Thursday, December 5, 2019

ADVA leads OptiCON project for next gen optical transport

ADVA is leading a research project funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) focused on next-generation optical transport capacity.

The OptiCON project will explore unused optical spectrum beyond the C-and L-bands, new fiber types, novel transmission schemes, as well as advanced monitoring and SDN control.

“This project couldn’t be more vital. With optical transmission approaching the Shannon Limit and continual increases in per-channel speeds slowly coming to an end, we’re looking at disruptive ways to expand network capacity in the future. By using untapped spectrum, we can maximize the value of dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) networks and tackle soaring data demand from cloud, video and mobile,” said Annika Dochhan, principal engineer, advanced technology, ADVA and OptiCON project lead. “OptiCON is about engineering the next-generation of transport networks and empowering operators to keep pace with the exponential traffic growth they are facing. It builds on everything we’ve achieved with our FSP 3000 open line system (OLS) and TeraFlex™ terminal technology, which ensures lowest cost per bit for any network. Now with OptiCON we’re taking fiber transmission to the next level.”

ADVA says that by working to overcome longstanding technical and economic hurdles, OptiCON is enabling operators to exploit much more of the available fiber bandwidth and therefore carry more bits per second. This will be achieved through a combination of technical innovations, including advanced amplifiers, improved fibers, novel transceivers, and new techniques for monitoring and control. The three-year ADVA-led project involves the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute HHI, highstreet technologies, the Technical University of Munich and VPIphotonics.

“Our work in OptiCON is focused on the physical layer and developing optical telemetry. This is crucial to enabling the fine-grained data signal adjustments needed for full capacity optimization,” commented Ronald Freund, head of photonic networks and systems, Fraunhofer HHI. “As a leading research institute for optical transport technology, we have a key role to play in developing the digital society. Working with ADVA and the other partners at the center of this cutting-edge project is very exciting. Together we’re developing the technology that will form the building blocks of tomorrow’s networks.”

DARE1 subsea cable project for East Africa advances

All manufacturing aspects for the Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (DARE1) submarine cable system are complete and loading of the cable onto the ship SubCom Durable is underway. Subcom reports that the project is progressing on schedule and the system is on track to be ready for commercial traffic in June 2020.

DARE1 will have four landing stations to help expand connectivity in Eastern Africa: Djibouti (Djibouti), Bosaso (Somalia), Mogadishu (Somalia) and Mombasa (Kenya). With a finalised cable length of 4,854 km, DARE1 will include three branching units and 41 dual-stage repeaters to maximise its capacity.  Subcom is the contractor. The project is led by Djibouti Telecom, Telkom Kenya, and Somtel.

The four cable landing points are located in port cities along the eastern coast of Africa and will enable enhanced communication and connection with other cable systems around the globe. In addition to the dual-stage repeaters included on all branches of the system, the Bosaso and Mogadishu segments will be equipped with a switched ROADM, to provide flexible capacity routing and a robust fault protection scheme for the system. The structure of the system also includes three branch units off a three fiber-pair trunk, where each pair has a capacity of 40 channels at 300 Gbps.

Dell'Oro: Service Provider Router market dips 3% in 3Q 2019

The worldwide Service Provider Router market declined 3 percent year-over-year in 3Q 2019, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.

In the Asia-Pacific region, a sharp drop in sales to India more than offset growth in other countries.

“Service Provider Router demand continues to lack a strong set of drivers, and other than the China market, 5G RAN deployments are not yet driving significant investments in mobile backhaul and transport networks,” said Shin Umeda, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “Routers supporting 400 Gbps interfaces are just becoming available, but the material impact to the market isn’t likely until 2021” added Umeda.

Additional highlights from the 3Q 2019 Router & Carrier Ethernet Switch Quarterly Report:

  • Cisco was the top-ranked Service Provider Router vendor, followed in order by Huawei, Nokia, and Juniper.
  • Service Provider Router rankings by region show Cisco with the top spot in North America. Nokia leads Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, and Huawei ranked highest in the Asia-Pacific region.
http://www.delloro.com

Dell'Oro: Mobile Core market jumps 14% in 3Q19

Mobile Core Network market revenue increased 14 percent year-over-year in the trailing four-quarter period ending in 3Q 2019, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. Ericsson and Huawei were the top two vendors in that period.

