T-Mobile tests Standalone 5G with multivendor radio/core

T-Mobile completed a standalone 5G data session on a multi-vendor 5G radio access and core network -- an industry first according to the company.

“This major 5G breakthrough is another example of how the T-Mobile engineering team continues to innovate and drive the entire industry forward. I could not be more proud of them,” said Neville Ray, Chief Technology Officer at T-Mobile. “5G brings a new era in wireless, and if our merger with Sprint is approved, the New T-Mobile will bring together the resources and vision necessary to ensure America has a network that’s second to none.”

The standalone 5G milestone data session was carried out at T-Mobile's Bellevue, Washington lab with the participation of Ericsson, Nokia, Cisco and MediaTek.

T-Mobile said it is on track to introduce standalone 5G in 2020.

https://www.t-mobile.com/5g

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Verizon expands 5G to areas of Atlanta, Detroit, Indy and Wash DC

Verizon launched its 5G Ultra Wideband service in four additional U.S. cities. Customers in parts of Washington DC, Atlanta, Detroit, and Indianapolis will now be able to access Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network, joining Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, Providence and St. Paul as Verizon’s first 5G mobility cities.

“Verizon continues its steady expansion of 5G Ultra Wideband service and is excited to bring the 5G future to Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis and Washington, DC,” said Kyle Malady, Verizon’s chief technology officer. “Customers in these cities are at the forefront of game-changing technology, with access to download speeds and bandwidth that will power the future of consumer, business and government mobile applications. Similarly, cities that embrace new technology, like 5G Ultra Wideband, have a leg up in competition to attract businesses and create jobs.”

Verizon’s 5G is typically available in dense, urban areas where people tend to congregate – public parks, monuments, outside museums, on college campuses and in stadiums.

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IDC: Worldwide public cloud service revenue hit $183B in 2018

The worldwide public cloud services market grew 27.4% year over year in 2018 with revenues totaling nearly $183 billion, according to results from the 2H 2018 release of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Tracker.

The growth rate was down slightly from 2018 but is still more than 4.5 times that of the IT industry overall.

"Our latest public cloud data continues to show robust growth – headed toward almost $500 billion by 2023 – and consolidating power positions across the board," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC. "The most intense and strategic consolidation – in the combined IaaS and PaaS segments – is being driven by developers' and enterprises' bets on which vendors will sustainably deliver tech innovation for the next decade and beyond."

"Software as a Service (SaaS) continued to be the most highly deployed cloud segment, representing a commanding 62.4% of the total cloud market revenues, including system infrastructure software (SIS). Adoption of cloud enterprise business applications like ERP, SCM, and HCM also accelerated across all segments with most buyers taking a SaaS-first or SaaS-also posture for new applications," said Frank Della Rosa, research director, Software as a Service at IDC.

Another key finding from IDC:

• The top 5 public cloud service providers accounted for 46.3% of all spending growth in 2018 and 35% of all 2018 spending, up 3 points from 2017. This continues a consolidation trend in the overall public cloud services market among the leaders, most pronounced in the combined Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) segments, in which the top 5 vendors accounted for a 63% share of spending.

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Equinix revenues increased 10% yoy in Q2

Equinix reported Q2 2019 revenue of $1.385 billion, up 10% over the same period last year and up 2% over the previous quarter. Net income and net income per share attributable to Equinix amounted to $144 million, a 22% increase over the previous quarter, or $1.69 per share.

Charles Meyers, President and CEO, Equinix stated: “Equinix had another strong quarter, as it continues to deliver distinctive and durable value for customers pursuing their digital transformation initiatives. As a variety of trends are making global businesses think differently about their infrastructure, Equinix is responding by both investing across its traditional strengths and layering in incremental capabilities that make it an easier-to-use, more accessible global platform. We see a large and expanding market opportunity, and we believe Equinix is uniquely positioned to capture this opportunity as customers prioritize digital transformation and adopt hybrid and multicloud as their architecture of choice.”

http://www.equinix.com

Equinix partners with Singapore's GIC on xScale Data Centers in Europe

Monday, July 01, 2019  Data Centers, Equinix  

Equinix has formed a joint venture with GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, to develop and operate xScaleTM data centers in Europe. The joint venture is initially valued at over $1 billion.

Equinix said initial facilities in the joint venture will serve the unique core workload deployment needs of a targeted group of hyperscale companies, including the world's largest cloud service providers. The facilities will be located on or proximate to some of Equinix's existing IBX campuses.xScale data centers will be managed and staffed by Equinix while ensuring seamless connectivity to the Equinix global platform, providing a consistent experience for the hyperscale companies.

Equinix cites two ways in which the new xScale data centers will provide hyperscale companies a differentiated value proposition from existing wholesale data center operators in two key areas:
xScale data centers will offer access to Equinix's comprehensive suite of interconnection and edge services. These services will tie into the hyperscale companies' existing access points at Equinix, thereby increasing the speed of connectivity to their existing and future enterprise customers.
xScale data centers will be engineered to meet the technical and operational requirements and price points of core hyperscale workload deployments. This enables hyperscale companies to consolidate core and access point deployments into one global provider to streamline and simplify their rapid growth.

Equinix has been working for years with hyperscale operators, including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Google Cloud. Currently, global deployments from the top hyperscale companies exceed $500 million in annual revenue at Equinix, with interconnection-rich retail deployments representing the most rapid growth segment of their deployments.

Under the deal, GIC will own an 80% equity interest in the joint venture and Equinix will own the remaining 20% equity interest. Equinix will sell both its London LD10 (retaining part of that business under a lease back) and Paris PA8 IBX data centers and the associated leases, as well as certain other development interests, to the joint venture. A significant portion of London LD10 and Paris PA8 are already leased.

The cmpanies envision additional new xScale data centers in Amsterdam, Frankfurt (two sites) and London. These initial six facilities, when fully built out, will provide approximately 155 megawatts (MW) of power capacity.

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CyrusOne posts Q2 revenue of $251 million, low colocation churn (0.6%)

CyrusOne reported revenue of $251.5 million for the second quarter, compared to $196.9 million for the same period in 2018, an increase of 28%. The increase in revenue was driven primarily by a 20% increase in occupied colocation square feet (CSF) from organic growth and the Zenium acquisition, a $14.7 million increase in equipment sales, and additional interconnection services.

Net loss was $(8.5) million for the second quarter, compared to net income of $105.9 million in the same period in 2018. Net loss for the second quarter included an $8.5 million loss on the Company’s equity investment in GDS, a leading data center provider in China. Net loss per diluted common share3 was $(0.08) in the second quarter of 2019, compared to net income per diluted common share of $1.06 in the same period in 2018.

