Zoom shifts its video service to Oracle Cloud

Zoom Video Communications, which earlier this month hit the milestone of 300 million daily users (up by 100 million users in a month), is turning to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to add capacity.

The companies said that within hours of deployment, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure was able to support hundreds of thousands of concurrent Zoom meeting participants. After achieving full production, Zoom is now enabling millions of simultaneous meeting participants on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

“We recently experienced the most significant growth our business has ever seen, requiring massive increases in our service capacity. We explored multiple platforms, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure was instrumental in helping us quickly scale our capacity and meet the needs of our new users,” said Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan.

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Equinix expands Cloud Exchange Fabric in EMEA

Equinix is expanding its Cloud Exchange Fabric in seven new EMEA markets: Barcelona, Brussels, Geneva, Istanbul, Lisbon and Sofia, and extending into Hamburg in Q2 2020.

The Equinix Cloud Exchange Fabric enables enterprises and service providers to seamlessly interconnect to a rich ecosystem of clouds, networks, partners and customers.

With the addition of the seven new EMEA markets, ECX Fabric will be available to customers across 45 strategic markets in the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions including Amsterdam, Atlanta, Barcelona, Boston, Brussels, Canberra, Chicago, Culpeper, Dallas, Denver, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Houston, Istanbul, Lisbon, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Manchester, Melbourne, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Osaka, Paris, Perth, Seattle, São Paulo, Silicon Valley, Seoul, Singapore, Sofia, Stockholm, Sydney, Toronto, Tokyo, Warsaw, Washington D.C. and Zurich.

"Most of the organizations we work with around the world are already on a digital transformation journey, and are using the cloud to improve their global reach and seamlessly connect with the customers, partners and suppliers that matter to them. Indeed, in our latest global survey of IT decision-makers, nearly three-quarters (71%) said they plan to move more of their IT functions to the cloud," stated Eugene Bergen Henegouwen, President, EMEA, Equinix.

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Keysight launches new 5G Core Network Test Solution

Keysight Technologies announced LoadCore 5G Core (5GC) Testing software to help mobile operators move from an evolved packet core (EPC) to 5GC.

Keysight’s LoadCore 5GC Testing software simulates complex real-world subscriber models to enable mobile operators and network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) to qualify performance and reliability of voice and data transferred over 5GC networks. Carrier-grade quality of service (QoS) benefits consumers accessing data intensive applications, such video and gaming and businesses that rely on critical IoT applications in sectors such as automotive, manufacturing, energy and utilities.

Keysight’s LoadCore 5GC Testing software is part of an integrated test solution portfolio that enables a connected ecosystem to consistently validate the performance of the network from the edge of the RAN to the cloud. To verify that wireless applications, using either 4G or 5G technology, fulfill the expectations of end-users, Keysight’s test solutions allow mobile operators and network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) to validate both 5G and legacy radio access networks (RANs), as well as the 5GC.

China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI) has selected LoadCore to validate performance using 5GC network equipment provided by major infrastructure vendors.

“5G networks require advanced capabilities to be verified including elastic scaling of network nodes, network slicing and multi-access edge computing (MEC) when simulating the behavior of millions of UEs,” said Kalyan Sundhar, vice president and general manager of Keysight’s Edge-to-Core Group. “Keysight’s new LoadCore 5GC cloud-native testing software enables service providers and network equipment manufacturers to validate the 5G Core networks as they progress from development to deployment.”

“We’re pleased to support China Mobile successfully transition from 4G to 5G using test solutions that support an ambitious 5G deployment strategy, which already services over 50 major cities across China,” said Steve Yan, vice president of sales for Greater China at Keysight Technologies. “Keysight’s LoadCore enables CMRI to swiftly and reliably verify that deployed 5G network equipment supports complex user and traffic models today and in the future.”

https://www.keysight.com/us/en/products/network-test/protocol-load-test/5g-core-testing.html 

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Bharti Airtel picks Nokia for 4G/5G

Bharti Airtel awarded a multi-year agreement to Nokia for the deployment of its SRAN solution across 9 circles1 in India. The deal includes approximately 300,000 radio units deployed across several spectrum bands, including 900 Mhz, 1800 Mhz, 2100 Mhz and 2300 Mhz.

The deployment will expand the capacity of Airtel's 4G network and lay the foundation for providing 5G connectivity in the future. Deployment is expected to be completed by 2022.

