New Dell EMC SD-WAN Edge is powered by VMware / VeloCloud

Dell Technologies introduced an SD-WAN Edge powered by VMware.

The Dell EMC SD-WAN Edge is an integrated platform that bundles VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud software as a subscription with Dell EMC hardware and a single support number.

Dell Technologies Consulting Services also is debuting three new services for customers adopting SD-WAN technologies: Advisory, Design and Implementation.

Dell Technologies said its sales and customer support force can help customers plan, customize and properly scale their SD-WAN for successful deployment and management of modernized virtual network functions.

The service is expected to be available in July 2019.

VMware to acquire VeloCloud for SD-WAN

Thursday, November 02, 2017  VeloCloud, Vmware  

VMware agreed to acquire VeloCloud Networks, a start-up offering SD-WAN technology for enterprises and service providers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

VeloCloud, which is based in Mountain View, California, says its SD-WAN solution is distinguished by supporting data plane services in the cloud, in addition to on-premise deployments; enabling policy-based access to cloud and data center applications. VeloCloud SD-WAN includes: a choice of public, private or hybrid cloud network for enterprise-grade connection to cloud and enterprise applications; branch office enterprise appliances and optional data center appliances; software-defined control and automation; and virtual services delivery. The solution aggregates multiple access lines (cable modem, DSL, LTE) into a single secure connection that is defined and controlled in the cloud.

VeloCloud was founded in 2013. The company is headed by Sanjay Uppal, who previously ran OnMobile Global.  He also spent time at Citrix through the acquisition he negotiated with Caymas where he was President and CEO. At Citrix, he defined the product strategy and go to market for the Access Management, Delivery Controller and WAN acceleration product lines.  VeloCloud co-founders also include Ajit Mayya (previously Sr. Director of Engineering in the Cloud and Infrastructure Management division of VMware) and Steve Woo (previously head of cloud strategy at Aerohive Networks).

VMware said the VeloCloud acquisition will enable it to build on the success of its NSX network virtualization platform to address end-to-end automation, application continuity, branch transformation and security from data center to cloud to edge.

"In the digital era, a new networking approach is required to solve the hyper distribution of applications and data, as we move from a model of data centers to one of centers of data at the edge," said Pat Gelsinger, chief executive officer, VMware. "At the heart of VMware's networking strategy is the belief in delivering pervasive connectivity with embedded security that connects users to applications wherever they may be. With the addition of VeloCloud's industry-leading SD-WAN technology, we will be able to extend the VMware NSX approach of automated, secure, and infrastructure-independent networking to the WAN."

"Enterprises are transforming how they architect and utilize their infrastructure, with a shift towards a cloud-delivered, software-defined model. This enables organizations to have a globally consistent infrastructure regardless of where it is deployed -- from the data center and the cloud to the edge," said Sanjay Uppal, CEO of VeloCloud Networks. "We look forward to helping VMware, the leader in software-defined infrastructure, in the next evolution of the company's networking and NFV strategies."

• In March, VeloCloud closed a $35 million Series D round of funding for its SD-WAN solutions. The funding was led by Hermes Growth Partners and included new investors Telstra Ventures and Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the strategic investment fund of the Government of Malaysia (“Khazanah”), in addition to existing investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Venrock, March Capital Partners, Cisco Investments, and other undisclosed strategic investors. This brings total funding to $84 million.

• In March 2017, VeloCloud reported that its number of SD-WAN sites has grown to more than 50,000 and total customer wins exceed 600, including the two largest SD-WAN wins in the world. The company has secured deals from AT&T, Sprint, Mitel, TelePacific, and Windstream for its “VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN for Service Providers” solution for both Network Integrated and Over The Top implementations.

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China Telecom awards 5G agreement to Ericsson

China Telecom signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ericsson concerning 5G.

Ericsson said it has embarked on in-depth cooperation on a 5G test network with China Telecom. In addition to testing the technical networking scheme, the partners have completed innovative 5G projects, such as the live 4K HD broadcast of a marathon; live 8K HD broadcast of the Women's World Club Volleyball Championship; 360 degree panoramic live broadcasting, and driving demos.

