SD-WAN: Linking Policy to Carrier Networks for Improved Customer Experience

MEF Annual Meeting – July 2019, Shawn Hakl, Senior Vice President Business Products, Verizon, highlights the importance of the industry’s new SD-WAN services standard published by MEF. Among other things, standardization will help link policy to carrier networks to deliver a greater customer experience.

“SD-WAN is really the control plane for which virtualized functions will be implemented. As we see more capabilities built into the intelligent network – the Software-Defined Network – at the core of carriers, SD-WAN will really be the way that you interface policy with the carrier network.” This will be expressed in ways like enabling users to select slices in a 5G network.

“The work that the MEF is doing around standardization of the SD-WAN spec just makes it easier for that integration to work across multiple types of underlying transport. And what that means to the end user is that it lets them get an overall experience from the network relative to their apps. So you can support a broader range of use cases with specialized needs coming across the network. You can build a better end-to-end application experience, meaning you’ll hit price points more effectively and, more importantly, your guaranteed service resiliency and service capability in an always-on connected world.”

To explore the latest on SD-WAN innovations and engage with industry-leading service and technology experts like Shawn Hakl, attend MEF19 (http://www.MEF19.com), held 18-22 November 2019 in Los Angeles, California.

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AT&T partners with Dell on Open Source Edge software -- Project Airship

Dell Technologies and AT&T agreed to deepen their collaboration on open source edge architecture. Specifically, the companies will collaborate in the open-source community to:

• Align on an overall vision of network disaggregation and accelerate the deployment of open infrastructure and AT&T Network Cloud utilizing Airship - a collection of loosely coupled, but interoperable, open-source tools that declaratively automate cloud provisioning and life-cycle management utilizing containers as the unit of software delivery.
• Catalyze the broader Airship community to accelerate Airship toward a 2.0 release, delivering a streamlined aggregator of best-of-breed open technologies for declaratively deploying and managing Kubernetes environments and cloud software.
• Jointly develop and enhance additional open-source efforts, including Metal3-io and OpenStack Ironic, and integrate the Kubernetes Cluster API.
• Deliver open-source automation capabilities across the stack - from bare metal to network to storage - on Dell Technologies infrastructure.

"Dell Technologies' addition to the Airship community reaffirms the industry's growing trust and investment in the open infrastructure model," said Amy Wheelus, vice president, AT&T Network Cloud. "This collaboration will not only enable us to accelerate the AT&T Network Cloud on the Dell Technologies infrastructure, but also further the broader community goal of making it as simple as possible for operators to deploy and manage open infrastructure in support of SDN and other workloads."

"Dell Technologies is working closely with AT&T to combine our joint telco industry best practices with decades of data center transformation experience to help service providers quickly roll out new breeds of experiential Edge and 5G services," said Kevin Shatzkamer, vice president, Dell EMC Service Provider Solutions. "As the world leader in servers, storage and personal computers, Dell's world class supply chain is best positioned to deliver the cost structure, predictability and access to emerging infrastructure technologies required to enable the transition to a more open, disaggregated mobile network."

Project Airship aims for fully containerized clouds - OpenStack on Kubernetes

Sunday, May 20, 2018  Airship, AT&T, Containers, Kubernetes  

AT&T is working with SKT, Intel and the OpenStack Foundation to launch Project Airship, a new open infrastructure project that will offer a unified, declarative, fully containerized, and cloud-native platform. The idea is to let cloud operators manage sites at every stage from creation through minor and major updates, including configuration changes and OpenStack upgrades.

AT&T said the project builds on the foundation laid by the OpenStack-Helm project launched in 2017. In a blog posting, Amy Wheelus, vice president of Cloud and Domain 2.0 Platform Integration, says the initial focus is "to introduce OpenStack on Kubernetes (OOK) and the lifecycle management of the resulting cloud, with the scale, speed, resiliency, flexibility, and operational predictability demanded of network clouds."

She states that AT&T will use Airship as the foundation of its network cloud running over its 5G core, which will support the launch of 5G services in 12 cities later this year.  Airship will also be used by Akraino Edge Stack, which is a new Linux Foundation project for creating an open source software stack supporting high-availability cloud services optimized for edge computing systems and applications.

"We are pleased to bring continued innovation with Airship, extending the work we started in 2016 with the OpenStack and Kubernetes communities to create a continuum for modern and open infrastructure. Airship will bring new network edge capabilities to these stacks and Intel is committed to working with this project and the many other upstream projects to continue our focus of upstream first development and accelerating the industry," stated Imad Sousou, corporate vice president and general manager of the Open Source Technology Center at Intel.

http://airshipit.org

Mirantis to power AT&T’s Airship for Kubernetes infrastructure

Thursday, February 07, 2019  Airship, AT&T, Mirantis  

AT&T has selected Mirantis to play a key role in its implementation Airship, Kubernetes and OpenStack based Network Cloud infrastructure. Airship is the project originally founded by AT&T, SKT and Intel under the OpenStack Foundation for enabling telcos to take advantage of on-premises Kubernetes infrastructure to support their SDN infrastructure builds. "Replacing VM-based infrastructure with cloud-native, open technologies based on containers...

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Alibaba's cloud revenue up 66% yoy to US$1.134 billion

Alibaba's cloud computing revenue grew 66% year-over-year to RMB7,787 million (US$1,134 million) during the June 2019 quarter, primarily driven by an increase in average revenue per customer.

Cloud services represented 7% of Alibaba Group's overall quarterly revenue.

During the June 2019 quarter, Alibaba Cloud launched over 300 new products and features, including those related to core cloud offerings, security, data intelligence and AI applications.