Nokia will be the sole provider of SRAN in these 9 circles. The deal will also include Nokia’s RAN equipment, including its AirScale Radio Access, AirScale BaseBand and NetAct OSS solution, which will help Airtel to monitor and manage its network effectively. Nokia Global Services will also play a crucial role in the installation, planning and deployment of the project, which will be executed via the cloud-based Nokia Delivery Platform.

Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India and South Asia) at Bharti Airtel, said: “Airtel has consistently topped network performance charts in studies conducted by multiple global experts. We are committed to continuously invest in emerging network technologies to provide a best-in-class experience to our customers. This initiative with Nokia is a major step in this direction. We have been working with Nokia for more than a decade now and are delighted to use Nokia’s SRAN products in further improving the capacity and coverage of our network as we prepare for the 5G era.”

Rajeev Suri, President and Chief Executive Officer at Nokia, commented: “This is an important agreement for the future of connectivity in one of the world’s largest telecoms markets and solidifies our position in India. We have worked closely with Bharti Airtel for many years and are delighted to extend this long-standing partnership further. This project will enhance their current networks and deliver best-in-class connectivity to Airtel customers but also lay the foundations for 5G services in the future.”

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Huawei intros Cascade Lake storage server with up to 450 TB of storage

Huawei introduced its next-gen FusionServer Pro 2298 V5, a 2U 2-socket storage rack server that provides up to 450 TB storage capacity.

The Huawei next-generation FusionServer Pro 2298 V5 storage server is based on the Cascade Lake Refresh processor, the newest member of the Intel Xeon Scalable processor family. The server supports the Intel Optane DC persistent memory (DCPMM).

The FusionServer Pro 2298 V5 can house 24 3.5-inch and 4 2.5-inch drives, as well as 4 NVMe SSDs, in a 2U space, providing up to 450 TB storage capacity.

Highlights:

• Ultra-large storage: Supports various drive configurations and provides elastic storage capacity, meeting upgrade requirements at different storage capacity levels. Supports SATA/SAS SSDs or PCIe NVMe SSDs as the cache, improving drive read/write performance.
• High I/O expandability: Provides diverse network ports, such as four PCIe 3.0 slots, two 10GE and two GE LOM ports, as well as one OCP mezzanine card 2.0.
• System acceleration: Supports two SATA M.2 SSDs for independent OS installation and high-speed startup. The two M.2 SSDs provide capacity options of 32, 64, 240, and 480 GB, and support hot swap and hardware RAID. All these features ensure the OS high reliability.

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QTS reports on-going data center demand growth from hyperscalers

QTS Realty Trust, a leading colocation data center operator, reported consolidated revenues of $126.3 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2020, an increase of 12.1% compared to the same period in 2019.  EBITDA amounted to $66.8 million, up 13.5% yoy.

QTS said that leasing of new data center capacity in Q1 was driven by continued hyperscale strength combined with steady enterprise demand. Leasing was +15% above the prior four quarter average leasing.

QTS renewed leases with total annualized rent of $11.3 million at an average rent per square foot of $871, which was 5.0% higher than the annualized rent prior to their renewals. The increase in the renewal rate of 5.0% for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 was primarily attributable to a large number of hybrid colocation renewals with power and/or connectivity increases upon renewal.

However, QTS noted that since the beginning of the economic disruptions from COVID-19, it has experienced a "modest increase in customer requests for payment relief, primarily concentrated in the retail, oil and gas, hospitality and transportation customer verticals. As of March 31, 2020, less than 10% of the Company’s MRR balance was generated from these industries. The total revenue associated with customers requesting some form of payment relief represented less than 5% of the Company’s revenue for the three months ended March 31, 2020. Importantly, of the small number of customers requesting some form of payment relief, as of March 31, 2020, the large majority of these customers were current on their rental payments and while QTS has not reduced their future payments, it has in certain circumstances provided additional flexibility in the form of extended payment terms. In addition to these customer requests for payment relief, the company also has experienced modest delays in construction activity in a few of its markets primarily as a result of availability of contractors and slower permitting."

“In the midst of unprecedented disruption across the economy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, QTS’ business has continued to execute well,” said Chad Williams, Chairman and CEO of QTS.
Williams added, “Following a year of record leasing performance in 2019, we are pleased to extend our momentum with another strong performance in the first quarter. Our strategic differentiators, record booked-not-billed backlog and strong balance sheet and liquidity position QTS well to continue to drive market share growth.”