“Four dominant themes arise from the Mobile Core Network report,” according to David Bolan, Senior Analyst at Dell’Oro Group. “First, the Mobile Core Network market is growing as already noted. Second, Ericsson and Huawei are the clear market leaders, with Nokia holding a strong third-place rank, with ZTE and Cisco rounding out the top five manufacturers. Third, the Asia Pacific region with its large population centers remains the number one market in revenue despite its lower average selling prices. Fourth, 5G is real and happening,” Bolan stated.

“With over 50 service providers offering 5G service with the 5G NSA architecture, we expect 5G SA in 2020 with the 5G Core. There have been many press releases about milestone achievements with 5G SA recently, as tests in the labs and the field verify the performance of the 5G SA architecture with the 5G Core. This demonstrates that the market is on target to launch 5G SA with 5G Core in 2020,” Bolan continued.

The new Mobile Core Network report from Dell’Oro Group includes Wireless Packet Core, IMS Core, Policy, and Subscriber Management. It provides a comprehensive view of the wireless core market by revenue, volume, vendor, and region.

https://www.delloro.com/

IDC: Server market dips 6.7% in 3Q 2019

Vendor revenue in the worldwide server market declined 6.7% year over year to $22.0 billion during the third quarter of 2019 (3Q19), according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker.  Worldwide server shipments declined 3.0% year over year to just under 3.1 million units in 3Q19.


"While the server market did indeed decline last quarter, next-generation workloads and advanced server innovation (e.g., accelerated computing, storage class memory, next-generation I/O, etc.) keep demand for enterprise compute at near historic highs," said Paul Maguranis, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. "In fact, 3Q19 represented the second-biggest quarter for global server unit shipments in more than 16 years, eclipsed only by 3Q18."

Some highlights:

  • Dell Technologies and the combined HPE/New H3C Group ended 3Q19 in a statistical tie* for the number one position with 17.2% and 16.8% revenue share, respectively. 
  • Revenues for Dell Technologies declined 10.8% year over year 
  • Revenues for HPE/New H3C Group was down 3.2% year over year. 
  • The third-ranking server company during the quarter was Inspur/Inspur Power Systems, which captured 9.0% market share and grew revenues 15.3% year over year. 
  • Lenovo and Cisco ended the quarter tied* for the fifth position with 5.4% and 4.9% revenue share, respectively. 
  • Lenovo saw revenue decline by 16.9% year over year and Cisco saw its revenue grow 3.1% year over year.
  • The ODM Direct group of vendors accounted for 26.4% of total revenue and declined 7.1% year over year to $5.82 billion. 
  • Dell Technologies led the worldwide server market in terms of unit shipments, accounting for 16.4% of all units shipped during the quarter.

CyrusOne hit by ransomware attack

CyrusOne was hit by a ransomware attack impacting at least six of its data center colocation managed services customers.

In a statement, CyrusOne said its working to restore availability after a ransomware program encrypted certain devices. The customers are primarily serviced by CyrusOne’s New York Data Center.

CyrusOne’s data center colocation services, including IX and IP Network Services, are not involved in this incident.

CyrusOne said it is working closely with third-party experts and legal authorities to address this matter.

https://cyrusone.com/

BT Ireland tests 1.2 Tbps DCI from Huawei

BT Ireland has completed testing a 1.2 Tbps connection between two data centers in Dublin using equipment from Huawei.

The trial used Huawei-developed OptiXtreme series oDSP chips and high-performance optical transmission modules, which use a unique Channel-Matched Shaping (CMS) technique to sense key parameters of optical channels. AI enables the system to compensate for link impairments and optimize the transmission spectrum efficiency accordingly.