“Our results this quarter reflect very strong financial performance, and the midpoints of our current 2019 guidance ranges imply revenue growth of 19%, Adjusted EBITDA growth of 18%, and Normalized FFO per share growth of 10% compared to 2018,” said Gary Wojtaszek, president and chief executive officer of CyrusOne. “We continue to be one of the fastest-growing REITs, and the investments we have made over the past two years building out our international platform should enable us to continue to grow at industry-leading rates through 2020 and beyond.”

Some key metrics from the quarterly report:

• The weighted average lease term of the new leases, based on square footage, is 67 months (5.6 years), and the weighted average remaining lease term of CyrusOne’s portfolio is 54 months (taking into account the impact of its backlog). 
• Recurring rent churn for the second quarter was 0.6%, compared to 1.1% for the same period in 2018.
• In Q2, CyrusOne completed construction on 59,000 CSF and 21 MW of power capacity across four projects in Raleigh-Durham, the New York Metro area, London, and Frankfurt. 
• CSF leased as of the end of the second quarter was 89% for stabilized properties and 84% overall. 
• CyrusOne has development projects underway in Northern Virginia, Dallas, the New York Metro area, Austin, Frankfurt, London, and Amsterdam that are expected to add approximately 146,000 CSF and 55 MW of power capacity.

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Fujitsu delivers 5G base station products to NTT DOCOMO

Fujitsu Limited has begun delivery of 5G base station products, comprising of Central Unit (CU, 1) and Radio Unit (RU, 2), to NTT DOCOMO for its commercial 5G network.

The 5G CU products that Fujitsu has started delivering realize the 5G system through a proprietary software design from the company using software-defined radio technology, which can implement different wireless technologies on the same hardware.

The 5G RU products have built-in antennas (which had conventionally been installed externally) equipped with beam forming, enabling efficient network deployments. These RU products have a lineup consisting of 3 types of equipment that support 5G frequencies (the 3.7 GHz band, the 4.5 GHz band, and the 28 GHz band). he products are compliant with the O-RAN fronthaul interface specifications. Using this open interface, Fujitsu's products can connect to various vendors CU/RU products. The products also support 3GPP's (Release 15) specifications.

Fujitsu said it has been working with NTT DOCOMO to develop a CU and RUs that comply with the O-RAN fronthaul interface specifications. T

Hiroshi Nakamura, Executive Vice President and Member of the Board of Directors, NTT DOCOMO, states "NTT DOCOMO is leading the O-RAN Alliance and contributing to the creation of specifications for open RAN. By utilizing 5G base station products compliant with open interfaces, we will build a flexible and efficient 5G network that can handle a variety of use cases, including the B2B2X business in the 5G era. We expect that Fujitsu's CU and RU products will contribute to such development. We will continue to expand our 5G network and accelerate the creation of 5G services and markets together with our partners in a variety of industries."

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IDC: Smartphone shipments drop 2.3% in Q2

Worldwide smartphones shipments declined 2.3% year over year in the second quarter of 2019, according to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. China and the United States experiencing the sharpest quarterly declines.

Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 333.2 million phones in 2Q19, which was up 6.5% over the previous quarter.

"Despite a lot of uncertainty surrounding Huawei the company managed to hold its position at number two in terms of market share," said Ryan Reith, program vice president with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "When you look at the top of the market – Samsung, Huawei, and Apple – each vendor lost a bit of share from last quarter, and when you look down the list the next three – Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo – all gained. Part of this is related to the timing of product launches, but it is hard not to assume this trend could continue."

Some highlights:

• the top 5 vendors accounted for 69% of the total market volume
• the top 10 vendors accounted for 87%
• Samsung maintained the top position in the market for 2Q19 and returned to annual growth of 5.5% with a total of 75.5 million smartphones shipped. 
• Huawei saw its shipment volumes decline 0.6% when compared to 1Q19, which could be regarded as better than expected given U.S.-China trade tensions. 
• Shipment volumes in China hit an all-time high and accounted for 62% of Huawei's 2Q19 total with 36.4 million units. 
• Apple shipped 33.8 million new iPhones during 2Q19, which was down significantly from the same quarter a year ago. 
• Xiaomi experienced a small year-over-year decline during the quarter with a total of 32.3 million smartphones shipped.
• OPPO performed well in China and India, which together accounted for nearly three-quarters of its shipments in 2Q19. 

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Qualcomm cites slowing demand, pressure from China

Qualcomm reported quarterly revenue of $9.6 billion, including licensing revenues of $4.7 billion resulting from the settlement with Apple and its contract manufacturers, consisting of a payment from Apple and the release of certain of our obligations to pay Apple and its contract manufacturers customer-related liabilities.

The company said it is seeing slower demand for 4G devices as the market prepares for the global transition to 5G. In addition, Qualcomm cited continued weakness in China demand as Huawei gains share inside China and Qualcomm's other Chinese OEMs manage inventory ahead of 5G.

Qualcomm CEO stated:  CEO, Steve Mollenkopf during the call:

“Today, we are the only chipset vendor that has 5G system level solutions spanning both sub6 GHz and millimeter bands.  This is key to global deployments.”On the product side, our 5G design wins have doubled since our last earnings call.  We now have over one hundred fifty 5G designs launched or in-development using our 5G chipsets. In addition to core chipsets, virtually all our 5G design wins are powered by our complete RF Front-End solutions for 5G Sub6 and / or millimeter wave.  We are the only company today delivering an end-to-end comprehensive modem-to-antenna solution. Put simply, our position – at the center of developing this incredible technology – represents a large opportunity for our stockholders."

“By the first calendar quarter of 2020, we anticipate reaching the inflection point as our financial results begin to reflect the benefits of our substantial efforts over the years in to bring 5G to the market worldwide.”

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Twilio tops $275.0 million in sales, up 86% year-over-year

Twilio posted revenue of $275.0 million for the second quarter of 2019, up 86% from the second quarter of 2018 and 18% sequentially from the first quarter of 2019. Total revenue includes revenue from Twilio SendGrid starting on February 1, 2019 (the date of acquisition).

Base revenue was $256.7 million for the second quarter of 2019, up 90% from the second quarter of 2018 and 16% sequentially from the first quarter of 2019. Base revenue includes revenue from Twilio SendGrid starting on February 1, 2019 (the date of acquisition).

