shelf with up to 12 Tbps of total switching capacity per rack.

Infinera teamed with NEC Networks and System Integration Corporation (NESIC) on the project.

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Napatech ports its SmartNIC software to Intel Arria FPGAs

Napatech's FPGA SmartNIC software is now available for the Intel Programmable Acceleration Card with Intel Arria 10 GX FPGA (PAC).

Napatech said its Link Capture Software can now take advantage of the Intel PAC’s powerful Arria 10 GX FPGA to deliver line-rate packet capture and flow-aware forwarding for all packet sizes up to 40 Gbps. The solution offloads the most burdensome network and security processing workloads from the server’s Intel Xeon CPU cores, returning valuable compute resources to the applications and services they were intended for.

“At Napatech, we aim to bring the benefits of FPGA acceleration to IT organizations of every size. In order to do so, we must be application-driven, software-focused and hardware-independent,” said Ray Smets, CEO at Napatech. “Our Link Capture Software for the Intel PAC provides an even easier way for enterprises and service providers to accelerate applications, improve their cybersecurity and increase server utilization as cloud, hybrid and software-defined networks become more mission-critical.”

https://www.napatech.com/

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IDC: Worldwide server market revenue surged 37.7% in Q3

Vendor revenue in the worldwide server market increased 37.7%, year over year to $23.4 billion during the third quarter of 2018 (3Q18) and worldwide server shipments increased 18.3% year over year to 3.2 million units, according to IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. 

"The worldwide server market once again generated strong revenue and unit shipment growth due to an ongoing enterprise refresh cycle and continued demand from cloud service providers," said Sebastian Lagana, research manager, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. "Enterprise infrastructure requirements from resource intensive next-generation applications support increasingly rich configurations, ensuring average selling prices (ASPs) remain elevated against the year-ago quarter. At the same time, hyperscalers continue to upgrade and expand their datacenter capabilities."

Some highlights from IDC:

• Demand for x86 servers increased 41.0% in 3Q18 to $21.8 billion in revenues. Non-x86 servers grew 3.9% year over year to $1.6 billion.
• Volume server revenue increased by 40.2% to $20.0 billion, while midrange server revenue grew 39.4% to $2.0 billion. High-end systems grew 6.9% to $1.3 billion.
• On a geographic basis, Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) was the fastest growing region in 3Q18 with 46.5% year-over-year revenue growth. The United States grew 43.7% in the quarter while Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) grew 24.5%, Canada grew 20.0%, Japan grew 14.0%, and Latin America grew 7.7%. China saw its 3Q18 vendor revenues grow 67.1% year over year.

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS44532818

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Orange and Deutsche Telekom develop Djingo smart speaker

At the 6th Show Hello event in Paris, Orange and Deutsche Telekom, as part of the European AI Alliance, presented "Djingo," a  voice-controlled smart speaker designed to interface with other digital services, including Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant.

Djingo can be used to make hands-free calls at home, to interact with Orange TV and to control all the “Connected Home” services under the Orange brand as well as IoT brands like Philips Hue, Bosch and Netatmo. In the future, the range of everyday services available via Djingo will be enhanced through partnerships with OUI.Sncf, Deezer, Radio France and Météo France. T

Stéphane Richard, Chairman and CEO of the Orange Group, said "To fight digital exclusion, Orange chooses inclusive innovation: useful and simple innovations that are accessible to the greatest possible number of people. To do so, we deploy the best fixed and mobile networks across the country. We secure and facilitate our customers’ digital lives thanks to our expertise in cybersecurity and in digital identity. We help all our customers enter the eras of artificial intelligence and of the internet of things. All of this, to enable them to participate in a new form of digital society. A progressive, free and enlightened society."

Orange also provided the following update on its 5G launch. Orange plans to deploy 5G in 17 European cities in 2019 and be ready for commercial release in 2020, pending 5G smartphones availability.

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Tigera raises $30 million for Kubernetes security

Tigera, a start-up based in San Francisco, announced $30 million in funding for its security and compliance solutions for Kubernetes platforms.

Tigera says modern microservices architectures present a unique challenge for legacy security and compliance solutions since these new workloads are highly dynamic and ephemeral. This new architecture creates an explosion of internal, or east-west traffic that must be evaluated and secured by the network and security operations teams.

Tigera Secure Enterprise Edition (TSEE) secures Kubernetes environments and ensures continuous compliance using a declarative model similar to Kubernetes. Under the hood, TSEE authenticates all service-to-service communication using multiple sources of identity, authorizes each service based on multi-factor rules, encrypts network traffic, and enforces security policies at the edge of the host, pod, and container within the infrastructure for a defense in depth security model. All connection details are logged in a compliance-ready format that is also used for incident management and security forensic analysis.

The Series B funding was led by Insight Venture Partners, with participation from existing investors Madrona, NEA, and Wing.

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TIM completes first 5G NR video call using mmWave in Europe

TIM completed the first European 5G NR video call has been completed on the TIM network in the millimiter wave (mmWave) frequency band.

The demonstration was completed using a smartphone form-factor test device powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem and using network infrastructure from Ericsson.

TIM also inaugurated an Innovation Hub in Rome dedicated to 5G. The opening was attended Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi, Mario Di Mauro, Chief Strategy, Innovation & Customer Experience Officer at TIM, Enrico Salvatori, Senior Vice President and President Qualcomm EMEA, Elio Catania, President of Confindustria Digitale and other representatives from the Italian industrial world and the ICT sector.

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Avi Networks names Mark Anderson as Executive Chairman

Avi Networks, while offers a SaaS-based Software Load Balancer, Intelligent Web Application Firewall (iWAF), and Universal Service Mesh, announced the appointment of Mark Anderson as executive chairman.

Anderson is the former president of Palo Alto Networks and previously was EVP of worldwide sales at F5 Networks, he oversaw a 1,000-person sales team and played a key role in growing F5’s annual revenue to more than $1B. Anderson currently sits on the board of Alteryx.

“We are excited to appoint Mark to the Executive Chairman role to help us further our great momentum,” said Amit Pandey, CEO of Avi Networks. “Mark has a deep understanding of our domain and our target customers among Global 2000 enterprises and will work closely with me and my executive team to scale our sales organization and our go-to-market initiatives.”

Avi also cited the following recent milestones:

• More than 200% year-over-year growth with significant adoption by the Global 2000, including 25% of the Fortune 50.
• Series D funding with an investment from Cisco Investments along with DAG Ventures, Greylock Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Menlo Ventures for its oversubscribed $60 million round. This brings Avi’s total funding to $115 million.
• Global expansion including a new presence in Australia and New Zealand.
• Launch of Universal Service Mesh as the future of application delivery, security, and visibility, with the potential to reshape the nearly $12B market for application services.
• Launch of Avi SaaS, the industry’s first SaaS solution for multi-cloud load balancing to deliver consistent capabilities regardless of infrastructure, accelerate time-to-value, lower OpEx, and drive operational simplicity.

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Telia Carrier expands Global IP Backbone with Zurich PoP

Telia Carrier announced expanded access to its Global IP Backbone with an additional PoP in Zurich, Switzerland, bring its total number of PoPs in Switzerland to three. The facilities leverage Telia Carrier's new high capacity fibre route stretching from Zurich to Frankfurt via Basel.

"Our continued investment in this region is a testament to our customer driven approach when expanding the Telia Global IP Backbone,” said Christoph Lannert, Regional Sales Director for Telia Carrier. “The demand for IP services throughout Europe is growing at an incredible rate."

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