Next Gen SD-WAN and 5G -Two storms colliding

Two industry storms are colliding.

SD-WAN and 5G are actually the perfect complement to each other, says Jeremy Wubs, Senior VO, Products & Marketing, Bell Business Markets.

There are a lot of very compelling use cases for combining fast wireless access with the flexibility of SD-WAN.

https://youtu.be/bWPayvLj5UA

Interview by James E. Carroll

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Nokia completes single-carrier terabit-per-second field trial

Nokia announced the world’s first field trial of single-carrier terabit-per-second data transmission. The test was completed on Etisalat's network.

The trial successfully transmitted a record 50.8 terabits per second using multiple wavelengths, each with a net information rate of 1.3 terabits per second, over a 93-km fibre route of Etisalat’s wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network.

The single optical carrier operated at 100 Gigabaud and employed Nokia Bell Labs-pioneered probabilistic constellation shaping, or PCS, to intelligently shape the signal to achieve maximum capacity for the specific fibre route. Nokia’s Photonic Service Engine 3 – now shipping to customers as part of Nokia’s 1830 portfolio – is the first coherent digital signal processor to implement PCS.

Nokia said the field trial demonstrates that Etisalat’s existing network can support the higher optical wavelength bit rates that will be required to support high-bandwidth services such as 5G extreme mobile broadband (very fast wireless to the mobile), fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and Data Center Interconnect (DCI) cloud services. Higher bit rates per wavelength provide power and space savings, improved network simplicity, increased spectral efficiency and capacity, and ultimately reduced cost per bit compared to optical networks composed of lower rate channels.

Esmaeel Alhammadi, Senior Vice President, Network Development at Etisalat, said: "We are pleased to have partnered with Nokia Bell Labs to demonstrate that our optical network is capable of transporting a terabit per second over a single wavelength, and a total per-fibre capacity of over 50 terabits-per-second.  Increasing network capacity helps us to provide bandwidth-hungry services such as 5G extreme mobile broadband, fibre-to-the-home and DCI for enterprises.”

Sam Bucci, Head of Optical Networking at Nokia, said: “The introduction of 5G will require a network that can support dramatic increases in bandwidth in a dynamic fashion. This ground-breaking trial with Etisalat is testimony to Nokia’s commitment to continue to invest in coherent and optical component technologies required to meet the 5G networking challenge at the lowest total cost of ownership for our customers.”

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Telefónica Deutschland deploys Infinera DRX disaggregated routers

Telefónica Deutschland, a Tier 1 operator in Germany, selected theTelefónica Deutschland, Series to modernize its nationwide mobile transport network.

The Infinera DRX Series, a disaggregated router family that combines a carrier-class white box portfolio with the Infinera CNOS software, enables Telefónica Deutschland to prepare its nationwide mobile transport network for 5G mobile services with scale, efficiency, and automation.

Telefónica Deutschland plans to deploy multiple DRX Series platforms, including configurations that support 300G and 900G. The DRX Series in combination with the CNOS operating system enables a unique stacking capability that provides simple node expansion and increased resiliency. Multiple DRX Series elements can be connected to double or even triple node capacity while operating as a single routing entity.

Telefónica Deutschland offers mobile and fixed services for private and business customers, as well as innovative digital products and services including the Internet of Things and data analytics.  In the mobile segment alone, Telefónica Deutschland servers over 45 million connections.

“Telefónica Deutschland is on the forefront of innovation and expansion to ensure we provide our customers with the best experience and meet them where they live, work, and move,” said Cayetano Carbajo Martín, Chief Technology Officer at Telefónica Deutschland. “As we continue to improve network experiences for our customers now and into the future, we rely on solutions that are scalable and automated, and the Infinera DRX Series will be a great addition to our future 5G network environment.”

“We are pleased to be Telefónica Deutschland’s innovative and strategic supplier for a network modernization of this magnitude,” said Bob Jandro, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales at Infinera. “Infinera’s DRX Series enables customers like Telefónica Deutschland to benefit from a smooth transition to open networking while providing the scalability, flexibility and reliability required to meet the growing demand for 5G mobile bandwidth. As global mobile operators are transitioning from traditional routing and switching to a more open architecture, the DRX innovation is a natural transition.”

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II‐VI completes merger with Finisar

II‐VI completed its acquisition of Finisar, bring together two optical networking industry leaders serving the broad set of fast-growing markets of communications, consumer electronics, military, industrial processing lasers, automotive semiconductor equipment and life sciences. The combined company's portfolio will span high-performance datacom transceivers, products based on coherent transmission technology and ROADM solutions for next-generation undersea, long-haul and metro networks, hyperscale datacenters and 5G optical infrastructure.

The new II-VI will be organized into two segments:

The Compound Semiconductors Segment is expected to be a market leader in differentiated materials and devices such as those based on gallium arsenide, indium phosphide, gallium nitride and silicon carbide, by independently driving investments that advance its technology roadmaps. The segment will be led by Dr. Giovanni Barbarossa – Chief Strategy Officer, II-VI Incorporated and President, Compound Semiconductors.

The Photonic Solutions Segment leverages II-VI’s compound semiconductor technology platforms to deliver components and subsystems that are differentiated based on deep knowledge of end user applications for our key end markets. The segment will be led by Sunny Sun – President, Photonic Solutions.

“Today our company is taking a giant leap forward in our scale to serve a significantly increasing addressable market,” said Dr. Vincent D. Mattera, Jr., Chief Executive Officer, II-VI Incorporated. “The powerful combination of II-VI and Finisar makes us the global leader in optical communications and continues our leadership in our other key end markets, with a world-class product portfolio and deep technology expertise that enables us to offer more tightly integrated solutions and exceptional overall value for our customers.”