GAAP loss from operations was $93.7 million for the second quarter of 2019, compared with GAAP loss from operations of $22.0 million for the second quarter of 2018. Non-GAAP income from operations was $1.5 million for the second quarter of 2019, compared with non-GAAP income from operations of $2.2 million for the second quarter of 2018.

“We celebrated a big milestone in the second quarter, crossing the $1 billion annualized revenue run rate,” said Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “We see this as just the beginning, as we have the opportunity to change communications and customer engagement for decades to come. This is Day One and we're just getting started.”

Key metrics

• 161,869 Active Customer Accounts as of June 30, 2019, compared to 57,350 Active Customer Accounts as of June 30, 2018. Active Customer Accounts in the current period include the contribution from Twilio SendGrid customer accounts.
• Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate was 140% for the second quarter of 2019, compared to 137% for the second quarter of 2018. Twilio SendGrid results do not impact the calculation of this metric in the current period.
• 2,369 employees as of June 30, 2019.

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ATLAS Space opens nine new ground stations

ATLAS Space Operations activated nine new ground stations in its network, bringing its total of ground stations to 13. The company is aiming to activate an additional seventeen sites by 2020. The company is activating ground startions at a pace of one per month.

The new ground stations cover a range of polar and equatorial locations, including: Sodankyla, Finland; Cedar, Michigan; Harmon, Guam; Mojave, California; Chitose, Japan; Tahiti, French Polynesia; Longovilo, Chile; Ningi, Australia; and Usingen, Germany. Coming soon in Sept 2019 are Brewster, Washington and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“The new locations are highly strategic and enhance the geographical dispersion of the ATLAS ground network,” said Sean McDaniel, CEO and Founder of ATLAS. “Due to the locations of the sites we prioritized, our customers can realize near real-time latency when it comes to getting their valuable and time-sensitive data.”

Notably, eight of the new stations are capable of receiving data in S and X-band frequencies.

https://www.atlasground.com

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Ixia's CloudLens delivers packet-level visibility into clouds

Keysight Technologies announced Ixia CloudLens Self-Hosted 5.1, a new version of the company’s private cloud visibility platform which offers enterprises and service providers packet-level visibility into restricted cloud environments by enabling East-West traffic monitoring.

“Today’s network operations and security teams struggle to gain packet-level visibility into restricted cloud environments, and the addition of containers to virtual traffic increases that challenge,” said Scott Register, vice president, product management of Keysight’s Ixia Solutions Group. “CloudLens Self-Hosted 5.1 enhances visibility into virtual traffic, including containers in private clouds and data centers — enabling customers to clearly identify potential security threats and ensure optimal network and application performance.”

Ixia said its CloudLens platform for private, public and hybrid cloud visibility enables packet capture, as well as filtering and analysis in any cloud environment, eliminating blind spots and delivering actionable intelligence to security, analytics, and forensics tools. CloudLens Self-Hosted 5.1, formerly CloudLens Private, bridges the gap between cloud and physical networks by extending complete visibility to virtualized environments and inter-virtual workloads.

Key features:

• virtual taps that enable monitoring of Kubernetes inter-Pod traffic in container environments, as well as VM to VM monitoring to gain packet-level access to network data
• filtering at the source, as the only platform that aggregates, filters, and processes packets virtually to save bandwidth and reduce latency
• a platform-agnostic environment that supports VMware, Microsoft, OpenStack, and KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisors, as well as Kubernetes for deployment flexibility
• an integrated CloudLens Sensor Management Platform which enables seamless management in the private cloud/data center from the CloudLens Manager

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Xilinx completes Solarflare acquisition -- SmartNICs

Xilinx completed its acquisition of Solarflare, a provider of high-performance, low latency networking solutions for customers spanning FinTech to cloud computing. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal was first announced in April.

Earlier this year, the two companies demonstrated a single-chip FPGA-based 100Gb SmartNIC, processing 100 million packets per-second receive and transmit, all at less than 75 watts.

Xilinx to acquire Solarflare for SmartNIC solutions

Wednesday, April 24, 2019  Xilinx  

Xilinx agreed to acquire Solarflare Communications, a provider of high-performance, low latency networking solutions for customers spanning FinTech to cloud computing. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Xilinx said the acquisition enables it to combine its FPGA, MPSoC and ACAP solutions with Solarflare's ultra-low latency network interface card (NIC) technology and Onload application acceleration software. The target is new converged SmartNIC solutions, accelerating Xilinx's "data center first" strategy.


Xilinx and Solarflare have been collaborating on advanced networking technology for the last two years, with Xilinx becoming a strategic investor in 2017. The two companies recently demonstrated their first joint solution – a single-chip FPGA-based 100G SmartNIC, processing 100 million packets per-second receive and transmit, all at less than 75 watts.

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Submer opens North America HQ in Asburn

Submer Technologies, a company based in Barcelona that specializes in immersion cooling systems - has chosen Ashburn, Virginia for its new North American headquarters.

Submer's immersion cooling submerges servers in a proprietary dielectric fluid that has 1000-times the cooling capacity of air – delivering higher performance in less space at less than half the power consumption of a traditional, air-cooled environment.

“We need to be where our customers are,” said Daniel Pope, CEO of Submer Technologies. “When it came time to locate our North American division, Ashburn quickly rose to the top of the list. The amount of critical infrastructure and the diversity of operators make it the perfect location for Submer.”

https://www.submer.com/about

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Huawei reports 23% growth despite U.S. pressure

Huawei reported unaudited revenue of CNY401.3 billion for the first half of 2019, a 23.2% increase over the same period last year, along with a net profit margin of 8.7%.

Huawei's carrier business reached CNY146.5 billion in revenue for the first half of 2019. The company cited steady growth in production and shipment of equipment for wireless networks, optical transmission, data communications, IT, and related product domains. To date, Huawei has secured 50 commercial 5G contracts and has shipped more than 150,000 base stations to markets around the world.

In Huawei's enterprise business, H1 sales revenue was CNY31.6 billion. Huawei continues to enhance its ICT portfolio across multiple domains, including cloud, artificial intelligence, campus networks, data centers, Internet of Things, and intelligent computing. It remains a trusted supplier for government and utility customers, as well as customers in commercial sectors like finance, transportation, energy, and automobile.

In Huawei's consumer business, H1 sales revenue hit CNY220.8 billion. Huawei's smartphone shipments (including Honor phones) reached 118 million units, up 24% YoY. The company also saw rapid growth in its shipments of tablets, PCs, and wearables. Huawei is beginning to scale its device ecosystem to deliver a more seamless intelligent experience across all major user scenarios. To date, the Huawei Mobile Services ecosystem has more than 800,000 registered developers, and 500 million users worldwide.

