Open Policy Agent: Building a standard for cloud-native authorization

Here is a quick introduction to Open Policy Agent (OPA), which is now a Cloud Native Computing Foundation incubating project, and which provides an open source, general-purpose policy engine for cloud infrastructure.

The cloud-native stack is becoming so complex and distributed that a common, application autorization mechanism is necessary.

 In this video, Bill Mann, CEO of Styra, talks about how OPA is gaining momentum as the de facto approach for establishing authorization policies across cloud native environments. Styra pioneered OPA. Its founding team of Tim Hinrichs and Teemu Koponen previously played key roles in the development of software-defined networking and network virtualization at Nicira.

https://youtu.be/U-a91ylm8uw

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T-Mobile US begins lighting up 5G with 2.5 GHz spectrum

T-Mobile started lighting up its mid-band 5G spectrum (2.5 GHz) in more than 80 new cities and towns across the United States. The service is delivering peak download speeds of up to 1 Gbps and average speeds of around 300 Mbps - about 7.5x faster than today’s average LTE speeds.

“T-Mobile has the competition in the rear-view mirror on 5G, and they’re only getting farther behind. While the other guys are playing catch-up, we’ve had nationwide 5G since last year, and we’re now adding faster speeds across the country with mid-band 5G,” said Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile. “This is our 5G strategy in action. Mid-band is *the* 5G spectrum, and T-Mobile has more of it than anyone. We have nearly twice as much low and mid-band spectrum as AT&T and nearly triple that of Verizon. And that means T-Mobile is the only one capable of making the world’s best 5G network a reality.”

In April following its merger with Sprint, T-Mobile lit up mid-band 5G in Philadelphia and New York City, with Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. launching soon after.

T-Mobile US activates standalone 5G

Tuesday, August 04, 2020  5G SA, T-Mobile  

T-Mobile US activated standalone architecture (SA) in its 5G network across the United States.

“Since Sprint became part of T-Mobile, we’ve been rapidly combining networks for a supercharged Un-carrier while expanding our nationwide 5G footprint, and today we take a massive step into the future with standalone 5G architecture,” said Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile. “This is where it gets interesting, opening the door for massive innovation in this country — and while the other guys continue to play catch up, we’ll keep growing the world’s most advanced 5G network.”

In SA areas, T-Mobile engineers have already seen up to a 40% improvement in latency during testing.

In the near-term, SA allows T-Mobile to unleash its entire 600 MHz footprint for 5G. With non-standalone network architecture (NSA), 600 MHz 5G is combined with mid-band LTE to access the core network, but without SA the 5G signal only goes as far as mid-band LTE. With today’s launch, 600 MHz 5G can go beyond the mid-band signal, covering hundreds of square miles from a single tower and going deeper into buildings than before.

By flipping the switch to activate SA, T-Mobile increased its 5G footprint by 30 percent — now covering 1.3 million square miles in more than 7,500 cities and towns across the country.

T-Mobile partnered closely with Cisco and Nokia to build its 5G core, and Ericsson and Nokia for 5G radio infrastructure. OnePlus, Qualcomm Technologies and Samsung have helped T-Mobile ensure existing devices can access SA 5G with a software update, based on compatibility.

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VMware intros 5G Telco Cloud Platform

VMware introduced its 5G Telco Cloud Platform, featuring Tanzu Kubernetes Grid - an embedded Kubernetes distribution - that will allow Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to reliably build, manage and run containerized workloads across private, telco, edge and public clouds.

VMware said its new solution provides a cloud-first network architecture to accelerate 5G and edge innovation while delivering service agility, operational consistency and integrated lifecycle management automation from infrastructure up to network services. The idea is to evolve the existing VMware vCloud NFV solution to Telco Cloud Infrastructure, supporting both Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and Cloud Native Network Functions (CNFs) across telco networks.

The VMware Telco Cloud Platform combines VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure – an evolution of the vCloud NFV solution – and VMware Telco Cloud Automation – the recently launched multi-domain orchestration and automation capability.