“With nearly 80 years of combined business leadership in photonics and compound semiconductors, it makes sense for Finisar to join the II-VI family to continue to deliver the best products and solutions possible,” said Todd Swanson, Finisar’s Chief Operating Officer and co-CEO. “Thanks to the talents of numerous individuals across this new global powerhouse, II-VI and Finisar are ready to merge into one highly efficient and seamless company with a common culture, vision and mission.”

Under the deal, which was first announced on November 9, 2018, Finisar shareholders will receive on average $15.60 in cash and 0.2218 shares of II-VI common stock per 1.0 share of Finisar common stock depending on each shareholder’s election as laid out in the merger agreement. This transaction is fully taxable to Finisar shareholders. The company expects to achieve $150M in run rate synergies over the next three years. The financing for the transaction was $1.9B of cash raised in a combination of Term Loans A and B with a combined interest rate of L+251 and $1.1B of the company’s stock.  Finisar shareholders will own approximately 32% of the combined company.

II-VI also confirmed the following executive team:

• Dr. Vincent D. Mattera, Jr – Chief Executive Officer
• Walter R. Bashaw II –  President
• Mary Jane Raymond –  Chief Financial Officer
• Dr. Giovanni Barbarossa – Chief Strategy Officer, II-VI Incorporated and President, Compound Semiconductors
• Jo Anne Schwendinger – Chief Legal & Compliance Officer, Corporate Secretary
• Dr. Christopher Koeppen – Chief Technical Officer

II-VI to acquire Finisar in $3.2 billion deal

Monday, November 12, 2018  Finisar, II-VI  

II-VI agreed to acquire Finisar in a cash and stock deal valued at approximately $3.2 billion, creating one of the largest photonics and compound semiconductor companies.

The deal, which has been approved by the boards of both companies, brings together two optical networking industry leaders serving the broad set of fast-growing markets of communications, consumer electronics, military, industrial processing lasers, automotive semiconductor equipment and life sciences. The combined company's portfolio will span high-performance datacom transceivers, products based on coherent transmission technology and ROADM solutions for next-generation undersea, long-haul and metro networks, hyperscale datacenters and 5G optical infrastructure.

The companies said their combined optoelectronics technology leadership based on GaAs and InP compound semiconductor laser design platforms, together with one of the world’s largest 6-inch vertically integrated epitaxial growth and device fabrication manufacturing platforms, will enable faster time to market for a greater number of opportunities in 3D sensing and LiDAR.

“Disruptive megatrends driven by innovative uses of lasers and other engineered materials present huge growth opportunities for both of our companies,” said Dr. Vincent D. Mattera, Jr., President and CEO, II-VI Incorporated. “In communications, materials processing, consumer electronics and automotive, we expect that the combination with Finisar will allow us to leverage our combined technology and intellectual property in InP, GaAs, SiC, GaN, SiP and diamond to achieve faster time to market, cost and scale. Together, we believe that we will be better strategically positioned to play a strong leadership role in the emerging markets of 5G, 3D sensing, cloud computing, electric and autonomous vehicles, and advanced microelectronics manufacturing.”

“The combination of our state-of-the-art technology platforms, deep customer relationships, great assets and amazing talent will enhance our ability to hit market windows that won’t stay open for long,” said Michael Hurlston, Finisar’s CEO. “This combination will accelerate our collective growth and will take advantage of the technology, products and manufacturing expertise that Finisar has uniquely developed over the course of its 30 year history.”

Highlights of the deal:

• Finisar’s stockholders will receive, on a pro-rated basis, $15.60 per share in cash and 0.2218x shares of II-VI common stock, valued at $10.40 per share based on the closing price of II-VI’s common stock of $46.88 on November 8, 2018. 
• The transaction values Finisar at $26.00 per share, or approximately $3.2 billion in equity value and represents a premium of 37.7% to Finisar’s closing price on November 8, 2018. 
• Finisar shareholders would own approximately 31% of the combined company. 
• Together, II-VI and Finisar will have 24,000 employees in 70 locations.
• The combined company will hold over 2,700 patents
• The combined company had approximately $2.5 billion of annual revenue. 
• The combined company expects to realize $150 million of run-rate cost synergies within 36 months of closing. Synergies are expected to be achieved from procurement savings, internal supply of materials and components, efficient research and development, consolidation of overlapping costs and sales and marketing efficiencies.
• The transaction is expected to drive accretion in Non-GAAP earnings per share for the first full year post close of approximately 10% and more than double that thereafter.
• II-VI intends to fund the cash consideration with a combination of cash on hand from the combined companies’ balance sheets and $2 billion in funded debt financing.
• The transaction is expected to close in the middle of calendar year 2019.

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ProLabs Announces Clarity Auto-Tunable DWDM Transceivers

ProLabs introduced its line-up self-tuning Clarity Auto-Tunable DWDM transceivers.

Highlights of Clarity Auto-Tunable DWDM Transceivers include:

• Auto-discovers and self-tunes to individual DWDM wavelengths without manipulation by OEM platform or peripheral devices;
• System independent – works with switch platforms that do not natively support tunable transceivers;
• Reduces the complexity of tuning to specific wavelengths in the field;
• Reduces inventory for spare DWDM transceivers;
• Provides up to 80KM reach and full industrial temperature performance;
• Available in 50Ghz or 100Ghz channel spacing.

“While the idea of tuning products is certainly not new, the industry is accustomed to using products that require software or a separate device to perform this functionality,” said Raymond Hagen, global product line manager, ProLabs. “With Clarity, we have eliminated the need for technicians to track fibers or carry extra equipment to program the wavelength of each module during their deployment, which leads to faster deployment and reduced costs. It’s a win-win.”

http://www.prolabs.com

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Intel appoints Karen Walker as CMO

Intel has appointed Karen Walker as senior vice president and chief marketing officer (CMO), effective Oct. 23.