"Revenue grew fast up through May," said Liang. "Given the foundation we laid in the first half of the year, we continue to see growth even after we were added to the entity list. That's not to say we don't have difficulties ahead. We do, and they may affect the pace of our growth in the short term. But we will stay the course. We are fully confident in what the future holds, and we will continue investing as planned – including a total of CNY120 billion in R&D this year. We'll get through these challenges, and we're confident that Huawei will enter a new stage of growth after the worst of this is behind us."

https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/7/Huawei-Announces-H1-2019-Revenue

• In March 2019, Huawei, which is a private company wholly owned by its employees, reported 2018 revenue of CNY721,202 million, representing an increase of 19.5% year-on-year. Net profit grew by 25.1% year-on-year to CNY59,345 million. 

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CoreSite offers SDN-powered connectivity between data centers

CoreSite Realty is now offering SDN-powered inter-site connectivity between seven of its edge markets.

The CoreSite Inter-Site Connectivity solution enables customers to be secure their distributed IT infrastructure with private connections, versus accessing data over the Internet. The connectivity improves performance and reduces network provisioning times. CoreSite also provides access to more than 775 network, cloud and IT service providers.

“We are pleased to offer SDN connectivity between our markets by leveraging the CoreSite Open Cloud Exchange through the reach of its capabilities and ease of its online portal,” said Maile Kaiser, CoreSite’s SVP of Sales. “With the CoreSite Inter-Site Connectivity solution, we make it easier for customers to expand and connect to CoreSite’s rich ecosystem of cloud and network providers as well as other enterprise organizations.”

http://www.coresite.com

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Masergy service bundles combine SD-WAN + security

Masergy introduced bundles that combine its Managed SD-WAN solutions with advanced security services.

Masergy's three new SD-WAN bundles include options for:

• Unified Threat Management (UTM): This built-in capability integrates a range of security features including web filtering, antivirus, data loss prevention, and intrusion detection and prevention into a single platform.
• Threat Monitoring and Response: Advanced protection includes 24/7 threat monitoring and real-time incident response for the entire SD-WAN deployment by certified security experts in global Security Operation Centers (SOCs).
• Managed Security Services: Comprehensive managed detection and response services for cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments, including an advanced security tool suite with machine-learning behavioural analytics, embedded threat intelligence, and 24/7 security monitoring and incident response.

“As leading enterprises are embracing the strategic advantages of a robust SD-WAN solution, they are also realizing the critical importance of securing their networks,” said Terry Traina, Chief Digital Officer at Masergy. “Our new SD-WAN bundles are currently the only solution on the market for companies that want the performance of SD-WAN coupled with the peace of mind that comes with 24/7 security monitoring and response.”

https://www.masergy.com/managed-sd-wan

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GTT enhances its SD-WAN service

GTT Communications has enhanced its SD-WAN service by adding the capability to run multiple network applications on a single universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) device.

Virtualized network functions (VNFs) include SD-WAN, firewall and WAN optimization.

“GTT is advancing its portfolio of cloud networking services with new functionality. We will continue to expand our SD-WAN offer with additional features on uCPE to connect our enterprise clients to any location in the world and every application in the cloud,” stated Rick Calder, GTT president and CEO.

http://www.gtt.net

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Corning Q2 optical sales reach $1.07 billion, up 7% yoy

Corning reported cores Q2 2019 sales of $3 billion, up 8% from the same period last year.

Optical Communications second-quarter sales were $1.09 billion, up 7% year over year. Net income for the second quarter was up 5% year over year. Sales growth was led by hyperscale data center and optical fiber demand as well as sales from the 3M Communication Markets Division acquisition.

For full-year 2019, Optical Communications year-over-year sales growth is now expected to be up by a low- to mid-single digit percentage. The lower growth expectations are driven primarily by weakness in the carrier market. Optical Communications growth remains significantly above passive optical market growth.

https://investor.corning.com/investor-relations/default.aspx

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Welcome Italia selects ADVA FSP 3000 fiber monitoring

Welcome Italia has selected ADVA's FSP 3000 and ALM fiber monitoring solution to enable assured high-capacity enterprise services throughout Italy.

The new network, which connects Welcome Italia’s two main data centers, features ADVA’s colorless, directionless and flexgrid multi-degree ROADMs, enabling automatic traffic rerouting for enhanced availability. The solution has also been primed for the comprehensive, low-latency security of ADVA’s ConnectGuard™ Optical encryption technology. ADVA’s partner Sirti is installing the network and will also provide ongoing maintenance and support.

Welcome Italia’s new backbone network serves enterprise clients throughout Italy with points of presence spread across the country. Built on the ADVA FSP 3000, it simplifies network operations and helps to reduce capital and operational expenditure. With its modular architecture, the FSP 3000 gives Welcome Italia the freedom to expand its network as soon as it’s required. The solution is also monitored by the ADVA ALM, which gives real-time insight into the integrity and performance of Welcome Italia’s fiber infrastructure, significantly improving robustness and efficiency. What’s more, the complete network is managed by Ensemble Controller, which combines efficiency in manual operations with programmatic control. This advanced management and domain control solution supports users while also enabling intelligent algorithms to gather data and take autonomous action.

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Ciena's Packet Optical selected for UK’s Janet

Jisc, which is the UK’s expert member organization for digital technology and digital resources in higher education, further education, skills and research, is deploying Ciena’s Packet Networking platforms to enhance its Janet Network and provide high-speed connectivity across the UK.

Specifically, Jisc recently selected Ciena’s 8700 and 5170 Packet Networking platforms to address growing needs for high-bandwidth services delivering up to 100GbE.

“Scientific research and education hinges on high-speed, reliable connectivity,” said Rod Wilson, Chief Technologist for Research Networks at Ciena. “Rapid growth in data intensive research such as high-energy physics and genome engineering means that researchers need agile networks to support a range of services from massive flows for computational science to distributed services for individual researchers and educators.”

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A10's Q2 sales dip to $49m, company considers alternatives, CEO to step down

A10 Networks reported Q2 revenue of $49.2 million, compared with $60.7 million in second-quarter 2018. There was a GAAP net loss of $5.8 million, or $0.08 per basic and diluted share.

