Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Cisco to acquire Acacia for Coherent Optics

Cisco agreed to acquire Acacia Communications for $70.00 per share in cash, or for approximately $2.6 billion on a fully diluted basis, net of cash and marketable securities. The deal is expected to close during the second half of Cisco's FY2020. Acacia employees will join Cisco's Optical Systems and Optics business within the networking and security business under David Goeckeler.

Acacia, which is headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts and is publicly traded ((NASDAQ: ACIA), develops, manufactures and sells high-speed coherent optical interconnect products, including digital signal processing / photonic integrated circuit modules, and transceivers.



http://ir.acacia-inc.com/static-files/3364e03b-6e70-4933-8c93-84b6fe4c74df

In May, Acacia posted Q1 2019 revenue of $105.2 million, up 44% year-over-year. GAAP gross margin was 47.4%. GAAP net income was $7.0 million and non-GAAP net income was $15.4 million.

Cisco said Acacia's technology will enrich its optical systems portfolio, allowing customers to transition from chassis-based systems to pluggable technology to simplify operations and reduce network complexities.

On a conference call, Cisco said it is also committed to supporting Acacia's current business including existing and future customers.

"By innovating across software, silicon and optics, Cisco is reinventing every domain of the network with our intent-based architectures," said David Goeckeler, executive vice president and general manager of Cisco's networking and security business. "With the explosion of bandwidth in the multi-cloud era, optical interconnect technologies are becoming increasingly strategic. The acquisition of Acacia will allow us to build on the strength of our switching, routing and optical networking portfolio to address our customers' most demanding requirements."

"Coherent technology has been a game-changer for optical networking and continues to evolve with the deployment of pluggable coherent optics," said Raj Shanmugaraj, president and chief executive officer, Acacia. "Upon close, Cisco and Acacia will continue to serve and support existing Acacia customers. By integrating Acacia technology into Cisco's networking portfolio, we believe we can accelerate the trend toward coherent technology and pluggable solutions while accommodating a larger footprint of customers worldwide."

http://ir.acacia-inc.com/

Cisco completes Luxtera acquisition

Cisco completed its previously announced acquisition of privately-held Luxtera.

Cisco said it plans to incorporate Luxtera’s technology across its intent-based networking portfolio, spanning enterprise, data center and service provider markets.


Cisco to acquire Luxtera for silicon photonics -- $660M

Cisco agreed to acquire privately-held Luxtera, a developer of silicon photonic technologies, for $660 million in cash and assumed equity awards.

Luxtera, which is based in Carlsbad, California, focuses on silicon photonics process and packaging technologies for building integrated optics capabilities for webscale and enterprise data centers, service provider market segments, and other customers.

Luxtera leverages a hybrid integration approach wherein the photonics die forms the base of the transceiver chipset, while the light source and electronics die are attached on top. The company says its ability to integrate all optical components into a single silicon chip enables it to manufacture at wafer scale.

Cisco said the integration of Luxtera will broaden its portfolio of 100GbE and 400GbE optics. Cisco plans to incorporate Luxtera's technology across its intent-based networking portfolio, spanning enterprise, data center and service provider markets.

ECOC 2018: Acacia presents 600 Gbps per Wavelength Coherent Transmission

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

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

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

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

Acacia said its high-capacity solution targets the requirements for connections between large data centers with reaches of 100km and above using standard single-mode fiber.


Google to acquire Elastifile to enable easier petabyte level operations

Google agreed to acquire Elastifile, a start-up provider of scalable, enterprise file storage for the cloud.

Elastifile, which is based in Herzliya, Israel with offices in Santa Clara, California, offers a software-defined approach to managed Network Attached Storage (NAS), enabling organizations to scale performance or capacity without cumbersome overhead.

Elastifile will now be integrated with Google Cloud Filestore.

Google said the combination of Elastifile and Google Cloud will bring traditional workloads into GCP faster and simplify the management and scaling of data and compute intensive workloads. Google also expects this combination will empower businesses to build industry-specific, high performance applications that need petabyte-scale file storage more quickly and easily.

"Helping our customers solve difficult storage challenges for their most critical workloads has enabled these enterprises to unleash the full benefits of the cloud,” said Erwan Menard, CEO at Elastifile. “We’re excited to join Google for the next part of our journey, building on the success we’ve had together over the past two and a half years. File storage is essential to enterprise cloud adoption and, together with Google, we are well-positioned to serve those needs."