VMware’s Telco Cloud Automation intelligently automates the end-to-end lifecycle management of network functions and services to simplify operations and accelerate service delivery while optimizing resource utilization. Telco Cloud Automation also now supports infrastructure and Containers-as-a-Service (CaaS) management automation to streamline workload placement and deliver optimal infrastructure resource allocation. It also significantly simplifies the 5G and telco edge network expansions through zero-touch-provisioning (ZTP) whenever capacity is required.

“VMware continues to accelerate the delivery of a comprehensive telco and edge cloud portfolio that addresses our customers’ challenges of today and enables them to harness the opportunities of tomorrow,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud Business Unit, VMware. “With support for cloud native technologies in the Telco Cloud Platform, CSPs can now boost their innovation speed to deliver new applications and services, reduce operational complexities, and realize substantial total cost of ownership savings, further accelerating the rollout of their 5G networks.”

VMware is also announcing Telco Cloud Operations, a real-time automated assurance solution designed to bridge the gap between virtual and physical networks. The solution provides holistic monitoring and performance management across multiple layers of the network, including SD-WAN, for rapid insights, lower costs and improved customer experience. It integrates machine-learning based performance analytics and vivid reporting dashboards for proactive assurance.  Complemented by the Uhana solution from VMware that provides intelligent automation for Radio Access Networks (RANs), CSPs can have comprehensive operations visibility across their entire network.

https://blogs.vmware.com/telco/

DISH picks VMware for 5G cloud-native O-RAN

Sunday, August 02, 2020  Dish, Vmware  

DISH selected VMware's Telco Cloud solution for its 5G, cloud-native Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN).

VMware said its Telco Cloud will enable DISH to utilize software from leading vendors to optimize and accelerate its 5G network deployment. Additionally, it will provide DISH with enhanced automation, resiliency, security and flexibility. The VMware Telco Cloud provides an abstraction layer across multiple network domains and enables DISH to leverage hyper-scale public cloud capacity where needed, while maintaining core control points. The software-defined nature of the VMware Telco Cloud is part of the platform to support the DISH ecosystem of partners to accelerate 5G leadership in the U.S.

“VMware software will serve as a powerful foundation for our cloud-native, software-defined 5G network,” said Marc Rouanne, executive vice president and chief network officer, DISH. “By bringing together innovations such as the distributed cloud, edge computing and network slicing, this software will help us provide our customers with customizable, secure solutions that will be more cost-effective than legacy, vertically-integrated, hardware-reliant alternatives.”

“We’re excited to work with DISH to architect and build a state-of-the-art, nationwide cloud-first 5G mobile network platform,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud Business Unit, VMware. “This software-led approach will enable DISH to innovate and deliver new services to all types of customers – enterprise, small business, and consumer – across the U.S.”

VMware certifies Network Functions Orchestration and Automation

Wednesday, June 24, 2020  Vmware  

VMware is expanding its Telco Cloud certification program to enable telco network functions partners to test the interoperability and readiness of their Virtual Network Functions (VNF) and Cloud-Native Network Functions (CNF) with the VMware Telco Cloud platform.

To date, more than 35 partners have received more than 170 certifications. The expanded program will offer two new certifications:

• VMware Ready for Telco Cloud certifies network functions for deployment and lifecycle operations through VMware Telco Cloud Automation, a multi-cloud orchestration and automation platform. As part of this certification program, VMware collaborates with partners to create an ETSI-Compliant descriptor, as well as workflow, resource, and artifacts for a validated and tested Cloud Service Archive (CSAR). This level requires the partner to complete the VMware Ready for Telco Cloud Infrastructure certification as a pre-requisite.
• VMware Ready for Telco Cloud Infrastructure, formerly known as VMware Ready for NFV, identifies telco network functions that interoperate with the core infrastructure layers of the VMware Telco Cloud, as referenced by the VMware ETSI-compliant vCloud NFV Reference Architecture. The focus of this certification level is on the virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) based on VMware Cloud Director and VMware Integrated OpenStack and, shortly, CaaS (Container as a Service): VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid compatibility, as well as the compatibility with the platform’s core components: VMware vSphere for virtualized compute, VMware NSX for virtualized networking and VMware vSAN for virtualized storage. The program is available at no cost to VMware partners. Testing can be completed either in the VMware on-premise certification lab or in the cloud as a self-service model.