“Second quarter revenue came in below our guidance as a number of large deals in our pipeline pushed into future quarters or were downsized. These deals were primarily in North America and within the service provider and web giant verticals where opportunities can be large but the timing is difficult to predict,” said Lee Chen, president and chief executive officer of A10 Networks. “Outside of North America, all of our major geographies met or exceeded our Q2 expectations, and we continued to make progress on our strategic initiatives in security, 5G and multi-cloud.”

A10 also confirmed that it has retained Bank of America Merrill Lynch to advise about a potential sale or change of control transaction. The company has appointed Eric Singer, Founder and Managing Member of VIEX Capital Advisors, to its Board and formed a Strategic Committee to consider strategic options.

In addition, Lee Chen, president and chief executive officer of A10 Networks, announced his intention to step down once a new CEO has been selected.

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Confluera raises $9m for cybersecurity

Confluera, a start-up based in Palo Alto, California, announced $9 million in Series A funding for its cybersecurity solutions.

Confluera aims to turn security analysts into cyber defenders by enabling them to stop breaches in real time. Confluera is Co-Founded by Abhijit Ghosh, Niloy Mukherjee, and Bipul Sinha. Ghosh has a background in networking, sec

The funding round was led by Lightspeed’s Founder & Managing Partner Ravi Mhatre with significant participation by John W. Thompson, former CEO of Symantec and Chairman of Microsoft; Frank Slootman, former CEO of ServiceNow; and Lane Bess, former CEO of Palo Alto Networks.

Confluera's founding team includes:

• Abhijit Ghosh, Co-founder and CEO – Engineering Leader Juniper Networks, Azanda Networks, and Siemens;
• Niloy Mukherjee, Co-founder and Chief Architect – Lead Architect Oracle In-Memory Database and LinkedIn Distributed Data Systems;
• Bipul Sinha, Co-founder and Chairman – Co-Founder & CEO Rubrik, Founding investor/Board Member Nutanix, and engineering at Oracle.

https://www.confluera.com/

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Sparkle unveils Genome for automation, programmability, virtualization

Sparkle announced the availability of Genome, its new integrated set of platforms and tools for Network Automation, Programmability and Virtualization -- a major step toward its vision of the autonomous network of the future. Last month, Sparkle announced "Nibble," a new ultra-long-haul photonic backbone connecting Sicily with major points of presence and data centers in Europe. I

Genome.NFV will progressively evolve Sparkle’s traditional Physical Network Functions (PNF) into dynamic, cloud-native, highly resilient Virtual Network Functions (VNF). It is initially deployed at Sparkle’s core data centers in Catania (Italy) and Athens (Greece), as well as in Miami (Florida, USA), Secaucus (New Jersey, USA), with Milan (Italy) to follow later this year

The initial set of VNFs will be available to all new customers of Sparkle’s Global Signalling and LTE Diameter Signalling for international roaming services.

Existing customers will be progressively migrated to the new virtualized platforms, benefitting from increased resiliency and reduced latency, thanks to proximity interconnections. The progressive cloudification of Voice & Mobile Network Functions will continue throughout 2020 with the introduction of virtual IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and virtual Session Border Controllers (SBC).

Genome.SDN is a modular, vendor agnostic, scalable and feature-rich network automation solution for physical and virtual networks. Featuring an Automation Workflow Manager, it will assist network engineers to automate complex Method of Procedure (MOP) and Operations repetitive tasks, creating, visualizing, and executing automation workflows across the whole Seabone IP/MPLS backbone through a single interface. The solution is complemented by a Planning Tool allowing abstraction and modelling of the IP/MPLS network, supporting engineers to simulate availability and failover scenarios, automating traffic balancing and link optimization and building comprehensive forecast needs based on traffic trends, regional growth and other inputs. Genome.SDN will progressively extend to all Sparkle network domains, starting with the integration of Nibble Optical Transport Network, currently planned in early 2020.

“The relentless process of Hyper Automation of Industries requires service providers to deliver global network services at lightspeed satisfying extreme reliability requirements.” said Daniele Mancuso, Sparkle’s VP ICT Engineering. “The introduction of Genome sets the path towards the Autonomous Network of the future, confirming Sparkle leadership in technological innovation.”

https://www.tisparkle.com/PR_Genome

Sparkle to build new ULH photonic backbone with Infinera

Thursday, June 27, 2019  Infinera, Sparkle  

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top 10 global operators, announced plans for a new ultra-long-haul photonic backbone connecting Sicily with major points of presence and data centers in Europe.

Infinera confirmed that its XT-3600 platform will power Sparkle's new "Nibble" network.

Nibble is expected to provide market-leading speeds and low-latency, high-performance, scalable, and guaranteed connectivity services between top European locations. Infinera's XT-3600 enables Sparkle to deliver 100 Gigabit Ethernet cloud-scale services in a compact form factor while automating service activation through Instant Bandwidth.

Sparkle said its new backbone will implement a "Software-defined Bandwidth" model using capacity License to disaggregate the underlying hardware installation from the capacity activation.

Nibble's ultra-performant photonic layer will progressively be integrated with its existing Mediterranean and Balkans networks and with BlueMed, the new multifiber submarine cable linking Palermo and Milan via Genoa, creating a seamless Pan Mediterranean Optical Transport Network.

The first link - planned to go live in summer 2019 - will connect Sparkle’s Sicily Hub in Palermo with Milan Caldera open datacenter; Nibble construction is planned to continue in several phases until the end of 2020 to fully deploy the entire Italian and European footprint and to integrate with the Mediterranean and Balkans networks.

“Sparkle confirms its strong leadership in the European telecom market with a solution that ensures top quality and efficiency standards,” said Mario Di Mauro, Sparkle’s Chief Executive Officer. “The Gigabit Society is demanding faster and more sophisticated capacity services and with the Infinera Instant Network solution we can expand our geographical footprint and satisfy customers’ needs at light speed, investing only in the capacity we need to deploy, where and when we need it.” 

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US Department of Justice awards $984M migration contract to AT&T

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) awarded a 15-year contract value at $984 million to AT&T to help improve its mission performance with modernized technology.

The work – awarded via Task Order through the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) technology procurement program – will provide for DOJ's transition to a next-generation communications platform supporting more than 120,000 employees across more than 2,100 locations. The fully managed solution includes a breadth of networking capabilities, including IP voice, data, security, cloud access and professional services. This will serve as a catalyst for the DOJ’s long-term technology priorities.

“The DOJ and its component organizations do the hard work of protecting the freedoms, rights and safety of all Americans,” said Stacy Schwartz, vice president, AT&T – Public Safety and FirstNet. “We are honored to provide a modern communications platform and capabilities to support the DOJ’s work for the next 15 years.”

