Monday, March 25, 2019

BT employs ADVA's precision synchronization for 5G

BT is deploying ADVA's Oscilloquartz synchronization technology to bring 4G coverage to previously underserved areas and begin the rollout of 5G services across the UK. The new synchronization solution is deployed nationwide in 10 core time base sites, 106 metro time sites and close to 1,000 Tier 1 sites at the network edge.

Prior to this deployment, BT’s timing network was based purely on frequency synchronization.

ADVA said its Oscilloquartz enables BT to distribute stable and accurate phase and time-of-day information. The new synchronization network is built on the OSA 5430 and OSA 5440 and integrated with ADVA’s network management solution. The technology provides the sub-microsecond accuracy required for next-generation mobile applications together with hardware redundancy for unbeatable resilience.

ADVA’s modular grandmaster clocks support PTP, NTP and SyncE over multiple 10Gbit/s interfaces. They provide high levels of accuracy and holdover performance in case of GNSS outages, meeting ITU-T G.8272 primary reference time clock (PRTC) requirements. Comprehensively managed by ADVA’s network management solution, the technology is also ready to combine with its advanced cesium clocks for enhanced PRTC levels of stability, accuracy and reliability even without GNSS.

“Adding robust, highly accurate phase and time synchronization unleashes the full potential of our network. Not only does it empower us to deliver the services our customers demand today but it’s also the key to our 5G aspirations,” said Neil McRae, chief architect, BT Group. “The OSA 5430 and OSA 5440 offer the robustness of hardware redundancy together with the scale we require to meet tomorrow’s needs. Their modular design also means that our network is ready to support future timing technologies without further upgrades. Our close partnership with ADVA’s team and their Oscilloquartz timing experts is another crucial factor. It’s been clear from day one that they understood our core requirement for a flexible architecture with superb levels of precision and protection.”

“Phase synchronization has been a long-term development in international standards, and ADVA has actively contributed to that process,” commented Mike Gilson, standards contributor and technical specialist, timing and synchronization, BT Group. “By incorporating these capabilities in a flexible, high-performance solution, ADVA has created a synchronization network ready for the demands of 5G connectivity. We‘ve been very pleased with the way ADVA’s team have worked closely with us to fulfill not only our initial requirements but also provide a foundation for the future.”

“Bringing these levels of accuracy and resilience to BT’s mission-critical synchronization network is a real milestone. Achieving phase synchronization is a major challenge but with our uniquely flexible, high-capacity technology and the dedication and experience of our team, we’ve been able to handle all of that complexity on BT’s behalf and provide the ideal solution for its needs and ambitions,” said Sarah Mendham, senior director, sales, ADVA.

http://www.advaoptical.com

Azure Premium Blob Storage goes live

Microsoft announced general availability of Azure Premium Blob Storage, which is a new performance tier for block blobs and append blobs, complimenting the existing Hot, Cool, and Archive access tiers.

Premium Blob Storage is aimed at workloads that require very fast response times and/or high transactions rates, such as IoT, Telemetry, AI, and scenarios with humans in the loop such as interactive video editing, web content, online transactions, and more.

Micosoft said Premium Blob Storage provides lower and more consistent storage latency, providing low and consistent storage response times for both read and write operations across a range of object sizes, and is especially good at handling smaller blob sizes.

Premium Blob Storage is initially available in US East, US East 2, US Central, US West, US West 2, North Europe, West Europe, Japan East, Australia East, Korea Central, and Southeast Asia region.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-premium-block-blob-storage-is-now-generally-available/

Austria's A1 picks Nokia for 5G

A1 awarded a contract to Nokia for the rollout of 5G in Austria. The contract includes both Nokia's 5G radio access and cloud-native 5G core technology. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The contract reinforces the long-standing partnership between A1 and Nokia which has included the successful expansion of 3G and 4G / LTE mobile networks and the roll-out of Austria's largest fiber-optic network.

"Together with Nokia, we will leverage the full potential of 5G," says A1 CEO Marcus Grausam. "We rely on a trusted and long-standing partner with whom we have already successfully implemented numerous major projects. Now the starting signal has been given for the Austria-wide deployment of the A1 5G network, which will open up new worlds of applications and transform business models."