Walker will oversee Intel’s global marketing group and be responsible for building and strengthening Intel’s brand, supporting growth strategies, cultivating opportunities in new and existing markets, and increasing demand for Intel’s products and solutions globally.

Walker joins Intel from Cisco, where she was chief marketing officer since 2015. In that role, she helped lead the company’s evolution to a hybrid business model selling hardware, software, services and software as a service (SaaS) solutions. At Cisco she transformed the marketing function, helping to increase the company’s brand value. Before Cisco, Walker also worked at Hewlett-Packard, where she held both business and consumer leadership positions.

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DOCOMO tests 28 GHz-band 5G aboard Shinkansen

NTT DOCOMO achieved the first 28 GHz-band 5G mobile communications between base stations and a high-speed bullet train during experimental trials with Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central).

The test was conducted between a 5G experimental mobile terminal, installed in a test version of an N700S-model Shinkansen railcar traveling at 283 km/h, and 5G experimental base stations erected temporarily along the Tokaido Shinkansen tracks. DOCOMO reports  speeds exceeding 1.0 Gbps and consecutive handover among three base stations located along the tracks. The transmissions were facilitated with advanced beamforming and beam tracking technologies incorporated in the 5G experimental mobile and base stations. Also, ultra-high-definition 8K video contents were rapidly downloaded from the base stations for delivery to the railcar's mobile terminal and 4K video of the passing scenery was relayed live from the railcar's mobile terminal to the base stations.

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Iron Mountain inaugurate Multi-Tenant Data Center in Singapore

Iron Mountain inaugurated an enterprise-class data center facility in Serangoon, Singapore. The

Singapore location, SIN-1, is Iron Mountain's first data center in Asia, providing customers access to 1.5 megawatts of capacity with the ability to deliver an incremental 3 megawatts in future phases.

With 5.5 megawatts of capacity across four 10,000 square foot data halls at full build-out, SIN-1 provides access to a number of hybrid IT services, including cloud backup, migration and disaster recovery, as well as a variety of flexible wholesale and retail colocation deployment options through private suites, secure cages and individual cabinets.

"With our new SIN-1 data center, Iron Mountain continues its commitment to building world-class data center offerings for global organizations," said Mark Kidd, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Data Centers at Iron Mountain. "We are excited to move into the next phase of growth for our digital strategy with the expansion of our global data center platform, building on our momentum in Phoenix and Western Europe. SIN-1 has been carefully designed to extend this progress and meet the rigorous needs of global customers, solidifying our global footprint with operations in this critical and fast-growing market."

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What's driving SD-WAN?

With hundreds of thousands of SD-WAN connections now active across the globe, it's clear that the technology has moved beyond earlier adopters and into a rapid-growth phase where carriers, vendors and even cloud providers are racing to differentiate themselves with enhanced services.

So, what's driving the next generation of SD-WAN?

In this 4-minute video we present the concise thoughts of the industry's thought leaders: AT&T's Roman Pacewicz,
Nuage Networks' Sunil Khandekar,
Verizon's Shawn Hakl,
Aruba's Kishore Sheshadri,
VeloCloud's Sanjay Uppal,
AvidThink's Roy Chua,
Colt's Mirko Voltolini,
Aryaka's Matt Carter,
Versa Networks' Kelly Ahuja,
and Open Gear's Gary Marks.

https://youtu.be/0koycAPMmGc

Interview by James E. Carroll

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Google Cloud region planned for Warsaw

Google is looking to open a new data center region in Warsaw to better serve the enterprise market in Poland and the broader Central and Eastern Europe. The new Google Cloud region will have three zones to protect against service disruptions, and will launch with a portfolio of key products, including Compute Engine, App Engine, Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud Bigtable, Cloud Spanner, and BigQuery.

Google has formed a strategic partnership with Poland’s Domestic Cloud Provider (DCP), which was founded jointly by PKO Bank Polski and the Polish Development Fund. DCP become a reseller of Google Cloud services.

Google Cloud customers are currently served by 20 cloud regions and 61 availability zones.

“This is an important moment for the Polish economy. We are very proud to partner with Google Cloud and to see them bring a new cloud region to Warsaw. Global enterprises are already building their competitive advantage on Google Cloud and now we will be able to offer customers in Poland the same advanced technology available worldwide,” said Michał Potoczek, CEO of Domestic Cloud Provider. “We believe in a multi-cloud strategy. A Google Cloud region, together with our own infrastructure, will allow us to build hybrid services which will bring even more value to our customers.”

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/accelerating-cloud-adoption-in-poland-with-key-partnership-and-a-new-cloud-region

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AT&T contributes Distributed Disaggregated Chassis white box to OCP

AT&T has contributed its specifications for a Distributed Disaggregated Chassis (DDC) white box architecture to the Open Compute Project (OCP). The contributed design aims to define a standard set of configurable building blocks to construct service provider-class routers, ranging from single line card systems, a.k.a. “pizza boxes,” to large, disaggregated chassis clusters.  AT&T said it plans to apply the design to the provider edge (PE) and core routers that comprise its global IP Common Backbone (CBB).

“The release of our DDC specifications to the OCP takes our white box strategy to the next level,” said Chris Rice, SVP of Network Infrastructure and Cloud at AT&T. “We’re entering an era where 100G simply can’t handle all of the new demands on our network. Designing a class of routers that can operate at 400G is critical to supporting the massive bandwidth demands that will come with 5G and fiber-based broadband services. We’re confident these specifications will set an industry standard for DDC white box architecture that other service providers will adopt and embrace.”

AT&T’s DDC white box design, which is based on Broadcom’s Jericho2 chipset, calls for three key building blocks:

• A line card system that supports 40 x 100G client ports, plus 13 400G fabric-facing ports.
• A line card system that support 10 x 400G client ports, plus 13 400G fabric-facing ports.
• A fabric system that supports 48 x 400G ports. A smaller, 24 x 400G fabric systems is also included.