EIS is a federal technology procurement that allows government agencies to cost-effectively modernize and expand mission support. The AT&T solution will provide DOJ the flexibility and protections to meet their requirements as they aim to strike the right balance between needs to access cloud services from multiple providers and ensuring the access is highly secure. The new solution will help simplify cloud adoption across 43 component organizations and support the Department’s Joint Cloud Optimized Trusted Internet Connection Service (JCOTS), which will accelerate the path for DOJ to access multiple cloud environments with improved security, reliability and speed.

Additionally, the DOJ solution includes access to the AT&T mobility network and FirstNet, the nationwide, dedicated communications platform purpose-built for public safety.

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Vodafone's quarterly revenue dips, Liberty Global merger ready to close

Vodafone reported group revenue of €10.7 billion, down by €0.2 billion due to foreign exchange rate effects, as Q1 organic service revenue declined 0.2%, improving compared to Q4 (-0.7%).

Vodafone said customer growth slowed compared to previous quarters, primarily reflecting increased competitor promotions in Spain and Germany, as well as slower broadband market growth in Italy. However, Voda Consumer mobile commercial performance in Spain stabilised in June.

Vodafone's acquisition of Liberty Global is expected to close in the coming days.

Nick Read, Group Chief Executive, commented: “Our service revenue growth improved during the first quarter, led by Italy, and mobile churn fell to another record low. Following a significant quarter of commercial activity, we expect the gradual recovery in our service revenues to continue, underpinning our financial outlook for the year. With the completion of the Liberty Global acquisitions, Vodafone will become Europe’sleading converged operator, with growing fixed and converged services contributing around half of our European service revenues. We have developed a detailed plan to deliver the customer benefits and capture the substantial synergiesfrom the deal, which we will start to execute immediately

https://www.vodafone.com

Some highlights

• Vodafone is actively implementing simplified pricing plans with speed-tiered unlimited data launched in 5 markets. 
• The company said it is on track to meet the Group’s €400 million FY20 net operating expenses reduction target in Europe.
• In mobile, the company reported a 0.5 percentage point year-on-year reduction in Europe contract churn during Q1, reaching a new record low level of 14.6%. 
• Data usage growth remained strong at 49%, with average smartphone usage increasing to 3.9 GB per month in Europe.
• Vodafone has now launched 5G in five European markets, with services available in Spain, Italy and Romania since June, and the UK and Germany since July. 
• 5G roaming is now live for Vodafone 5G customers roaming on Vodafone networks in Germany, Italy, the UK and Spain. 
• Vodafone's 5G network will be live across more than 50 cities and available in nine European markets by the end of the current financial year.
• Including VodafoneZiggo, Vodafone had 18.8 million fixed broadband customers, 14.6 million NGN customers, 6.7 million converged customers and 13.6 million TV customers in Europe at the end of the period. 
• Excluding VodafoneZiggo, Vodafone added 54,000 broadband customers, 237,000 NGN customers and 115,000 converged customers during the quarter. 

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FCC certifies CBRS Environmental Sensing Capability

The FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) and the Office of Engineering and Technology certified CommScope, Federated Wireless, and Google to operate their Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) sensors consistent with the information they provided, including sensor locations, configuration, and DPA coverage.

DPAs are pre-defined protection areas that extend beyond the coastline or that enclose a protected terrestrial radar facility, which may be activated or deactivated as necessary to protect DoD radar systems.

The ESCs will be used to detect the presence of federal incumbent radar transmissions in the 3.5 GHz band and communicate that information to one or more certified Spectrum Access Systems (SASs).

In April, the companies earned FCC approval for their sensor hardware.

WInnForum, which supports the development and advancement of spectrum sharing technologies based on the three-tier architecture detailed in 3.5 GHz CBRS band rules defined by the FCC, congratulated member organizations CommScope, Federated Wireless, and Google for final FCC certification of their Environmental Sensing Capability systems in the 3.5 GHz band.

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-19-718A1.pdf

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Microsoft to acquire BlueTalon for cloud data governance

Microsoft has acquired BlueTalon, a start-up based in Redwood City, California, for its cloud data governance technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.

BlueTalon, which is now part of Microsoft’s Azure Data Governance group, has architected its data control solution to provide a unified approach to policy management that brings the right level of control and consistency across the enterprise, including Hadoop, RDBMS and big data environments. The company was founded by Pratik Verma.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2019/07/29/microsoft-acquires-bluetalon-simplifying-data-privacy-and-governance-across-modern-data-estates

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CommScope debuts 10G remote PHY for distributed access architecture

CommScope introduced its RD1322 2x2 Remote PHY Device (RPD) for cable operators deploying Distributed Access Architecture (DAA).

The RD1322 is the newest addition to CommScope's portfolio of Outside Plant (OSP) DAA solutions that enable operators to build upon their installed base of nodes to advance their plans for Extended Spectrum DOCSIS (ESD), Full Duplex DOCSIS (FDX), DAA, Remote PON, Wireless Backhaul, DOCSIS 3.1, and more. This is especially valuable in the labor-intensive OSP domain.

“As global operators continue to invest in tomorrow’s 10G networks, the outside plant will represent a primary budget focus,” said Kevin Keefe, senior vice president and segment leader, Network & Cloud, CommScope. “Our RD1322 2x2 RPD is the answer for operators looking to maximize their existing infrastructure to deliver tomorrow’s networks and services as quickly as possible. We have an unmatched portfolio and breadth of experience in helping global operators deliver next-generation networks reliably and at scale. As they evolve their networks, we’ll continue to deliver the innovation to facilitate their progress.”

CommScope’s DAA portfolio includes its RPD, Remote PON, R-PHY Shelf, Video Unified Edge (VUE), ICX Switch family, and hybrid E6000 I-CCAP/CCAP Core products. It also features a full suite of virtualized products, including the E6000 Virtual Core (vCore) and vManager framework of tools, including industry-leading monitoring, management, and traffic engineering functions.

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Vodafone to create Europe's largest TowerCo

Vodafone Group Plc will spin off most of its European tower infrastructure into a new, fully independent "TowerCo" company.

TowerCo, which will be operational by May 2020, will comprise 61,700 towers in 10 markets with potential proportionate EBITDA of around  EUR 900 million.

Vodafone has recently announced active and passive network sharing agreements in Italy, Spain and the UK.