Earlier this year, Google launched Elastifile File Service on GCP, a fully-managed version of Elastifile integrated with Google Cloud. Customers like Appsbroker, eSilicon and Forbes have already taken advantage of the latest Elastifile solutions on GCP.

“In recent years, we’ve seen enterprises increasingly deploy traditional applications as well as new performance sensitive applications to the cloud,” said Deepak Mohan, Research Director at IDC.  “These applications require on-premises level of performance for latency and consistency alongside of the scalability benefits of the cloud. The acquisition of Elastifile will better enable Google Cloud customers to meet this mix of needs, as they deploy such workloads to the Google Cloud Platform.”

https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/expanding-our-enterprise-file-storage-offerings-to-simplify-the-management-and-scaling-of-data

https://www.elastifile.com

Google to acquire Alooma to simplify cloud migration

Google agreed to acquire Alooma, a start-up specializing in cloud data migration. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Alooma, which is based in Tel Aviv with an office in Redwood City, California, helps enterprise companies streamline database migration in the cloud with an innovative data pipeline tool that enables them to move their data from multiple sources to a single data warehouse. Alooma was backed by Sequoia and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Alooma was co-founded by Yoni Broyde and Yair Weinberger.

Google said the acquisition enables it to ofer customers "a streamlined, automated migration experience to Google Cloud, and give them access to our full range of database services, from managed open source database offerings to solutions like Cloud Spanner and Cloud Bigtable."

ONAP Dublin release brings more blueprints and 5G features

LF Networking (LFN) announced the fourth major release of Open Network Automation Project (ONAP) code.

Key advancements in ONAP Dublin include:

  • New Blueprints -  a new residential connectivity blueprint, Broadband Service (BBS), to demonstrate multi-gigabit residential connectivity over PON using ONAP.  The multi-release 5G blueprint adds enhancements to PNF support, performance management, fault management (PM, FM) monitoring, homing using the physical cell ID (PCI), and progress on modeling to support end-to-end network slicing in subsequent releases. The CCVPN blueprint now includes dynamic addition of services and bandwidth on-demand.
  • OVP Enhancements: In April, an expanded OPNFV Verification Program (OVP) was launched that includes VNF verification through publicly-available VNF compliance test tooling based on requirements developed within the ONAP community. While OVP checks against industry-wide requirements, it does not check VNF compliance against operator-specific requirements (e.g. VM flavors, dataplane acceleration technologies, and so on). For this reason, Dublin adds a Vendor Software Product (VSP) compliance check in SDC to fill this gap.
  • Standards Alignment: Illustrating the significance of ONAP both as a reference architecture and reference code for an automation platform, LF Networking collaborates with standards bodies (e.g. 3GPP, ETSI NFV ISG, ETSI ZSM ISG, MEF, and TM Forum) to provide reference architectures for standards development. 
  • The design time components includes a new version of the Controller Design Studio (CDS) for model driven configuration and lifecycle management of VNFs, internationalization and localization support in the Portal framework, and basic PNF package validation. 
  • The runtime software includes orchestration support for cloud native network functions (CNF) through support for k8s cloud regions, with support for Azure and StarlingX cloud regions as well. 
  • The Policy project has several changes changes that allow service providers to create new policies, TOSCA policies, and policy types outside the development cycle of ONAP. The Dublin release has support for multisite applications in DMaaP.  

LFN also noted the addition of six new members to ONAP: Aarna Networks, Loodse, the LIONS Center at Pennsylvania State University, Matrixx Software, VoerEir AB, and XCloud Networks.

The next ONAP release will be called El Alto.
“It’s great to see such robust ecosystem growth with new deployments, new commercial adoption, and new members,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Orchestration, Edge & IoT, the Linux Foundation. “ONAP is now a focal point for industry alignment around MANO, conformance and verification, and standards collaboration. Dublin specifically brings 5G network automation for secure, standards-aligned global deployments on any cloud of any size or location.”