VMware said its expanded program enables partners to accelerate the onboarding and deployment of their 5G-ready services on the VMware Telco Cloud platform, thereby reducing communications service providers (CSPs) time to revenue. CSPs benefit from having access to advanced network functions and services, such as 5G Core components, that are ready to be deployed on the VMware Telco Cloud platform.

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Verizon is biggest winner in 3.5 GHz spectrum auction

The FCC posted the winning bidders in its recently completed auction of 70 megahertz of Priority Access Licenses (PALs) in the 3550-3650 MHz band (Auction 105).

Auction 105 gross proceeds reached $4,585,663,345, with net proceeds totaling $4,543,232,339.  A total of 228 bidders won 20,625 of 22,631, or more than 91.1%, of available licenses. 

The full auction results are posted here: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-1009A2.pdf

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ADTRAN enhances its Gigabit switch portfolio

ADTRAN has expanded its NetVanta Gigabit Ethernet Enterprise Switch portfolio to meet a broader range of Power over Ethernet (PoE) budgets.

The new family of switches are designed to support emerging applications in the enterprise, ranging from site surveillance to industrial automation, demand high availability, security and flexible power options.

The NetVanta 1560 Gigabit Ethernet switches combine carrier-grade features like Ethernet OAM and G.8032 Ethernet Ring Protection Switching (ERPS) with enterprise-class features like Denial of Service (DoS) attack prevention and flexible PoE powering. Configurations are available with 8-, 24- and 48-port options.

When paired with ADTRAN’s PON SFPs, the NetVanta 1560 switches can be utilized as high-density ONTs. With the updated QoS capabilities and ethernet protection features, the switches can bridge the gap between traditional enterprise switching and Carrier Ethernet NID solutions, providing a high-value, cost-effective delivery and termination solution. Service providers can deliver gigabit to the switch for MDUs, small business and enterprise customers, including those with large campus environments where these new recovery capabilities and failover times deliver faster than traditional spanning tree modes.

“Businesses are rapidly deploying a wide range of power-intensive, high-capacity connected devices to drive efficiency and improve productivity, but need to consider how these new devices drain both power and bandwidth,” said Brian Lenahan, Enterprise Product Line Manager at ADTRAN. “ADTRAN’s gigabit Ethernet switches make it easier for service providers to support these evolving environments and provide relief for the standard and high-power PoE budgets.”

http://www.adtran.com/switches

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Credo showcases 50G Optical DSPs

At next week's China International Optoelectronic Expo in Shenzhen, Credo will be showcasing its next gen product suite, including:

• New 50G Optical DSPs for 5G Wireless Service Providers
• Next-Gen 100G/200G/400G Optical DSPs for Hyperscale Data Centers
• New Low Power 800G Gearboxes/400G Retimers
• Industry-leading security solutions for MACsec and IPsec
  
• 7nm and 12nm XSR SerDes IP and Chiplets

“We recently closed a Series D Preferred financing round of $100M to accelerate the commercialization of our breakthrough 400Gbps and 800Gbps connectivity solutions,” said Scott Feller, Credo Vice President, Marketing. “We’re excited to demonstrate this new generation of products at CIOE which extends our penetration in the Hyperscale Datacenter market and expands our reach into the 5G wireless carrier markets,” Feller continued.

https://www.credosemi.com

Credo raises $100 million for serial connectivity devices

Tuesday, June 16, 2020  Credo, Funding  

Credo, which develops Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) technology for 100G, 400G, and 800G, closed $100 million in a Series D funding round. Funds & accounts managed by BlackRock led the funding round.

Credo is based in San Jose, California. The company's high performance, low power serial connectivity solutions are designed for next generation platforms requiring 25G, 50G, and 100G signal lane-rate connectivity for 100G, 200G, 400G, and 800G port enabled networks.

Credo’s solutions have been adopted and implemented by leading data centers, networking OEMs and ODMs, and optical transceiver manufacturers. The company has pioneered the development and deployment of HiWire™ Active Electrical Cables (AEC). Plug & play AECs deliver the simple functionality and speed of optical cables without the expense and high energy draw of optics. Built-in retiming and fully equalized signals make AEC a high-performance alternative to the risk and hassles of DAC for in-rack and mid-tier interconnects.