Vodafone said it believes that there is significant scope to generate operational efficiencies and increase tenancy ratios across the portfolio by creating an independent company. Based on market benchmarks for anchor tenant lease rates, existing third party revenues and the attributable cost base, TowerCo could generate proportionate annual revenue and EBITDA of around €1,700 million and €900 million, respectively. TowerCo’s attributable annual maintenance and expansion capex could be up to €200 million.

A future IPO for the new organization is a possibility.

Nick Read, CEO of Vodafone, said “Building on our position as Europe’s largest converged operator, we are now creating Europe’s largest tower company. Given the scale and quality of our infrastructure, we believe there is a substantial opportunity to unlock value for shareholders while capturing the significant industrial benefits of network sharing for the digital society. We are focussed on executing this strategic priority over the next 18 months."

Separately, Vodafone and Telecom Italia Group (TIM) agreed to an active network sharing partnership for 4G and 5G and the expansion of their existing passive sharing agreement. Specifically, Vodafone will merge its passive tower infrastructure in Italy ("Vodafone Italy Towers”) into INWIT SpA. As part of the combination, Vodafone will receive a cash consideration of EUR 2,140 million and a 37.5% shareholding in the combined entity, which will remain listed on the Milan Stock Exchange. Based on the 30-day VWAP of the INWIT share price prior to this announcement, Vodafone's shareholding would be valued at EUR 3,130 million, which implies an enterprise value for Vodafone Italy Towers of EUR 5,270 million.

Orange and Vodafone extend network sharing in Spain for 5G

Thursday, April 25, 2019  5G, Orange, Spain, Vodafone  

Vodafone and Orange agreed to extend their current active mobile network sharing arrangement in Spain to include 5G. The original network sharing agreement signed in 2006 covered passive infrastructure nationwide and active infrastructure in smaller towns. The agreement was subsequently renewed in 2012 and in 2016.

Under the new agreement, Vodafone will be able to offer its customers broadband access and other fixed services on Orange’s fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network. Both companies have also agreed to explore potential co-investment opportunities to expand their fibre footprint in the future. The partnership is also expanded to include 5G. The terms of the new agreement allow active network sharing (including both the radio access network and high-speed backhaul) in cities with populations of up to 175,000 people, whereas the previous arrangement only enabled sharing in towns of between 1,000 and 25,000 people. Two thirds of the Spanish population will now be covered by Vodafone and Orange’s shared network agreement, with 14,800 sites expected to be shared vs. 5,600 shared today. The new agreement is expected to deliver cumulative opex and capex savings to Vodafone of at least €600 million over the next ten years.

Vodafone and Orange will continue to operate independent infrastructure in the biggest cities.

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New T-Mobile to provide network access to DISH for 7 years

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) approved the merger of T-Mobile US and Sprint with the following conditions: Sprint’s prepaid businesses and Sprint’s 800 MHz spectrum assets be divested to DISH. Sprint and T-Mobile must also provide DISH wireless customers access to the New T-Mobile network for seven years and offer standard transition services arrangements to DISH during a transition period of up to three years. DISH will also have an option to take on leases for certain cell sites and retail locations that are decommissioned by the New T-Mobile, subject to any assignment restrictions.

The T-Mobile + Sprint deal was first announced on 29-April-2019. Deutsche Telekom holds approximately 62% stake in T-Mobile US. Softbank holds an 83% stake in Sprint.

"The T-Mobile and Sprint merger we announced last April will create a bigger and bolder competitor than ever before – one that will deliver the most transformative 5G network in the country, lower prices, better quality, unmatched value and thousands of jobs, while unlocking an unprecedented $43B net present value in synergies. We are pleased that our previously announced target synergies, profitability and long-term cash generation have not changed," said T-Mobile CEO and New T-Mobile CEO John Legere.

“This is an important day for our country and, most important, American consumers and businesses,” said Sprint Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure. “Today’s clearance from the DOJ, along with our anticipated approval from the FCC, will allow the U.S. to fiercely compete for 5G leadership. We plan to build one of the world’s most advanced 5G networks, which will massively revolutionize the way consumers and businesses use their connected devices to enhance their daily lives. The powerful combination of 5G, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things will unleash endless possibilities.”

https://www.t-mobile.com/news/t-mobile-sprint-merger-doj-clearance

New T-Mobile and DISH Agreements that become effective upon completion of the T-Mobile+Sprint merger

Agreement to Divest Sprint’s Prepaid Businesses
The New T-Mobile will be committed to divest Sprint’s entire prepaid businesses including Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Sprint-branded prepaid customers (excluding the Assurance brand Lifeline customers and the prepaid wireless customers of Shenandoah Telecommunications Company and Swiftel Communications, Inc.), to DISH for approximately $1.4 billion. These brands serve approximately 9.3 million customers in total.

Agreements Upon Closing of Prepaid Divestiture 

Master Services Agreement for Network Access
Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Sprint-branded prepaid customers, as well as new DISH wireless customers, will have full access to the legacy Sprint network and the New T-Mobile network in a phased approach. Access to the New T-Mobile network will be through an MVNO arrangement, as well as through an Infrastructure MNO arrangement enabling roaming in certain areas until DISH’s 5G network is built out.

Transition Services Agreement to Support Prepaid Customers
The New T-Mobile will offer standard transition services arrangements to DISH for up to three years following the close of the divestiture transaction. The transition services provided by the New T-Mobile will result in the orderly transfer of prepaid customers to DISH and will also ensure the continued and seamless operation of Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Sprint-branded prepaid businesses following transition to DISH's ownership.

Agreement to Divest Sprint’s 800 MHz Spectrum Licenses to DISH
DISH has agreed to acquire Sprint’s portfolio of nationwide 800 MHz spectrum for a total value of approximately $3.6 billion in a transaction to be completed, subject to certain additional closing conditions, following an application for FCC approval to be filed three years following the closing of T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint. This will permit the New T-Mobile to continue to serve legacy Sprint customers during network integration, pending later FCC approval of the license transfer. The companies have also entered into an agreement providing the New T-Mobile the option to lease back a portion of the spectrum sold to DISH for an additional two years following closing of the spectrum sale.

Option for DISH to Take Over Decommissioned Cell Sites and Retail Locations
Following the closing of T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint and subsequent integration into the New T-Mobile, DISH will have the option to take on leases for certain cell sites and retail locations that are decommissioned by the New T-Mobile for five years following the closing of the divestiture transaction, subject to any assignment restrictions.