The agreement was signed by Luca Orsini, Head of Networks, Market Area North East Asia, Ericsson, and Liu Guiqing, Deputy General Manager, China Telecom.

Ericsson noted that it has now signed forty-five 4G agreements with service providers.

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Corning's Optical Comm business delivers $1.06B in Q1 sales, up 20% yoy

Corning's Optical Communications division posted first-quarter sales of $1.06 billion, up 20% over the prior year. Net income for the division for the first quarter was up 30% year over year.

Sales growth was driven by data center and carrier business as well as sales from the recently acquired 3M Communication Markets Division.


Corning said its optical communications business remains on track to surpass its goal of $5 billion in 2020 sales, with continued growth beyond.

For full-year 2019, Optical Communications year-over-year sales growth is now expected to be up approximately 10%, revised from the company’s previous expectation of a low-teens percentage. This revision is the result of one major fiber-to-the-home customer shifting its deployment from homes passed to homes connected by one quarter earlier than
expected.

Corning expects its Optical Communications business to continue growing faster than the overall market as demand for the company’s fiber, cable, and connectivity solutions remain strong around the world.

https://investor.corning.com/investor-relations/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx

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CloudSmartz to provide portal for Seaborn's subsea cables

CloudSmartz will provide a fully integrated customer portal solution to automate Seaborn’s front-office processes.

Seaborn’s Seabras-1 offers the only direct POP-POP route between São Paulo, Brazil, and New York City, USA, and soon will offer an end-to-end automation platform that will enable services to be delivered by leading SDN technology.​

The automated customer portal is expected to bring more efficiency in Seaborn's sales, operations, inventory and service provisioning cycles, and provide real-time visibility into the service delivery functions. The platform will also enable on-demand SDN services and deliver bandwidth in near real-time delivery.​

Seaborn’s new full-service portal will enable customers to provision and amend Seabras-1 services in real time; enter service queries and quickly see updates to active tickets, delivery activities and service history; and see a detailed listing of all their Seabras-1 services, real-time usage information and billing status.

“CloudSmartz is very excited to enter our partnership with Seaborn, to not only enhance their customer experience but to enable the automation of their network and on-demand services as a next-generation subsea service provider,” says Dan Wagner, CEO, CloudSmartz. “We have been presented with the honor and privilege of helping a remarkable company rise to even greater heights – and look forward to a strong business partnership.”

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Orange sees flat revenue in Q1, 204 million mobiles worldwide

Orange reported Q1 2019 revenue of EUR 10,185 (-0.1% year on year) on a comparable basis. Growth in most segments offset the slight downturn in revenues in France (-1.8% and -0.7% excluding the effect of the digital reading offers) in what continues to be a fierce promotional environment. Spain's value positioning led to 0.4% growth, despite greater competition. Europe was up 1.4%, underpinned by convergence and IT services, whilst steady growth of 5.3% continued in Africa & Middle East due to a very solid retail services performance. Enterprise had a second consecutive quarter of growth, rising 0.6%.

EBITDAaL grew 0.7% year on year, despite the impact of digital reading offers. Restated for this impact, growth in EBITDAaL would be 2.8%. The EBITDAaL margin from telecoms activities improved by 0.4 points in the 1st quarter. eCapex grew 8.4% to reach €1.6 billion, linked to the acceleration in the 1st quarter of the FTTH rollout in France and continued investment in 4G networks. In line with the objectives, eCapex for 2019 will be slightly lower compared to 2018, excluding the impact of the new network sharing agreement in Spain.