Credo is a founding member of the HiWire Consortium.

"Raising $100M in this round of funding with support from new and existing investors puts us in a very strong position," said Bill Brennan, CEO of Credo. "This enables us to accelerate deployment of our current 400Gbps products, as well as to extend our high-speed connectivity leadership with next generation 800Gbps solutions."

https://www.credosemi.com

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IDC: Worldwide Enterprise WLAN market dips

The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments rose 7.1% year over year in 2Q20, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Wireless LAN Tracker, although the enterprise segment declined 9.5% year over year in 2Q20 with $1.4 billion in revenue. IDC attributes the decline to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the enterprise WLAN market.

Some highlights from IDC:

• Revenues for the enterprise class of WLAN infrastructure have now declined 6.1% in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period a year earlier.
• Wi-Fi 6-enabled dependent access points (APs) made up 28.9% of revenues, up from 21.8% in the first quarter of 2020 and indicating significant adoption of the newest WLAN standard in the enterprise market. 
• Wi-Fi 6 units accounted for 16.8% of shipments, up from 11.8% in the previous quarter. The Wi-Fi 5 standard (802.11ac) still makes up the majority of dependent AP shipments (75.6%) and revenues (69.4%). Overall unit shipments in the enterprise WLAN market fell 6.4% compared to 2Q19.
• The consumer WLAN market grew 20.3% year over year in 2Q20. W
• ithin the consumer market, 60.2% of shipments and 73.7% of revenues were for 802.11ac products. 
• 802.11ax units made up 3.6% of shipments and 9.5% of revenues, showing the slow adoption of Wi-Fi 6 in the consumer market. 
• APs supporting the older 802.11n standard still made up 36.2% of unit shipments and 16.8% of revenues.
• Cisco's enterprise WLAN revenues decreased 10.9% year over year in 2Q20 to $626 million. In the first half of 2020, Cisco's revenues are down 8.9% compared to the first half of 2019. Cisco remains the market share leader, finishing the quarter with 44.3% share, down from 45.7% in 1Q20.
• HPE-Aruba revenues fell 17.1% year over year in 2Q20 and the company's market share stood at 12.8%.
• Ubiquiti enterprise WLAN revenues fell 5.0% year over year. The company's market share was 7.1%, down from 9.5% in the previous quarter.
• CommScope (formerly ARRIS/Ruckus) revenues declined 22.8% year over year in 2Q20. The company held 4.9% market share in the quarter.
• Huawei's revenues rose 2.5% year over year in 2Q20 and its market share rose to 6.1% from 3.8% in the previous quarter (1Q20).

"Organizations around the globe were forced to rapidly adjust their operations in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, leading some organizations to pause investments in WLAN equipment," says Brandon Butler, senior research analyst, Network Infrastructure. "Wireless connectivity can play an important role in the new normal operations of enterprises though. From providing connectivity for cloud-based and communication applications, to enabling the ability to alert and enforce social distancing rules, IDC believes wireless networking will remain an important part of enterprise IT buying plans in the coming years."

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Mitsubishi Electric samples 100Gbps EML

Mitsubishi Electric will begin sampling its 100Gbps EML (electro-absorption modulator laser) CAN, which is aimed at 5G base stations.

The company says its new 100Gbps EML CAN will benefit from greater efficiency in manufacturing optical transceivers.  The device is tuned to the 1310nm wavelength and will operate in the -40°C to + 95°C range.

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Zayo appoints Jesper Aagaard as Managing Director of Europe

Zayo appointed Jesper Aagaard as Managing Director of Europe. He will report directly to Zayo’s CEO, Dan Caruso.

Aagaard joins Zayo from GTT Communications where he served as division president of Europe and drove GTT’s successful integration of Interoute Communications. Prior to GTT, he held leadership positions at Interoute where he was responsible for operations and sales to enterprises, wholesale and channel. He was the co-founder and CEO of Netmore A/S, a profitable connectivity service provider, and oversaw its acquisition by Comendo A/S in 2008.

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