AT&T points out that the line cards and fabric cards are implemented as stand-alone white boxes, each with their own power supplies, fans and controllers, and the backplane connectivity is replaced with external cabling. This approach enables massive horizontal scale-out as the system capacity is no longer limited by the physical dimensions of the chassis or the electrical conductance of the backplane. Cooling is significantly simplified as the components can be physically distributed if required. The strict manufacturing tolerances needed to build the modular chassis and the possibility of bent pins on the backplane are completely avoided.

Four typical DDC configurations include:

• A single line card system that supports 4 terabytes per second (Tbps) of capacity.
• A small cluster that consists of 1 plus 1 (added reliability) fabric systems and up to 4 line card systems. This configuration would support 16 Tbps of capacity.
• A medium cluster that consists of 7 fabric systems and up to 24 line card systems. This configuration supports 96 Tbps of capacity.
• A large cluster that consists of 13 fabric systems and up to 48 line card systems. This configuration supports 192 Tbps of capacity.
• The links between the line card systems and the fabric systems operate at 400G and use a cell-based protocol that distributes packets across many links. The design inherently supports redundancy in the event fabric links fail.

“We are excited to see AT&T's white box vision and leadership resulting in growing merchant silicon use across their next generation network, while influencing the entire industry,” said Ram Velaga, SVP and GM of Switch Products at Broadcom. “AT&T's work toward the standardization of the Jericho2 based DDC is an important step in the creation of a thriving eco-system for cost effective and highly scalable routers.”   

“Our early lab testing of Jericho2 DDC white boxes has been extremely encouraging,” said Michael Satterlee, vice president of Network Infrastructure and Services at AT&T. “We chose the Broadcom Jericho2 chip because it has the deep buffers, route scale, and port density service providers require. The Ramon fabric chip enables the flexible horizontal scale-out of the DDC design. We anticipate extensive applications in our network for this very modular hardware design.”

https://about.att.com/story/2019/open_compute_project.html

Broadcom's Jericho2 switch-routing chip boasts 10 Tbps capacity

Wednesday, March 07, 2018  Broadcom, Ethernet, Silicon, Switching  

Broadcom announced commercial availability of its Jericho2 and FE9600 chips, the next generation of its StrataDNX family of system-on-chip (SoC) Switch-Routers.

The Jericho2 silicon boasts 10 Terabits per second of Switch-Router performance and is designed for high-density, industry standard 400GbE, 200GbE, and 100GbE interfaces. Key features include the company's "Elastic Pipe" packet processing, along with large-scale buffering with integrated High Bandwidth Memory (HBM).

The new device is shipping within 24 months from its predecessor Jericho+., Jericho2 delivers 5X higher bandwidth at 70% lower power per gigabit.

In addition to Jericho2, Broadcom is shipping FE9600, the new fabric switch device with 192 links of the industry's best performing and longest-reach 50G PAM-4 SerDes. This device offers 9.6 Terabits per second fabric capacity, a delivers 50% reduction in power per gigabit compared to its predecessor FE3600.

“The Jericho franchise is the industry’s most innovative and scalable silicon used today in various Switch-Routers by leading carriers,” said Ram Velaga, Broadcom senior vice president and general manager, Switch Products. “I am thrilled with the 5X increase in performance Jericho2 was able to achieve over a single generation. Jericho2 will accelerate the transition of carrier-grade networks to merchant silicon-based systems with best-in-class cost/performance.”

Arrcus scales out with Broadcom's Jericho2, raises $30m 

Tuesday, July 23, 2019  Arrcus, Silicon Valley, Software, Start-Ups, Switching  

Arrcus, a start-up that offers a hardware-agnostic network operating system for white boxes switches, announced multiple high-density 100GbE and 400GbE routing solutions for hyperscale cloud, edge, and 5G networks.

The company says its ArcOS software architecture has the foundational attributes to scale-out to an open aggregated routing solution, enabling operators to design, deploy, operationalize, and manage their infrastructure across multiple domains in the network.

"Our mission is to democratize the networking industry by providing best-in-class software, the most flexible consumption model, and the lowest total cost of ownership for our customers; we are now extending this by providing leading-edge open integration solutions for routing. ArcOS is the essential link to fully realize the unparalleled advancements in the 10Tbps Jericho2 SoC family and the resulting systems," Devesh Garg, co-founder and CEO of Arrcus.

The new ArcOS-based platforms, based on Broadcom’s 10Tbps, highly-flexible and programmable StrataDNX Jericho2 switch-router system-on-a-chip (SoC), include:

• 24 ports of 100G + 6 ports of 400G
• 40 ports of 100G
• 80 ports of 100G
• 96 ports of 100G

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Edgecore contributes Cell Site Gateways work to OCP and TIP

Edgecore Networks announced a series of cross-contributions of Cell Site Gateways across the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) and the Open Compute Project (OCP) communities.

The AS7316-26XB cell site gateway design and specification, that was contributed to OCP in October 2018, has now been contributed to TIP’s Open Optical & Packet Transport project group. The AS7315-27X-DCSG cell site gateway specification, which was developed as part of TIP’s Disaggregated Cell Site Gateways (DCSG) initiative and contributed to TIP, is now also being contributed to the OCP community. This family of contributed designs will accelerate service provider adoption of open networking options to meet the increasing bandwidth and service demand in the upcoming 5G rollouts.

The AS7316-26XB and AS7315-27X-DCSG are temperature hardened and optimized for deployment in outside plant enclosures and support base stations with full IEEE 1588 timing and GPS functions, provide backhaul uplinks at 25G or 100G Ethernet, and airflow and stacking port options. The gateways incorporate Broadcom® StrataDNX™ switch silicon, deep packet buffer memory, and offer Intel® Xeon® and Atom® Processor options. Both models support both commercial and open source network operating system options.