Peter Wukowits, head of Nokia Austria, said: "Jointly with A1, we have demonstrated the capabilities of 5G and our unique end-to-end portfolio on a number of occasions, and now the time has come to roll it out and bring it to reality. We are more than ready and feel honoured that A1 chose Nokia as its trusted partner for this important step into the digital future."

Dell'Oro: Sales of broadband access equipment rose 8% in 4Q18

Global revenue for broadband access equipment revenue reached $3.4 billion, growing 8 percent Y/Y in 4Q 2018. Increased shipments of GPON OLTs and DOCSIS 3.1 CPE offset CCAP spending declines, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.

“FTTH deployments globally continue to show strength,” said Jeff Heynen, Research Director, Broadband Access and Home Networking. “Both 2.5 Gbps GPON and 10 Gbps EPON equipment marked Y/Y increases, particularly in China. The gains on the telco side helped to offset surprising weakness in cable CCAP spending, as MSOs delay new capacity purchases while they determine how to move forward with distributed access architectures (DAA),” explained Heynen.

Some highlights from Dell'Oro's 4Q 2018 Broadband Access Quarterly Report:

  • Total DSL port shipments increased 16 percent Y/Y, with VDSL ports increasing 13 percent and Gfast ports increasing 232 percent.
  • Total PON ONT unit shipments increased 6 percent Y/Y, driven by strong demand for 2.5 Gbps GPON units in China and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.
  • Total cable access concentrator revenue decreased 18 percent Y/Y to $380 M, driven by a slowdown in CCAP license purchases in North America.
  • 2.5 Gbps GPON, 10 Gbps EPON, and G.fast equipment all saw spending increases in the quarter.


Corning opens software R&D center in Montreal

Corning opened an R&D center in Montreal, Canada, focused on discovering and developing software solutions for the telecommunications industry.

The Corning Technology Center Montreal will serve as Corning's global center of software innovation to support emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, cloud computing, and data analytics, as well as software solutions for optical-wireless networks. Software engineers from Corning's Research, Development and Engineering organization will collaborate with developers from iBwave Solutions, the Montreal-based provider of networking software solutions that Corning acquired in 2015.

The Montreal site joins Corning's network of research and development laboratories throughout North America, Europe and Asia, anchored by the company's Sullivan Park innovation center in Corning, N.Y. Over the next three to five years, Corning intends to hire software engineers, development team managers, and data analysts at the Montreal center.

"The combination of transformative technologies and applications such as 5G, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things depends on the optical connectivity solutions made possible by Corning's innovations," said Claudio Mazzali, senior vice president of technology for Corning's Optical Communications business segment. "The work that will take place here in our Montreal technology center will extend Corning's innovation capabilities beyond optical transport and connectivity, all the way to the intelligence required to deploy and enable those applications. Montreal is emerging as a major center of software innovation, and Corning is glad to be part of it."

VPIphotonics, LIGENTEC, and VLC Photonics collaborate on PICs

VPIphotonics, LIGENTEC, and VLC Photonics announced a design process collaboration for SiN Photonic Integrated Circuits.

VPIphotonics provides simulation software addressing demands in integrated photonics and fiber optics, optical transmission links and networks.



LIGENTEC is a foundry service manufacturing Photonic Integrated Circuits for customers in high-tech areas such as integrated quantum optics, LiDAR, sensors and microwave photonics.

VLC Photonics is a fabless and independent photonic design house, which provides photonic integration solutions and services. It has a wide experience in multiple material platforms (silicon photonics, indium phosphide, silicon nitride, PLC) and on the design and test of optical components and systems.

With this collaboration, designers that use LIGENTEC All-Nitride (AN) technology will now benefit from a workflow that starts from a graphical photonic integrated circuit design and system simulation environment, which seamlessly couples to layout design tools for scripted layout design and DRC capabilities. The new workflow is based on LIGENTEC and VLC Photonics verified reference designs with the simulation software by VPIphotonics using verified measurements of fabricated chips. This workflow is enabled by the new VPItoolkit PDK LIGENTEC – a pluggable toolkit extension to VPIcomponentMaker Photonic Circuits by adding the support of the 800 nm Silicon Nitride process “AN800” offered by LIGENTEC for dedicated shuttle runs and Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) runs.

https://www.vpiphotonics.com

Enghouse Systems to acquire Espial

Enghouse Systems, a provider of enterprise software solutions serving a variety of vertical markets, agreed to acquire Espial Group by way of a statutory plan of arrangement under the Canada Business Corporations Act. Under the arrangement, each Espial shareholder will receive cash consideration of C$1.57 for each Espial share, valuing Espial’s total equity at approximately C$56.5 million.