“Beyond the technical accomplishments, Dublin highlights the maturity of our ONAP Community,” said Catherine Lefèvre, ONAP TSC Chair. “The relationship between carriers and vendors has grown even stronger through cooperation in many areas, including development, security and integration. For example, Swisscom and Samsung played significant roles in this release. Their collaboration with other carriers and vendors highlights the ‘innovate together’ spirit that prevails within the ONAP community. Swisscom drove the broadband service use case, collaborating with member vendors of the ONAP open source community in development and testing. Samsung performed penetration tests that identified new requirements that were taken up as a priority by the ONAP Security Subcommittee led by Orange.”

https://www.onap.org/software

U.S. Commerce Secretary Ross comments on Huawei

Speaking at the Bureau of Industry and Security Annual Conference on Export Controls and Security, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross said the following with regard to Huawei:

"We are alert to China’s civil−military fusion strategy, and understand China’s tenacious pursuit of American technologies it needs to modernize its military. This cannot be tolerated, and we are updating our export control policies to account for this very real threat. BIS’s Entity List denies sensitive technologies to companies endangering our national security and foreign policy interests.

Since 2017, we have added 182 companies to the Entity List, including 49 Chinese companies, 49 Russian ones, and 20 Pakistanis. On May 16 of this year, BIS added Huawei Technologies — the largest telecommunications equipment producer in the world — and 68 affiliates, to Commerce’s Entity List. Four days later, on May 20th, BIS issued a 90-day General License allowing customers time to arrange new suppliers, and for Commerce to determine the appropriate long-term measures for American and foreign telecom providers currently relying on Huawei for critical services.

To implement the President’s G-20 Summit directive two weeks ago, Commerce will issue licenses where there is no threat to U.S. national security. Within those confines we will try to make sure that we don’t just transfer revenue from the U.S. to foreign firms. Huawei itself remains on the Entity List, and the announcement does not change the scope of items requiring licenses from the Commerce Department, nor the presumption of denial.

ZTE is another example of BIS’s strong enforcement activities. Because of the Department’s action, ZTE is the most monitored corporation in BIS history."

The full text of his remarks are posted here.
https://www.commerce.gov/news/speeches/2019/07/remarks-us-commerce-secretary-wilbur-l-ross-bureau-industry-and-security


IBM completes its $34 billion purchase of Red Hat

IBM completed its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat ($190.00 per share in cash) in a deal aimed at positioning the merged company as the leader in hybrid cloud technologies. Together, IBM and Red Hat promise to accelerate innovation by offering a next-generation hybrid multicloud platform based on open source technologies, such as Linux and Kubernetes, that enables businesses to securely deploy, run and manage data and applications on-premises and on private and multiple public clouds.

"Businesses are starting the next chapter of their digital reinventions, modernizing infrastructure and moving mission-critical workloads across private clouds and multiple clouds from multiple vendors," said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and CEO. "They need open, flexible technology to manage these hybrid multicloud environments. And they need partners they can trust to manage and secure these systems. IBM and Red Hat are uniquely suited to meet these needs. As the leading hybrid cloud provider, we will help clients forge the technology foundations of their business for decades to come."

Red Hat's fiscal year 2019 revenue was $3.4 billion, up 15 percent year-over-year. Fiscal first quarter 2020 revenue, reported in June, was $934 million, up 15 percent year-over-year. In that quarter, subscription revenue was up 15 percent year-over-year, including revenue from application development-related and other emerging technology offerings up 24 percent year-over-year. Services revenue also grew 17 percent.

Red Hat will continue to be led by Jim Whitehurst and its current management team.


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.

“The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer. It changes everything about the cloud market,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “IBM will become the world’s #1 hybrid cloud provider, offering companies the only open cloud solution that will unlock the full value of the cloud for their businesses.

“Open source is the default choice for modern IT solutions, and I’m incredibly proud of the role Red Hat has played in making that a reality in the enterprise,” said Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO, Red Hat. “Joining forces with IBM will provide us with a greater level of scale, resources and capabilities to accelerate the impact of open source as the basis for digital transformation and bring Red Hat to an even wider audience – all while preserving our unique culture and unwavering commitment to open source innovation.”

https://www.redhat.com

NTT acquires WhiteHat Security

NTT Security completed its previously-announced acquisition of WhiteHat Security, a leading application security provider committed to securing applications that run enterprises’ businesses.

WhiteHat Security will continue to operate as an independent, wholly-owned subsidiary.

NTT Security has 10 Security Operations Centers (SOCs), seven R&D centers, over 1,500 security experts and handles hundreds of thousands of security incidents annually across six continents.

NTT Security is one of 28 remarkable companies, including NTT Communications and Dimension Data, to be brought together to become a global leading technology services provider, NTT (announced on 1st July 2019). Formed to work with organizations around the world, NTT enables its clients to shape and achieve outcomes through intelligent technology solutions and champions a more secure and connected future.