Edgecore said the contributed products enable service providers to deploy 4G and 5G services with the economics of disaggregated open network technology.

“With the latest cell site gateway contributions, Edgecore continues to expand our leadership position in both the OCP and TIP communities, building upon previous contributions of open network leaf/spine switches, disaggregated OLTs, and optical transport systems. We fully support the recent announcement of further collaboration between TIP and OCP and the path for solutions within their communities to be made readily available across both organizations. This collaboration will ultimately provide operators with more choice and flexibility,” said George Tchaparian, President and CEO of Edgecore.

“TIP is creating a new approach to building and deploying telecom network infrastructure, and we thank Edgecore Networks’ for their continuous contributions to TIP, including the Cassini open packet transponder, and now the family of disaggregated cell site gateways. These open innovative new designs will provide flexibility and choice to network operators," said Attilio Zani, Executive Director, TIP Foundation.

ONF partners with Edgecore on SEBA,ODTN and Trellis projects

Monday, September 09, 2019  Edgecore, ONF, SEBA, Trellis  

ONF reached an agreement with Edgecore Networks to dedicate significant engineering resources to accelerate and ensure the success of the ONF projects SEBA, ODTN and Trellis.

Specifically, ONF and Edgecore have jointly created the new Onsite Immersion Engineering program (ONF-OIE) to embed engineers within the ONF lab team. Edgecore engineers will work closely with the ONF and its community of developers to help mature the functionality, robustness, scalability, and reliability of these platforms so they are ready for production deployments. Edgecore is the first ONF Partner Member to be making use of the new ONF-OIE program, building a dedicated team of engineers to work at ONF’s facilities under ONF’s direction.

“Edgecore Networks and the ONF are now harnessing a significant opportunity with operators that have fully embraced open source to power their edge networks,” said George Tchaparian, president and CEO for Edgecore. “Edgecore Networks is committed to the vision of open platforms, and is ensuring that a SEBA, VOLTHA and Trellis run seamlessly on our Edgecore hardware.”

“We are very pleased to strengthen our collaboration with Edgecore Networks with the launch of the ONF-OIE program, especially as our exemplar platforms based on open source and white box hardware are gaining significant traction worldwide,” said Guru Parulkar, executive director for the ONF.  “This group of developers will play an important role maturing SEBA, VOLTHA and Trellisand readying these platforms for production; first on Edgecore Networks hardware, followed by others, and with deployment by operators around the globe.

https://www.opennetworking.org/news-and-events/press-releases/onf-and-edgecore-networks-enter-key-agreement-to-invest-in-success-of-open-source-deployments/

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Bharti deploys Huawei's microwave for 1 Gbps backhaul links

Bharti India is deploying enhanced MIMO microwave links from Huawei.

The enhanced MIMO solution of 5G microwave will deliver 1Gbps capacity over a single 28Mhz channel.

Bharti India has deployed more than 100 hops of the enhanced MIMO microwave links.

Huawei said that by adding carrier aggregation technology to the enhanced MIMO link can increase capacity to 2Gbps MIMO link with additional 28Mhz spectrum.

Bharti relies heavily on microwave transmission for its network in India.

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Keysight and OPPO open 5G lab in Shenzhen

Keysight Technologies and OPPO, one of the world's top five mobile device manufacturers, have established a joint 5G test laboratory in Shenzhen, China.

The new lab uses Keysight’s 5G platform to help verify the performance of new 5G new radio (NR) designs, a key activity that will help the Chinese-based smartphone manufacturer expand its global market presence. Keysight’s solutions, which are widely adopted by leading chipset and device makers, enable OPPO to comprehensively test their 5G multi-mode devices in different form factors.

“By setting up a joint 5G test lab with Keysight, we’re strengthening our ability to successfully launch 5G devices for deployment in a wide range of 5G use cases,” said Donny Peng, assistant vice president of Software Product Engineering in OPPO. “The extended collaboration with Keysight reflects the confidence we have in the company’s 5G test solutions and the expertise they offer in helping us develop reliable 5G technology.”

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FCC outlines 3.5 GHz auction plan for 2020

The FCC is proposing to auction seven Priority Access Licenses (PALs) in the 3550-3650 MHz portion of the 3.5 GHz Band for each county-based license area in the country, for a total of 22,631 PALs nationwide.  Each PAL will consist of a 10-megahertz unpaired channel assigned by automated frequency coordinators, known as Spectrum Access Systems.  Consistent with the Commission’s rules, Priority Access Licensees would be permitted to aggregate up to four PALs in any license area.

The 3.5 GHz band holds the potential to be prime spectrum for 5G services.

The FCC is now seeking comment on the following proposals:

Using an ascending clock auction format (similar to the format used for Auction 102 and to be used for Auction 103), in which bidders indicate their demand for generic license blocks in specific counties;
Offering bidders the option to bid at a Cellular Market Area (CMA) level in the 172 CMAs that are classified as Metropolitan Statistical Areas and comprise multiple counties; and
Incorporating an “activity upper limit” that would allow bidders to submit bids that exceed their current bidding eligibility, to help mitigate the possibility of losing bidding eligibility under certain circumstances.

The FCC's Public Notice also proposes rules for bidding credit caps, upfront payments, bidding eligibility, minimum opening bids, bid removal and withdrawal, and other auction procedures for Auction 105, which is set to begin on June 25, 2020.

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IDC: Cloud IT Infrastructure Revenues Decline in Q2

Vendor revenue from sales of IT infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud environments, including public and private cloud, declined 10.2% year over year in the second quarter of 2019 (2Q19), reaching $14.1 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker.

IDC also lowered its forecast for total spending on cloud IT infrastructure in 2019 to $63.6 billion, down 4.9% from last quarter's forecast and changing from expected growth to a year-over-year decline of 2.1%.