Agreement to Engage in Negotiations Regarding T-Mobile Leasing DISH's 600 MHz Spectrum
The companies have also committed to engage in good faith negotiations regarding the leasing of some or all of DISH’s 600 MHz spectrum to T-Mobile.

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Zayo shareholders approve acquisition by Digital Colony Partners

Shareholders of Zayo Group Holdings approved all proposals related to the definitive merger agreement to be acquired by affiliates of Digital Colony Partners and the EQT Infrastructure IV fund.

“Today’s favorable shareholder vote supports our view that this transaction is a very good outcome for shareholders and will enable Zayo to accelerate its growth and strengthen its industry leadership,” said Dan Caruso, chairman and CEO at Zayo. “The entire Zayo team is excited to work with EQT and Digital Colony to leverage our fiber assets to continue to fuel global innovation.”

The closing of the deal is expected to close in the first half of calendar 2020.

Private investors to acquire Zayo for $14.3 billion in cash

Wednesday, May 08, 2019  Zayo  

Affiliates of Digital Colony Partners and the EQT Infrastructure IV fund will acquire Zayo Group Holdings for $35.00 in cash per share of Zayo's common stock in a transaction valued at $14.3 billion, including the assumption of $5.9 billion of Zayo’s net debt obligations. The offer price represents a 32% premium to the volume-weighted price average of the last six months of $26.44.

The Zayo Board of Directors said the sale of the company to Digital Colony and EQT Infrastructure is in the best interest of Zayo and all its stakeholders, as it delivers immediate and substantial value to shareholders, will strengthen Zayo’s financial flexibility, enabling the company to increase investments and better position itself for long-term growth and profitability.

The companies hope to conclude the deal by the first half of 2020.

Marc Ganzi, Managing Partner of Digital Colony, said, “Zayo has a world-class digital infrastructure portfolio, including a highly-dense fiber network in some of the world’s most important metro markets. We believe the company has a unique opportunity to meet the growing demand for data associated with the connectivity and backhaul requirements of a range of customers. We are excited to work alongside the management team and EQT to grow the business and expand its presence in the global market."

Dan Caruso, Zayo’s Chairman and CEO, said, “Digital Colony and EQT share our vision that Zayo’s Fiber Fuels Global Innovation. Both are experienced global investors in the communications infrastructure space, and they appreciate our extraordinary fiber infrastructure assets, our highly talented team and our strong customer base. I am confident this partnership with EQT and Digital Colony will empower Zayo to accelerate its growth and strengthen its industry leadership.”

Separately, Zayo reported consolidated revenue of $647.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2019, including $555.2 million from the Communications Infrastructure segments and $92.0 million from the Allstream segment. Net income was $34.7 million, including $39.2 million from the Communications Infrastructure segments and a net loss of $4.5 million from the Allstream segment.

https://investors.zayo.com/home/default.aspx

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VMware to acquire UHANA for telco AI

VMware agreed to acquire Uhana, a start-up focused on deep learning and real-time AI in carrier networks and applications. Financial terms were not disclosed.

VMware said it intends to add Uhana’s technology to its own Telco Cloud and Edge Cloud portfolio.

Uhana, which is based in Palo Alto, California, is developing a highly-scalable, low-latency, real-time stream processing and AI platform, deployable in the operator’s private cloud or public cloud infrastructure. It includes a high-performance stream processing engine that ingests subscriber-level network telemetry from a variety of data sources: the radio access network, the core network and optionally even the over-the-top (OTT) application directly, and processes the telemetry to provide real-time, per-subscriber visibility. It also includes an AI engine that discovers and predicts anomalies in the network and/or application, prioritizes them by their estimated impact, infers their likely root causes and automatically recommends optimization strategies for the best subscriber experience.

In a blog posting, Uhana co-founder Sachin Katti writes: "After the deal closes, with the addition of Uhana’s technology to VMware’s Telco and Edge Cloud portfolio, Uhana will further support VMware’s ability to serve the telecom industry and deepen intelligence in the journey to 5G. Uhana’s technology will empower intelligence and analytics for the VMware Smart Assurance and VMware Smart Experience products."

http://www.uhana.io/about
https://blogs.vmware.com/telco/vmware-to-add-uhana-to-telecommunications-portfolio-harnessing-the-power-of-ai-for-mobile-networks/

VMware to acquire Bitfusion for virtualized hard acceleration

Sunday, July 21, 2019  Vmware  

VMware has agreed to acquire Bitfusion, a pioneer in virtualization of accelerated compute with a strong focus on GPU technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Bitfusion offers a software platform that decouples specific physical resources from the servers they are attached to in the environment. This enables better sharing of GPU resources among isolated GPU compute workloads, even allowing sharing to happen across the network.

For example, the platform can share GPUs in a virtualized infrastructure, as a pool of network-accessible resources, rather than isolated resources per server. Additionally, the platform can be extended to support other accelerators like FPGAs and ASICs. In many ways, Bitfusion offers for hardware acceleration what VMware offered to the compute landscape several years ago. Bitfusion also aligns well with VMware’s “Any Cloud, Any App, Any Device” vision with its ability to work across AI frameworks, clouds, networks, and formats such as virtual machines and containers.

VMware said the acquisition of Bitfusion will bolster its strategy of supporting AI- and ML-based workloads by virtualizing hardware accelerators. VMware plans to integrate Bitfusion into the vSphere platform.

Bitfusion is based in Sunnyvale, California and Austin, Texas.

https://bitfusion.io/

VMware to acquire Avi Networks for cloud load balancing

Thursday, June 13, 2019  Avi, Load Balancer, Vmware  

VMware agreed to acquire Avi Networks, start-up offering multi-cloud application delivery services. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Avi Networks, which is based in Santa Clara, California, delivers multi-cloud application services including a Software Load Balancer, Intelligent Web Application Firewall (iWAF) and Elastic Service Mesh. Avi’s central control plane and distributed data plane deliver application services as a dynamic, multi-cloud fabric which intelligently automates decisions and provides unprecedented application analytics and on-demand elasticity. Avi customers can dispatch services such as load balancing and web application firewall to any application using one centralized interface. Avi technology runs across private and public clouds, and supports applications running on VMs, containers and bare metal. The company claims hundreds of global enterprise deployments, including Fortune 500 companies representing the world’s largest financial services, media, and technology companies.

VMware said it will offer both built-in load balancing capabilities as part of VMware NSX Data Center, and an advanced, standalone ADC. Avi Networks will further enable VMware to bring the public cloud experience to the entire data center—automated, highly scalable, and intrinsically more secure with the ability to deploy applications with a single click.

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