“With the cyberthreat landscape constantly growing and applications being central to digital businesses, application security is more important now than ever before. As part of the NTT Security family, we are well-equipped to provide global solutions to meet the rising demand for application security,” said Craig Hinkley, CEO, WhiteHat Security. “The WhiteHat Security team looks forward to the next phase of our journey. Our customers, partners and the market continue to appreciate the strategic nature of this acquisition and the combined cybersecurity solutions we can now offer.”

NeoPhotonics appoints Dr. Yanbing Li to its Board

NeoPhotonics has appointed Dr. Yanbing Li to its Board of Directors.

Dr. Li is currently Vice President of Engineering at Google, focusing on Google Cloud. Previously Yanbing Li was Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Storage and Availability business unit at VMware where she was responsible for a portfolio of products in software-defined storage, hyper-converged infrastructure, data protection, and storage and availability services for the cloud. She led product development, engineering, and go-to-market strategies and led the business to become one of the fastest growing business for VMware and a market leader. During her eleven-year tenure with VMware, Dr. Li held multiple executive leadership roles including general manager for vCloud Air storage, VP of Engineering for storage, VP of Central Engineering, VP of Continuing Product Development, VP of Global R&D sites and Managing Director of China R&D. She holds a Ph.D. degree from Princeton University, a master of science degree from Cornell University, and a bachelor of science degree from Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) in electrical engineering and computer engineering. She is also a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

http://ww.neophotonics.com
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VMware's Yanbing Li on the Future of Software-defined Storage

Big changes are underway in the IT industry, with new architectures being defined for application delivery, new cloud models, and the rise of software-defined everything, says VMware's Yanbing Li, Senior VP and GM of Storage and Availability.


See video: https://youtu.be/j2lFBKV4A4U

POST Luxembourg deploys ADVA for fiber monitoring

POST Luxembourg has deployed ADVA's ALM fiber monitoring solution to assure the integrity of its dark fiber network. The ADVA ALM is a non-intrusive device that offers full fiber visibility.

The ADVA ALM fiber assurance solution delivers precise information about the integrity of critical links of POST Luxembourg’s infrastructure, enabling it to instantly pinpoint and respond to faults. The solution, which integrated seamlessly with POST Luxembourg’s existing network management system, shortens repair cycles, ensures services quality and helps improve sustainability by reducing truck rolls and wasted repair efforts.

“The ADVA ALM is now providing 24/7 assurance for key sections of our dark fiber. It’s a cost-efficient and energy-efficient solution with a compact physical footprint. It’s also flexible and service agnostic so it doesn’t interfere with any applications utilizing our network,” said Patrick Rausch, project manager, POST Luxembourg. “With the ADVA ALM, field technicians can monitor our infrastructure from anywhere in Luxembourg by simply using a secure custom environment running on any tablet PC and remotely identify any areas of concern. We can then take targeted action even before SLA incidents are raised. It’s a useful tool in our mission to limit downtime, improve efficiency and give our customers a crucial competitive advantage.”

“Specifically engineered to be a simple plug-and-play fiber assurance device, our ALM provides continuous monitoring, enabling operators to know immediately if and where issues arise. This real-time data is key to supervising and assuring dark fiber services, especially when selling higher value service level agreements," stated Sander Jansen, director, product line management, ADVA.





TIM activates 5G in Italy with Ericsson

TIM has activated its commercial 5G service in Rome, Turin and Naples using Ericsson 5G commercial hardware, software and solutions, including radio access network (RAN) and core network.

TIM is supporting 5G handsets from Samsung, Xiaomi and Oppo. TIM will also offer 5G roaming in six countries, starting this month in Austria, Great Britain and Switzerland and then extended to Spain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates.


TIM rolled out its 5G network on 3.6-3.8 GHz mid-band.

In this initial phase of its 5G rollout, TIM is deploying Ericsson’s Non-Standalone 5G portfolio. Ericsson has provided TIM with Massive MIMO radios from its mid-band portfolio.

Elisabetta Romano, CTIO, TIM, says: “TIM is launching the digital transformation of the country with 5G, through the progressive roll-out of the new technology in major cities and industrial districts. Thanks to the collaboration with Ericsson, we are creating a clear roadmap and building a robust ecosystem that will enable us to maximize the potential of 5G.”