Espial, which is based in Ottawa, is a supplier of digital TV, IPTV middleware, and other solutions for helping service providers manage, deliver and monetize video and entertainment services.

On February 28, Espial reported fourth-quarter revenue was $6,667,208 compared with revenue of $10,157,477 in the same period a year ago. Fourth quarter software license revenue was $2,428,087 compared to $6,081,188 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. Software subscription revenue increased to $1,870,631 from $1,032,115 in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Kingston intros 3.78 TB data center SSDs

Kingston Digital announced the shipment of its Data Center DC500M Enterprise SSD optimized for mixed-use workloads to ensure predictable random I/O performance as well as predictable low latencies over a wide range of read and write workloads. DC500M is available in 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB and 3.84TB capacities.

This is the second drive in the DC500 series. Last week, the company began shipping its DC500R SSD optimized for read-centric applications.

“Eighty (80) percent of all enterprise SSDs deployed in data centers require less than one DWPD,” said Gregory Wong, president and principal analyst, Forward Insights. “As data centers seek the optimal balance between application-required endurance, capacity and cost, this trend is expected to continue.”

“Quality of Service in an enterprise SSD is essential for Cloud computing applications that require predictable storage performance levels and meet customer service level agreements. The new DC500 Series SSDs deliver excellent performance to intensive data center applications from the development stage of the application to the end-user customer experience downstream,” said Keith Schimmenti, enterprise SSD business manager, Kingston. “To ensure the security of user data, DC500 incorporates end-to-end data path protection and power-loss protection to safeguard data in-flight in the event of sudden power loss. This is the optimal data center storage solution when you combine its enterprise-class reliability and strict QoS requirements along with Kingston’s legendary pre- and post-sales support.”

Red Hat's quarter revenue reaches $879M, up 14% yoy

Red Hat reported revenue of $879 million for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, up 14% year-over-year, or 17% in constant currency. Full fiscal year total revenue amounted to $3.4 billion, up 15% year-over-year, or 16% in constant currency. GAAP net income for the quarter was $139 million, or $0.75 diluted earnings per share (“EPS”), compared with GAAP net loss of $12 million, or $0.07 diluted loss per share, in the year-ago quarter. The year-ago quarter included a one-time tax charge of $123 million related to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted into law in December 2017.

Subscription revenue for the quarter was $774 million, up 13% year-over-year, or 16% measured in constant currency. Subscription revenue in the quarter was 88% of total revenue.

IBM bets $34 billion on Red Hat as its pathway to multi-cloud

IBM agreed to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34 billion.

IBM and Red Hat said that as a combined company tthey will be strongly positioned to address the migration of all businesses to multi-cloud environments in an open and secure way. They estimate that 80% of business workloads have yet to move to the cloud. The merger will draw on their shared leadership in key technologies, such as Linux, containers, Kubernetes, multi-cloud management, and cloud management and automation

IBM  was an early supporter of Linux, collaborating with Red Hat to help develop and grow enterprise-grade Linux and more recently to bring enterprise Kubernetes and hybrid cloud solutions to customers.

IBM said it will remain committed to Red Hat’s open governance, open source contributions, participation in the open source community and development model, and fostering its widespread developer ecosystem. It also promises to build and enhance Red Hat partnerships, including those with major cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba and more, in addition to the IBM Cloud.

Intel's board extends chairman's term to 2020

Intel's board of directors has extended Andy Bryant’s term as Intel chairman for one additional year, to help support Intel’s leadership transition.

If Bryant is re-elected at Intel’s 2019 annual stockholders’ meeting, his term as chairman would continue through the conclusion of Intel’s 2020 annual stockholders’ meeting. Bryant has informed the board that he does not expect to stand for re-election again in 2020.

“I am honored to be nominated to serve as a director and Intel’s chairman for another year,” Bryant said. “If re-elected by the stockholders at our annual meeting in May, I look forward to continuing to work with Bob, the board and the entire executive team to continue Intel’s historic transformation to a data-centric company. I expect this would be my last year of service as a member of Intel’s board.”