Some highlights from IDC:

• Vendor revenue from hardware infrastructure sales to public cloud environments in 2Q19 was down 0.9% compared to the previous quarter (1Q19) and down 15.1% year over year to $9.4 billion. This segment of the market continues to be highly impacted by demand from a handful of hyperscale service providers, whose spending on IT infrastructure tends to have visible up and down swings. 
• After a strong performance in 2018, IDC expects the public cloud IT infrastructure segment to cool down in 2019 with spend dropping to $42.0 billion, a 6.7% decrease from 2018. 
• Spending on private cloud IT infrastructure has showed more stable growth since IDC started tracking sales of IT infrastructure products in various deployment environments. In the second quarter of 2019, vendor revenues from private cloud environments increased 1.5% year over year reaching $4.6 billion. IDC expects spending in this segment to grow 8.4% year over year in 2019.
• Overall, the IT infrastructure industry is at crossing point in terms of product sales to cloud vs. traditional IT environments. In 3Q18, vendor revenues from cloud IT environments climbed over the 50% mark for the first time but fell below this important tipping point since then. In 2Q19, cloud IT environments accounted for 48.4% of vendor revenues. For the full year 2019, spending on cloud IT infrastructure will remain just below the 50% mark at 49.0%. Longer-term, however, IDC expects that spending on cloud IT infrastructure will grow steadily and will sustainably exceed the level of spending on traditional IT infrastructure in 2020 and beyond.
• Spending on the three technology segments in cloud IT environments is forecast to deliver growth for Ethernet switches while compute platforms and storage platforms are expected to decline in 2019. Ethernet switches are expected to grow at 13.1%, while spending on storage platforms will decline at 6.8% and compute platforms will decline by 2.4%. Compute will remain the largest category of spending on cloud IT infrastructure at $33.8 billion.
• Sales of IT infrastructure products into traditional (non-cloud) IT environments declined 6.6% from a year ago in Q219. For the full year 2019, worldwide spending on traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure is expected to decline by 5.8%, as the technology refresh cycle driving market growth in 2018 is winding down this year. By 2023, IDC expects that traditional non-cloud IT infrastructure will only represent 41.8% of total worldwide IT infrastructure spending (down from 52.0% in 2018). This share loss and the growing share of cloud environments in overall spending on IT infrastructure is common across all regions.
• Most regions grew their cloud IT Infrastructure revenues in 2Q19. Middle East & Africa was fastest growing at 29.3% year over year, followed by Canada at 15.6% year-over-year growth. Other growing regions in 2Q19 included Central & Eastern Europe (6.5%), Japan (5.9%), and Western Europe (3.1%). Cloud IT Infrastructure revenues were down slightly year over year in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (APeJ) by 7.7%, Latin America by 14.2%, China by 6.9%, and the USA by 16.3%.

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Initial Specs for Common NFV Infrastructure published

The Common NFVI Telco Taskforce (CNTT), which is an open industry taskforce hosted by Linux Foundation and GSMA, has published its initial common Reference Model and first Reference Architecture with the goal of building of operationally-efficient, open source, SDN and NFV infrastructures.

“This initial release represents the first tangible output of CNTT,” said Heather Kirksey, vice president, Community and Ecosystem Development, the Linux Foundation. “In the short time since ONS North America, the community has already reached milestones around creation of the Reference Model and first Reference Architecture. We have also initiated significant discussion around Reference Implementation along with commencement of enhancements to OVP within OPNFV.  I am very pleased to see the focused delivery of this group and our ability to align the industry and accelerate innovation, especially in the advance of 5G. It’s incredible to witness such deep collaboration and integration among operators and vendors from across the globe.”

“The speed with which this group has been established and produced its first tangible results are testament to the close cooperation and collaboration of its industry members,” said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. “A common framework and approach will accelerate adoption and deployment in the 5G era and we look forward to aligning further with our partners on this important project.”

Initially organized early in 2019, CNTT held its first community-wide, face-to-face gathering in Paris this July, with more than 80 operator and vendor participants in attendance; the successful three-day event enabled collaborative discussion on next steps.

Following that initial meeting, the CNTT is working closely with taskforce members to refine the  NFVI Reference Model, define a limited number of Reference Architectures, develop testing and verification requirements, and work with the OPNFV Verification Program (OVP) to define a global VNF compliance and validation lifecycle. This work will shorten the on-boarding effort for VNFs, accelerate time to revenue, and reduce costs for both VNF vendors and operators. Relying on a ground breaking collaborative model between the GSMA, the Linux Foundation, and the telecommunications vendor ecosystem, the group is creating a suite of tangible specifications to be hosted by the GSMA, and code to be created and hosted within OPNFV. 

Preliminary documentation — including the first Reference Model — are available in CNTT GitHub repository 

“Since its formation earlier this year, the CNTT community has made tremendous progress in building out the foundational elements of a NFVI and VFN lifecycle framework, as well as creating alignment on a discrete, compliant and verified set of NFV infrastructures for the telco ecosystem,” said Mark Cottrell, assistant vice president, Network Cloud, AT&T Labs.

https://cntt-n.github.io/CNTT/doc/ref_model/chapters/chapter01.html#1.3

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LF Edge takes on two new projects: Baetyl and Fledge

by Benedict Chua, Assistant Editor
LF Edge, which is part of the Linux Foundation, is taking on two new projects.

Baetyl, an existing project contributed by Baidu and previously known as “OpenEdge,” extends cloud computing, data and services seamlessly to edge devices.

“In the era of 5G and IoT, edge computing will have tremendous opportunities to play a role in all fields and industries,” said Watson Yin, Vice President of Baidu and the General Manager of the Intelligent Cloud business group. “As a founding member of LF Edge, Baidu Intelligent Cloud decided to donate Baetyl, the intelligent edge computing framework, to the community, hoping to reciprocate the open-source community while continuously contributing cutting-edge technologies to the global technology ecosystem.  The leading edge-computing technology and framework will further accelerate the implementation of cloud + AI in a wider range of industries with a bigger scale and lead the global AI industry into a new chapter of industrialized production.”