Key metrics

• Revenues from Convergence - marketed in all European countries – were €1.7 billion in the 1st quarter, up 4.6%. This improvement enabled Orange to consolidate its position as the leading convergent operator in Europe.
• Revenues from mobile-only services were €2.6 billion in the 1st quarter, up 1.1%.
• Revenues from fixed-only services fell 3.1% in the 1st quarter (€2.4 billion), as a result of the migration to convergent services and the slowdown in fixed narrowband services.
• Revenue from IT and integration services posted accelerated growth of 6.6% in the 1st quarter (€616 million), versus the 0.8% increase in the 1st quarter of 2018. This growth was driven by the Enterprise market as well as by Poland.
• Wholesale revenues fell 1.4% in the 1st quarter (€1.9 billion). This was primarily due to the decrease in international voice traffic and visitor roaming.
• Revenues from equipment sales were down 8.4% (€722 million), due to lower volumes of terminal sales.
• There were 10.506 million convergent customers across the Group at 31 March 2019, stable year on year on a comparable basis, underpinned by very strong growth in Europe.
• There were 203.781 million mobile customers at 31 March 2019, with a net addition of 163,000 in the 1st quarter. 
• There were 20.275 million fixed broadband customers at 31 March 2019, with a net addition of 130,000 in the 1st quarter.

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IDC: Smartphone market continues to decline

2019 will be another down year for worldwide smartphone shipments, as vendors shipped a total of 310.8 million units in 1Q19, marking a 6% drop year-over-year and the sixth consecutive quarter of decline, according to newly published figures from IDC.

Some highlights from IDC

• Samsung saw volumes drop 8.1% in 1Q19 with shipments of 71.9 million. The newly launched Galaxy S10 series did sell well during the quarter, and the 5G variant is now shipping in Korea, with additional markets launching soon.
• Huawei increased shipments and market share, moving its way into a clear number two spot.
• Huawei saw year-over-year growth of 50.3% in 1Q19 with volumes of 59.1 million units and a 19.0% market share. 
• Apple's Q1 shipments dropped to 36.4 million units representing a staggering 30.2% decline from last year. 
• Xiaomi also experienced a decline in 1Q19 with volumes of 25.0 million, which was down 10.2% year over year. 
• vivo returned to the top 5 of the smartphone market with volumes of 23.2 million and a market share of 7.5%, tying it with OPPO for the number 5 position. 
• OPPO shipped 23.1 million smartphones in 1Q19, enough to capture a 7.4% market share, although volumes were down 6.0% from 1Q18.

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS45042319

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Equinix acquires Switch Datacenters' AMS1 data center

Equinix acquired Switch Datacenters' AMS1 data center business in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in an all-cash transaction for €30 million.

The facility, which will be renamed Equinix AM11 International Business Exchange (IBX) data center, is in close proximity to Equinix's existing campus in southeast Amsterdam. AM11 becomes Equinix’s ninth IBX data center in Amsterdam. The data center is a leased asset and adds approximately 250 cabinets of sold capacity and a total capacity for approximately 700 additional cabinets once the facility is completely built out. The site can also support the potential to expand into an adjacent building to accommodate future growth and approximately 1,300 additional cabinets.

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Inphi posts Q1 revenue of $82.2M, up 37% yoy

Inphi reported Q1 2019 revenue of $82.2 million on GAAP basis, up 36.7% year-over-year, compared with $60.1 million in the first quarter of 2018.  The increase was due to higher demand for both telecom and datacenter products.

Gross margin under GAAP in the first quarter of 2019 was 57.9%, compared with 54.1% in the first quarter of 2018. The increase in gross margin primarily reflects a change in the product mix. There was a GAAP operating loss of $15.5 million or (18.8%) of revenue, compared to GAAP operating loss in the first quarter of 2018 of $28.0 million or (46.5%) of revenue. The decrease in operating loss was mainly due to higher revenue. GAAP net loss for the first quarter of 2019 was $22.7 million or ($0.51) per common share, compared with $23.0 million or ($0.53) per common share in the first quarter of 2018.

“Year-over-year revenue growth of 37% coupled with Non-GAAP gross and net operating margin expansion resulted in Q1 Non GAAP EPS that exceeded the midpoint of our outlook by $0.05,” said Ford Tamer President and CEO of Inphi Corporation. “Our strong Q1 benefited from robust demand for both Telecom products, Coherent M200 DSPs, TiAs and drivers as well as the Data Center 50, 100, 200 and 400G PAM4 DSPs, TiAs and drivers.  We also benefited from the start of the 5G backhaul infrastructure buildup.”

