Silver Peak automates direct branch SD-WAN to Office 365

Silver Peak announced expanded product integration with Microsoft cloud services, enabling enterprise IT organizations to centrally define workflows within its Unity Orchestrator to automate direct branch connectivity to Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure using the Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform.

Specifically, the Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform is now fully integrated with Office 365 IP address and URL web services, providing default support for Microsoft connectivity best practices. This new expanded integration extends the value of advanced capabilities like First-packet iQ application classification and local DNS resolution (for Office 365 endpoints), allowing EdgeConnect to identify and classify Office 365 application traffic on the first packet and now automatically directs it to the nearest Office 365 endpoint. Directing traffic to the nearest endpoint significantly reduces round trip latency for the full suite of Office 365 applications, assuring the highest levels of performance.

“Virtually all Silver Peak customers rely on a combination of Microsoft products and cloud services, and the expanded integration announced today enables our joint customers to maximize user experience with Office 365 and Azure,” said Fraser Street, vice president of technical alliances for Silver Peak. “Today’s announcement underscores our commitment to customers to deliver a portfolio of API-driven integrations to automate connectivity to the most widely deployed, business-critical cloud applications and services from recognized leaders like Microsoft.”

“Silver Peak integration enables our joint customers to easily and securely enable direct and local Internet connectivity for key Office 365 experiences across enterprise branches,” said Bill Baer, senior product marketing manager, Office 365 at Microsoft.

http://www.silver-peak.com

What's driving SD-WAN?

Sunday, September 29, 2019  #SD-WAN, NG-SDWAN, Video  

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

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ADVA debuts multi-band GNSS receiver for 5G

ADVA launched a modular multi-band Global Navigation Satellite Signal (GNSS) receiver for ePRTC and PRTC-B synchronization in 5G networks.

ADVA said its solution is engineered to overcome ionospheric delay variation that causes timing inaccuracy, enabling communication service providers (CSPs) and enterprises to deliver nanosecond precision. Previously, this was achieved with expensive, rubidium clocks.

The multi-band, multi-constellation GNSS receiver card plugs into ADVA’s OSA 5430 and OSA 5440, advanced core grandmaster clocks able to support PTP, NTP and SyncE over multiple 1Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s Ethernet interfaces. This enables network operators to meet the requirements of the ITU’s stringent PRTC-B specifications and support the most advanced 5G applications.

“Our new multi-band GNSS receiver is a major milestone for network synchronization. For the first time, operators can harness a solution with multi-band GNSS capabilities combined with our core devices, which can deliver line rates up to 10Gbit/s and support ePRTC levels of timing accuracy,” said Gil Biran, general manager, Oscilloquartz. “Our modular technology offers a way to enhance equipment in the field, achieve PRTC-B levels of timing and improve the timing accuracy of ePRTC. All that’s required is a simple antenna upgrade. Then our multi-band solution can be plugged into the available slot of our OSA 5430 or OSA 5440 for the nanosecond accuracy that will be key to the services of tomorrow. And, as enhanced availability is also essential for emerging applications, the new technology features unrivalled jamming and spoofing detection capabilities combined with our centralized AI-powered GNSS assurance suite.”

https://www.adva.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/20191104-adva-introduces-multi-band-gnss-receiver-for-5g-timing-accuracy

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Gulf Bridge signs on for ExpressRoute in Middle East

Gulf Bridge International (GBI), which is based in Qatar, and Microsoft have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will support regional cloud adoption in the Middle East.

GBI will serve as an ExpressRoute connectivity partner, enabling customers to benefit from low latency and private cloud connectivity.

 “We are continually exploring new ways to optimise digital experiences for enterprises, and our partnership with Microsoft represents one of the many milestones taken on GBI’s transformation journey,” said Abdulla Al Rwaili, Executive Director and Managing Director at GBI. “The partnership will enable organisations of all kinds to make the move to the cloud with confidence and provide a foundation for digital transformation. We look forward to enabling more organisations to benefit from the flexibility and agility of the cloud.”

Gulf Bridge International picks Nuage for SD-WAN

Monday, June 17, 2019  GBI, Nuage, SD-WAN  

Gulf Bridge International, which provides managed IP services in Europe, Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Asia, will deploy Nuage Networks' SD-WAN 2.0 solution to offer their enterprise customers optimized connectivity between branches and private and public clouds.

GBI said the rollout will enable its customers to set up automated services with specific policies related to availability, reliability or security, via one, unified interface. This includes dynamic responses to security threats such as distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) and the ability to monitor capacity and distribute it manually or automatically in order to meet the bandwidth needs of individual branches or data centers.