Huawei said its Super-C line system can deliver a single-fiber capacity of 48 Tbps.

https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/12/Huawei-BT-Ireland-Industry-First-1dot2Tbs-Transmission-RealTime-Trial

Broadband Forum adopts open model for its standards work

The Broadband Forum has officially adopted open principles to guide its standards development work.

The by-law amendment was passed on 14 October and the transition was confirmed at its Q4 meeting in Panama City, Panama.

“Our move to an open organization is very much like the key piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle that we have been working on for a number of years, so it is fulfilling to step back and look at the significant transformation that we’ve achieved to date,” said Robin Mersh, CEO of Broadband Forum. “That said, our evolution continues in step with the transformations taking place across the entire broadband industry. Broadband Forum is very much taking a leading role here; we are one of the first to make the shift, becoming much more like our sister organizations such as the IETF, the IEEE and the ITU. We would encourage anyone who is interested in helping open the whole broadband ecosystem to come and see the work we do in promoting both open source and standards.”

Broadband Forum also reports that its work has continued to progress rapidly, with initiatives being undertaken across key areas including 5G, the Connected Home, Open Broadband and next-generation access.

https://www.broadband-forum.org/

Google acquires 3 buildings from Cisco on Tasman Dr. in San Jose

Google has acquired three office buildings from Cisco in north San Jose. The buildings are located at 175, 255 and 285 W. Tasman Drive. Financial terms were not disclosed.

According to Channel 5 KPIX, Google plans to demolish the existing structures and build a new campus at the site.

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/12/04/google-buys-cisco-buildings-continues-silicon-valley-expansion/

NTT Data to acquire Flux7, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner

NTT DATA Services agreed to acquire Flux7, an IT services firm that improves business agility through IT delivery optimization and cloud-native application migration and modernization. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Flux7, which is based in Austin, Texas, is an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Consulting Partner that provides cloud implementation and migration, automation, and DevOps consulting services for enterprises with significant experience in the financial services, pharmaceuticals, software, manufacturing and retail industries.

"The acquisition of Flux7 will enhance the value we can deliver in AWS, DevOps, and Agile development capabilities, while aligning with our focus to drive digital services for our clients," said Bob Pryor, CEO, NTT DATA Services. "With an excellent brand, industry recognition and impressive client base, as well as a strong record of growth, Flux7 is a strategic fit for our business and part of our ongoing strategy of growth through acquisition."

Spirent intros 100G and Crypto performance testing

Spirent Communications introduced a C200 appliance for 100G and Crypto performance testing.

The C200, which represents a significant expansion of the Spirent CyberFlood security and application performance testing solution family, is a 1RU appliance providing connectivity at 10G, 25G, 40G, 50G, and 100G. The C200 offers up to 16 x 10G or 4 x 100G ports per appliance. Multiple C200s can be combined to offer 48 x 100G or 192 x 10G ports, delivering more than 3.5Tbps of application layer testing capacity in 12U of rack space.

The C200 with CyberFlood supports NetSecOPEN standards-based testing methodologies, that better reflect how modern security and content inspection solutions will perform under a variety of real-world traffic conditions and threats. In addition, the C200 supports Spirent’s legacy Avalanche solution, which provides extensive client emulation and application services load testing on a massive scale.

https://www.spirent.com/Products/CyberFlood

Singtel names Kelly Bayer Rosmarin as CEO of Optus

Singtel named Kelly Bayer Rosmarin as CEO Designate of both Optus and Consumer Australia with immediate effect. She will assume the reins from Mr Allen Lew and will join the Singtel management committee from 1 April 2020. Lew will take on the newly-created role of CEO Group Strategy and Business Development and Country Chief Officer Thailand and continue as chairman of the executive committee of Thai associate, AIS.

Ms Bayer Rosmarin currently serves as Deputy CEO of Optus. Prior to joining Singtel in March 2019, Ms Bayer Rosmarin was Group Executive of Institutional Banking and Markets at CBA where she drove significant business growth and digital transformation programmes. She has been named among the Top 10 Businesswomen in Australia and Top 25 Women in Asia Pacific Finance.