Fledge, an existing project contributed by Dianomic and previously known as “Fog Lamp,”  is an open source framework and community for the industrial edge focused on critical operations. Baetyl and Fledge join the organization’s founding projects: Akraino Edge Stack, EdgeX Foundry, Home Edge, Open Glossary of Edge Computing, and Project EVE. Concurrently,  IOTA Foundation, SAIC Foundation (TESRA), Thunder Software, and Zenlayer join as General members.

Fledge is an open source framework and community for the industrial edge focused on critical operations, predictive maintenance, situational awareness and Fledge works closely with both Project EVE and Akraino. Project EVE provides system and orchestration services and a container runtime for Fledge applications and services. Fledge’s verticals (manufacturing, energy, etc.) are starting to roll out 5G and private LTE networks; using Akraino blueprints, Fledge applications and services can be consistently managed as they utilize 5G and private LTE networks.

“It’s incredible to witness such strong industry support for collaborative innovation to create an open source framework at the edge,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Automation, Edge & IoT, the Linux Foundation. “In just nine months, LF Edge has seen tremendous growth across the board. We couldn’t be more pleased to welcome our newest members and projects.  Added expertise in industrial edge, manufacturing, energy, and more brings the community and ecosystem closer to a more comprehensive edge stack, delivering shared innovation across technology sectors at the edge.”

http://www.lfedge.org

LF Edge announces Project EVE Seed Code

Wednesday, May 15, 2019  Edge, LF Edge, Linux Foundation  

LF Edge, an umbrella organization within the Linux Foundation that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system, announced Project Edge Virtualization Engine (EVE) seed code contributed by LF Edge founding member ZEDEDA.

With Project EVE, edge gateways and devices run a variety of edge workloads simultaneously, decoupling application management from the underlying hardware. Applications can be deployed in standard virtual machines (VM) or container environments and be managed through a standard set of APIs.

“With Project EVE, the goal is to create a single virtualization standard for edge devices for the industry to build around so that we can enjoy the benefits of cloud-native applications sooner rather than later,” said Said Ouissal, co-founder and CEO of ZEDEDA. “Imagine how much more impact we can achieve now that edge applications can be reliably managed and secured.”

Additionally, LF Edge welcomes new Associate and Liaison member organizations Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), the LIONS Center at the Pennsylvania State University, OTAinfo, and University of New Hampshire’s Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL).

"We are excited to see the LF community continue to collaborate on building unified edge solutions,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager,  Networking, IoT and Edge Computing, the Linux Foundation. “We appreciate ZEDEDA’s leadership in helping us advance On-Prem Edge IoT with initiatives like Project EVE, and are eager to showcase the broad capabilities of LF Edge onsite in Santa Clara while welcoming our newest members."

Linux Foundation targets Unified Open Source Framework for the Edge

Thursday, January 24, 2019  Linux Foundation  

The Linux Foundation is unifying a number of its projects into a new umbrella organization to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system. The goal is the formation of a software stack that brings the best of telecom, cloud, and enterprise (representing location, latency and mobility differentiation).

LF Edge is initially comprised of five projects: Akraino Edge Stack, EdgeX Foundry, and Open Glossary of Edge Computing, formerly stand-alone projects at The Linux Foundation. The initiative also includes a new project contributed by Samsung Electronics, which will create a hub for real-time data collected through smart home devices, and another project from ZEDEDA, which is contributing a new agnostic standard edge architecture.

“The market opportunity for LF Edge spans industrial, enterprise and consumer use cases in complex environments that cut across multiple edges and domains. We’re thrilled with the level of support backing us at launch, with 60 global organizations as founding members and new project contributions,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, the Linux Foundation. “This massive endorsement, combined with existing code and project contributions like Akraino from AT&T and EdgeX Foundry from Dell EMC, means LF Edge is well-positioned to transform edge and IoT application development.”

LF Edge is already supported by the following founding members: (Premier) Arm, AT&T, Baidu, Dell EMC, Dianomic Inc., Ericsson, HP Inc., HPE, Huawei, IBM, Intel, inwinStack, Juniper Networks, MobiledgeX, Netsia, Nokia Solutions, NTT, OSIsoft, Qualcomm Technologies, Radisys, Red Hat, Samsung Electronics, Seagate Technology, Tencent, WindRiver, Wipro, ZEDEDA; and (General) Advantech Co., Alleantia srl,  Beechwoods Software Inc., Canonical Group Limited, CertusNet, CloudPlugs Inc., Concept Reply, DATA AHEAD AG, Enigmedia, EpiSensor, Foghorn Systems Inc., ForgeRock US Inc., Foundries.io, Hangzhou EMQ Technologies Co. Ltd., IOTech Systems Ltd., IoTium, KMC, Linaro, Mainflux, Mocana, NetFoundry, Packet, Pluribus Networks, RackN, Redis Labs, VaporIO, Vitro Technology Corp., Volterra Inc., Wanxiang Group; and (Associate) Automotive Edge Computing Consortium (AECC), Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Infrastructure Masons, Inc., and Project Haystack.

More about LF Edge projects:

• Akraino Edge Stack -- creating an open source software stack that supports high-availability cloud services optimized for edge computing systems and applications;
• EdgeX Foundry -- focused on building a common open framework for IoT edge computing.
• Home Edge Project -- seed code contributed by Samsung Electronics, is a new project that concentrates on driving and enabling a robust, reliable, and intelligent home edge computing framework, platform and ecosystem running on a variety of devices in our daily lives.
• Open Glossary of Edge Computing -- provides a concise collection of terms related to the field of edge computing.
• Project EVE (Edge Virtualization Engine) -- contributed by ZEDEDA, will create an open and agnostic standard edge architecture that accommodates complex and diverse on- and off-prem hardware, network and application selections.