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Percepto flies autonomous drones over SK Tel's 5G net

Percepto demonstrated its autonomous drones over SK Telecom’s 5G trial network in Korea.

Percepto provides a Drone-In-a-Box (DIB) for autonomous flights over cellular networks. This milestone prepares Percepto to provide its customers with significant operational advantages including better real-time video stream quality, reduced battery consumption, which means longer mission times and greater distances and readiness for greater data processing in real-time.

https://youtu.be/goMJrchX7RU

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Twilio hits Q1 revenue of $233.1 million, up 81% yoy

Twilio reported revenue of $233.1 million for the first quarter of 2019, up 81% from the first quarter of 2018 and 14% sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2018. Total Revenue includes revenue from Twilio SendGrid starting on February 1, 2019 (the date of acquisition). GAAP loss from operations was $87.6 million for the first quarter of 2019, compared with GAAP loss from operations of $24.3 million for the first quarter of 2018. Non-GAAP income from operations was $3.4 million for the first quarter of 2019, compared with non-GAAP loss from operations of $4.7 million for the first quarter of 2018.

Some metrics

• 154,797 Active Customer Accounts as of March 31, 2019, compared to 53,985 Active Customer Accounts as of March 31, 2018. Active Customer Accounts in the current period include the contribution from Twilio SendGrid customer accounts.
• Dollar-Based Net Expansion Rate was 146% for the first quarter of 2019, compared to 132% for the first quarter of 2018. Twilio SendGrid results do not impact the calculation of this metric in the current period.
• 2,114 employees as of March 31, 2019.

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Bloomberg: Vodafone found hidden backdoors in Huawei equipment

Vodafone discovered multiple backdoors in home routers, broadband gateways,  and optical service nodes supplied by Huawei and deployed in Vodafone's fixed-access network in Italy, according to Bloomberg. The issues date back to 2009-2011 and have been resolved, according to the report.

Both Huawei and Vodafone said it is not unusual to discover vulnerabilities in networking gear and to issue fixes over time.

Vodafone has taken a public role in defending its choice of Huawei equipment for next-gen deployments.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/vodafone-found-hidden-backdoors-in-huawei-equipment?srnd=premium

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Luna Innovations cites $6M order for tunable lasers

Luna Innovations received a purchase order valued at more than $6 million to supply it Phoenix tunable lasers to a leading robotics company. The lasers will be delivered over four years, with deliveries beginning this summer.

Luna’s Phoenix tunable external cavity laser was designed for a wide range of fiber optic sensing instrumentations.

http://www.lunainc.com

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DASAN Zhone Solutions intros gateways for 10G

DASAN Zhone Solutions introduced its 5200 family of multi-protocol smart gateways designed for 10G and DZS’s portfolio of multi-service optical network terminals (ONTs) and optical line terminals (OLTSs).

DASAN Zhone Solutions' 5200 family of smart gateways offer choice between 10/10G symmetrical PON technology and 10G Active Ethernet using SFP+ optics for more seamless connectivity to existing FTTx and Enterprise business subscribers over a single common network.  Initial models allow for one fixed 10G copper LAN port and four GE ports, with options for voice or PoE+ / PoE++. Leveraging a common platform that is future-ready for globally standardized 10G GPON technologies, new models in the 5200 family will support NG-PON 2 as the availability and price/performance of optics make a positive business case.

“Offering our customers a common platform with choice among technologies and form factors is core to our 10G solution development. In this way, DZS can best serve the diverse needs of operators across the globe,” said Dr. Seungdong Lee, Chief Technology Officer, DZS.  “We believe that 10/10 symmetrical XGS-PON is the best upgrade path to evaluate in 2019. Our portfolio of modular chassis, fixed 1RU, and industrially-hardened systems has been designed to provide choices to operators as they plan ahead for the fundamental shift toward cloud-based everything.”

https://investor-dzsi.com/news/dzs-smart-10g-network-evolution/

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