Alibaba said it is focusing on high value-added services while rationalizing offerings of commodity products and services.

In particular, Alibaba Cloud plans to expand SaaS offerings by working with SaaS partners to build an ecosystem to better serve enterprise customers.

During the June 2019 quarter, the company announced the Alibaba Cloud SaaS Accelerator, a solution that helps SaaS partners to build, launch and commercialize their offerings at scale
within the Alibaba Cloud SaaS marketplace. Alibaba Cloud offers these partners proprietary technologies such as AI applications, data analytics and software and development operations tools in order for them to deploy solutions for enterprise customers in various industries.

https://alibabagroup.com/en/ir/home

In May 2019, Alibaba Group reported that its cloud computing division generated revenue of RMB 7.726 billion (US$1.151 billion) during the March quarter, up 76% over the same period last year. Adjusted EBITA margin for the division was (2%).

In July 2019, Amazon reported Q2 2019 revenue of $8.381 billion for AWS, up 37% over the same period last year. Operating income for quarter was $2.121 billion. Operating margin was 26.2%. AWS is now on a $33 billion run rate.

Historical growth rate for AWS

2019 Q1 - 41%
2018 Q4 - 45%
2018 Q3 - 46%
2018 Q2 - 49%
2018 Q1 - 49%
2017 Q4 - 45%

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FirstNet delivers fleet management for public safety agencies

FirstNet is now offering a fully-integrated solution that provides public safety agencies with near real-time insights into critical fleet and in-field first responder activities. The capabity enables increased situational awareness, efficiency and safety for first responders and public safety fleets.

"Fleet Complete for FirstNet" consists of a FirstNet Ready Cradlepoint device that can take advantage of Band 14 and two FirstNet Certified apps now in the FirstNet App Catalog: Fleet Complete Mobile and Fleet Complete Dispatch. The solution provides post-install support, maintenance and fault code modules, as well as detailed reporting for historical data records. Once installed, public safety agency administrators can remotely track vehicles in the field, run engine diagnostics, get crash notifications, and check sensors to monitor maintenance needs, fuel consumption and more.

"The FirstNet platform has an incredible capacity to get help to people who need it when they need it," said Chris Penrose, President, Internet of Things Solutions, AT&T.  "Think of the ability to quickly dispatch police cars and ambulances to the scene or get nearly instantaneous insight if a school bus breaks down. With this collaboration, first responders get a holistic solution that helps them stay better connected to their workers and vehicles while keeping us all safer."

"We are proud to work with FirstNet to provide industry-leading tools like in-vehicle fleet solutions, which allow public safety to capture critical information," says Tony Lourakis, founder and CEO of Fleet Complete. "Our first responder customers will get a holistic telematics platform that operates on FirstNet and helps ensure a robust GPS-reporting system for operations that could ultimately save lives."

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OneWeb completes Ku- and Ka-band spectrum requirement

OneWeb’s satellites have been transmitting at the designated frequencies in the Ku- and Ka-band spectrum in the correct orbit for more than 90 days. This achievement means that OneWeb has met the requirements to secure spectrum bands over which it has priority rights under ITU rules and regulations.

OneWeb said it is well on its way to securing spectrum rights to high priority Ku-band spectrum for service links, and Ka-band for its global gateways. It will now have access to over 6 GHz of spectrum that will enable it to deliver its high-speed, low latency connectivity.

“Spectrum is a scarce resource and the ITU plays a vital role in the global management for access. The harsh reality for anyone trying to make a real impact on global connectivity is that no matter how good your network is, success is not possible without the right spectrum. With our spectrum now in use, OneWeb has proved it can bring together all the elements required – in space, on the ground, and in between – to change the face of connectivity everywhere”, said Ruth Pritchard-Kelly, Vice President of Regulatory for OneWeb.

This achievement is the latest in a string of major milestones charting OneWeb’s progress towards commercial service and full global coverage by 2021, including the successful launch of its first 6 satellites in February, the opening of its state-of-the-art Florida manufacturing facility earlier this month, and proving its ability to deliver low latency, high-speed services through its recent full HD streaming tests.

During the remainder of 2019, OneWeb will focus on commencing its monthly launch programme of more than 30 satellites per month, building an initial constellation of 650 satellites on its way to 1,980 satellites. The first phase of the constellation will provide global coverage; and further additions to the network will be focused on adding capacity to meet growing customer demands.

https://www.oneweb.world/

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Extreme sees SD-WAN opportunities with Aerohive acquisition

Last week, Extreme Networks completed its previously-announced acquisition of Aerohive Networks.

The acquisition of Aerohive adds cloud management and edge capabilities to Extreme's portfolio of end-to-end, edge to cloud software-driven networking solutions.

Aerohive also expands Extreme's position in Wi-Fi and NAC, adding cloud-managed Wi-Fi and NAC solutions to complement its on-premises Wi-Fi and NAC technology, driving Extreme deeper into key verticals and presenting numerous opportunities for cross-sell and up-sell within the combined portfolios.

Extreme said the deal also brings new SD-WAN capabilities to its portfolio.

Ed Meyercord, President and CEO, Extreme Networks, states "Closing our acquisition of Aerohive in just 45 days from initial announcement eliminates many execution risks and better positions us to transition customers smoothly. We are excited to bring Aerohive's market leading cloud management, AI and ML, and SD-WAN capabilities to our customers and partners. We're equally excited to introduce our extensive portfolio of edge-to-cloud solutions to the Aerohive customer and partner base. From a financial perspective, Aerohive's platform is a critical component in our strategy to add subscription-oriented SaaS and cloud-based solutions that will enable us to drive recurring revenue and improved cash flow generation."

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