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DE-CIX upgrades at EdgeConneX Munich

DE-CIX is upgrading its current equipment within the EdgeConneX facility in Munich, Germany, to a capacity of more than 1 terabyte.

DE-CIX has maintained network and peering infrastructure at Landsberger Strasse 155 – now the EdgeConneX Munich facility -- for the past ten years. Thanks to a growing number of customers with 100 Gigabit Ethernet connections serving over 140 Autonomous System Numbers, peak traffic now exceeds 36 Gbps. 

“Expanding our capacity with EdgeConneX was a natural choice in a competitive market known for tight data center real estate,” adds Dr. Thomas King, CTO at DE-CIX. “For businesses of all sizes and industries, the ability to interconnect to networks locally and access cloud onramps is more important than ever. This is a trend we see not just in Munich but in our other German markets as well. With our infrastructure upgrade in the EdgeConneX Munich facility, we are further driving our customers’ abilities to peer regionally while remotely accessing our other locations including Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, New York, Madrid, Marseille, Lisbon, Palermo and Istanbul.”

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Keysight and Qualcomm eye Dynamic Spectrum Sharing

Keysight Technologies announced an extended collaboration with Qualcomm to accelerate commercialization of Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) technology.

DSS enables a mobile operator to flexibly use existing spectrum allocations across low-, mid- and high- frequency bands by dynamically switching between LTE and 5G NR coverage based on traffic demand. Mobile operators can leverage DSS to deliver the best possible performance and coverage for a mix of 4G and 5G devices.

The collaboration utilizes Keysight’s 5G network emulation solutions to accelerate the development of Qualcomm Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF System to support DSS, an emerging technology that is part of the 3GPP Release 15. By 2020, mobile operators are expected to start implementing DSS on existing 4G LTE base stations, speeding nationwide deployments of 5G services. DSS allows mobile operators to transform LTE base stations via a software upgrade to create hybrid 4G/5G base stations. As a result, users of DSS-capable 5G NR devices can access 5G services in urban and rural environments.

“Our continued collaboration with Keysight on 5G technology, which was initiated in 2015, has enabled Qualcomm Technologies to accelerate the implementation of DSS, a critical feature that will help mobile operators quickly transition to 5G,” said Jon Detra, vice president, engineering, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Keysight helps us develop and validate our Snapdragon 5G Modem-RF System designs at a pace that will help accelerate 5G commercialization.”

http://www.keysight.com/find/5G

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COBO demos packet transmission between On-Board and MSA modules

At this week's ECOC 2019 in Dublin, the Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO) showcased compliance boards built to its recently completed Module Compliance Board (MCB) and Host Compliance Board (HCB) specification. Members also demonstrated the latest developments of optical connectivity solutions for faceplate, backplane, module and co-packaged optics.

Of note, a COBO proof-of-concept switch was demonstrating error-free packet transmission between COBO modules, OSFP modules and QSFP-DD modules. The 400GBASE-SR8 connections were between all module form factors. The OSFP and QSFP-DD modules operated at 10W; whereas, the COBO module had a 30% power savings by operating at under 7W. The ability to place the COBO module closer to the switch ASIC greatly improved the signal integrity performance of the connection permitting the COBO module to use a clock and data recovery (CDR) chip instead of a digital signal processing (DSP) chip.

“Member collaboration has enabled COBO to offer the industry’s first live traffic demonstration of an on-board optics switch based upon COBO’s specification and demonstrating the improved power efficiency of on-board optics,” said Brad Booth, President of COBO.  “COBO members have worked diligently to develop an industry-first specification for on-board optical modules and compliance boards to lower the barrier to entry for implementing on-board optics.”

http://onboardoptics.org

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Broadcom delivers dual 400G MACSec PHY

Broadcom is now shipping a dual 400G MACSec PHY with AES-256 designed to address security requirements for high speed interconnects in modern network infrastructure including hyper-scale, cloud, service provider and enterprise networks.

Broadcom's BCM81343 quadruples the switch bandwidth capability of the previous generation duall 100G MACSec PHY by offering dual 400G ports. The device supports the IEEE 1588 precision time protocol (PTP) providing accurate clock timing for time-sensitive transactions and mission-critical tasks.

BCM81343 Product Highlights

• Dual 400GbE PHY supporting CDAUI8, CDAUI4 electrical interfaces for QSFP-DD & OSFP optical modules
• Supports MACSec in applications from 10G to 400G
• Support MACSec in both 400G retiming & 400G<->100G (reverse gearbox) applications
• IEEE 802.1AE 256-bit MACSec supporting data rates from 10G to 400G
• IEEE 1588 supporting up to Class-C to meet stringent 5G timing requirements
• Proven interoperability with Broadcom switch ASICs and ASSPs using 28-Gbaud PAM-4 and NRZ SerDes
• Pin-compatible to Broadcom’s standard 400G reverse gearbox and retimer devices for easy upgrade
• Low power 16nm CMOS technology 

“Data privacy and security have become critical in the data center and cloud infrastructure given the increasing number of security breaches. As cloud and service providers transition their networks to 400G Ethernet to support the growing demand for higher bandwidth and emerging 5G services, it’s imperative that their 400G networks be equipped with 400G MACSec to protect against intrusion attacks, wiretapping and other threats,” said Lorenzo Longo, senior vice president and general manager of the Physical Layer Products Division at Broadcom. “Expanding upon Broadcom’s industry-leading 400G PAM-4 PHY portfolio, the BCM81343 is the first commercial 400G MACSec PHY that delivers up to 800G of switch bandwidth with PTP time-stamping for 5G applications.”

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