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Pluribus and Dell build SDN-enabled IoT Video Security Fabric

Pluribus Networks and Dell Technologies have developed an SDN-enabled networking solution to simplify the provisioning and operation of IoT video networks for security and surveillance.

Pluribus said its IoT Video Security Fabric creates a unified, automated multi-site network fabric with highly efficient multicast streaming that enables full visibility and one touch fabric-wide provisioning for efficient operations. The  SDN-enabled distributed multicast forwarding architecture delivers high performance and bandwidth efficiency over any existing transport network without the complexity of typical multicast networking technology. The IoT Video Security Fabric also incorporates secure traffic segmentation to ensure IoT video streams are isolated from other applications. Organizations deploying IoT video networks now have a powerful, flexible and secure solution that eliminates much of the complexity and expense of traditional IP networking infrastructure. The Pluribus Netvisor ONE operating system and Adaptive Cloud Fabric run on the Dell EMC PowerSwitch.

“The IoT Video Security Fabric is a powerful and innovative approach developed specifically to address customers’ IoT video networking pain points,” said Drew Schulke, vice president of Networking for Dell Technologies. “We see this as another option to provide our customers with a secure way of streaming video.”

“Organizations of virtually any size and scope can benefit from a network that delivers IoT video streams to multiple endpoints with on-demand network reconfiguration, but traditional IP networking architectures have been too expensive, inflexible and operationally complex to meet these requirements. That changes with the IoT Video Security Fabric we’ve introduced with Dell Technologies. Now IoT video security can be deployed and operated cost-effectively over any IP-capable network,” said Kumar Srikantan, CEO at Pluribus Networks.

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Juniper posts Q1 revenue of $998 million, flat YoY

Juniper Networks reported Q1 2020 revenue of $998.0 million, flat year-over-year, and a decrease of 17% sequentially. GAAP net income was $20.4 million, a decrease of 34% year-over-year, and a decrease of 88% sequentially, resulting in diluted earnings per share of $0.06. Non-GAAP net income was $77.2 million, a decrease of 17% year-over-year, and a decrease of 61% sequentially, resulting in non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.23.

"Orders grew 10% on a year-over-year basis during the March quarter and improved across each of our core industry verticals. With our stronger than expected demand, we believe our financial results would have exceeded the mid-point of our guidance if not for supply challenges we faced resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic," said Juniper's CEO, Rami Rahim. “While we are starting to see some weakness in our enterprise pipeline, which is impacting visibility into the second half of the year, we believe the overall momentum we are seeing speaks to the strength of our solutions, our strong customer relationships and the efforts we undertook to diversify the business across verticals and customers over the past several years.”

"While we are seeing uncertainty in our business due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect to see sequential revenue and non-GAAP earnings growth in Q2. Confidence in our forecast is driven by strong backlog and healthy momentum with our Service Provider and Cloud customers. We believe these factors should help offset increased uncertainty in certain segments of the Enterprise market. Due to the uncertain macroenvironment we have widened our revenue range for the second quarter.

The company posted the following guidance for the quarter ending June 30, 2020:

• Revenue will be approximately $1,060 million, plus or minus $50 million.
• Non-GAAP gross margin will be approximately 59.5%, plus or minus 1.0%.
• Non-GAAP operating expenses will be approximately $480 million, plus or minus $5 million.
• Non-GAAP operating margin will be approximately 14.0% at the mid-point of revenue guidance.
• Non-GAAP tax rate will be approximately 19.5%.
• Non-GAAP net income per share will be approximately $0.34, plus or minus $0.05. This assumes a share count of approximately 332 million.

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FireEye sees Q1 sales rise to $225 million, up 7%

FireEye reported Q1 revenue of $225 million, up 7 percent from the first quarter of 2019. Q1 billings amounted to $170 million, down 7 percent from the first quarter of 2019.

GAAO income was $(0.35) compared to $(0.38) a year ago.

"While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought several segments of the global economy to a standstill, the cyber threat environment remains very active," said Frank Verdecanna, FireEye chief financial officer and chief accounting officer. "The fundamentals of our business remain strong, and with our liquidity and operational flexibility, we believe we are well positioned to manage through this crisis. However, given the uncertainty regarding the duration and impact of COVID-19, we are withdrawing our billings and operating cash flow guidance for the full year 2020. In addition, the guidance that we are providing for Q2 2020 and the full year 2020 comes with the caveat that there is significant uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that actual results could differ materially from our outlook."

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