Sunil Khandekar, founder and CEO of Nuage Networks, said: "Contributing to this one-of-a-kind service for the region presents immense opportunity for Nuage Networks. By integrating our SD-WAN solution with GBI's extensive network, their enterprise customers will reduce operational overhead and have the ability to create a highly secure and dynamic network to connect all their branches and users to both public and private clouds - at a global scale."

GBI - Transforming Subsea Systems with SDN

Wednesday, December 06, 2017  #MEF17, #SDN, GBI, Subsea  

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Volterra unveils distributed cloud platform for apps

Volterra​, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, emerged from stealth to unveil its distributed cloud platform for deploying and managing applications. The SaaS-based offering integrates a broad range of services that have normally been siloed across many point products and network or cloud providers.

Volterra has raised over $50 million in funding to date from Khosla Ventures, Mayfield and M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), as well as a growing set of strategic investors/partners including Itochu Technology Ventures and Samsung NEXT. Volterra said it now has 100+ engineers and 30+ global customers.

The cloud-native environment can be deployed across multiple public clouds and edge sites. Key capabilities include:

• Fleet-wide management of distributed applications and data across heterogeneous infrastructure
• Globally distributed control plane with Kubernetes APIs for application orchestration and multi-layer security for workloads and data
• Comprehensive compute, storage, networking and security for distributed edge locations
• Secure, high-performance global connectivity across edge sites, private clouds and multi-cloud

Key elements of the offering are:

• VoltStack deploys and manages distributed applications across multiple clouds or edge sites using industry standard Kubernetes APIs
• VoltMesh delivers high performance networking and zero-trust security between multiple clouds and edge sites
• Volterra Console​ is a management console for deploying and operating distributed applications at a global scale with centralized control and observability

http://www.volterra.io​

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Broadcom completes acquisition of Symantec Enterprise Security

Broadcom completed its previously-announced acquisition of Symantec's Enterprise Security Business.

The acquired product portfolio includes enterprise endpoint security, web security services, cloud security and data loss prevention.

The deal was valued at $10.7 billion in cash when it was first announced in August.

Symantec's Enterprise Security business will now operate as the Symantec Enterprise division of Broadcom and will be led by Art Gilliland as SVP and General Manager. Mr. Gilliland most recently served as General Manager of Symantec's Enterprise Security business where he oversaw the Enterprise Security product and engineering teams, Enterprise Security Worldwide Sales and the Enterprise Security customer support organization. He brings more than 20 years of experience in the security software industry.

"Today represents an important milestone as Symantec's Enterprise Security business joins our other semiconductor and software franchises that together form the Broadcom platform," said Hock Tan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Broadcom. "Symantec's Enterprise Security business expands our footprint of mission critical infrastructure software for the Global 2000. We are pleased to welcome the talented team of employees at Symantec Enterprise Security to the Broadcom family."

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Rackspace to acquire Onica, a cloud-native consultancy

Rackspace agreed to acquire Onica, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network (APN) Premier Consulting Partner and AWS Managed Service Provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Onica, which was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, has some 350 consultants across North America. The company holds nine AWS competencies across Data and Analytics, DevOps, Education, Healthcare, Industrial Software, IoT, Microsoft Workloads, Migration and Storage.

“As a cloud pioneer, Onica has established itself as one of the largest pure-play AWS consultancies, with an unmatched reputation for true capability leadership with AWS and customers,” said Kevin Jones, CEO of Rackspace. “This acquisition will strengthen our ability to meet all of our customer needs on AWS, and together, we will have the most complete set of professional services and managed service capabilities in the industry. Rackspace is known for providing Fanatical Experience™ to its customers and Onica’s customer-first mindset is a natural culture fit. We are thrilled to welcome Stephen, Tolga and the talented Onica team to the Racker family.”

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Nokia and Innventure target satellite innovations

Nokia announced a partnership with Innventure, which commercializes innovative technologies, to accelerate commercialization of disruptive Nokia Bell Labs satellite communications technology and intellectual property in areas beyond Nokia core businesses.

The collaboration will focus initially on Adaptive Bandwidth Management (ABM) technology, which improves bandwidth utilization, security and resilience of satellite systems. The technology and inventions originate from Nokia Bell Labs.

Jenni Lukander, President of Nokia Technologies, said: “Nokia continues to explore new ways to help others benefit from Nokia innovations, while creating value from our industry leading portfolio of technologies and innovation. Innventure’s approach has strong potential to further develop selected Nokia innovations on a commercial level.”

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