DataBank to acquire Zayo's zColo data centers

DataBank agreed to acquire Zayo Group's zColo business, including 44 data centers across 23 markets in the U.S. and Europe. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal will make DataBank one of the largest privately-held data center operators in the U.S. and a leading provider of edge colocation and connectivity solutions to hyperscale, technology, and content customers across the U.S. Zayo Group will become a significant customer and continue to be an anchor tenant within the zColo facilities. Following completion of the deal, DataBank's assets will include:

• 64 data centers in 29 markets (up from 20 data centers and 9 markets)
• Over 3,000 customers including many Fortune 100 and leading cloud and content providers
• Pro forma annual revenue of over $450M
• 1.1M raised square feet of data center space
• 141 MW of installed UPS capacity
• Over 30,000 network cross connects
• 18 major network interconnection points
• 12 cloud nodes

DataBank said the acquisition also significantly accelerates its edge and hybrid cloud strategies. The expanded data center footprint provides DataBank’s customers with new geographic options for colocating their mission-critical content, data, and workloads closer to end-user populations in key markets like Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Miami, Boston, and New York City. With double the number of private cloud nodes and public-cloud on-ramps, DataBank customers will have more flexibility to design hybrid IT solutions that adapt as their infrastructure needs evolve.

“Simply put, this highly complementary acquisition will allow us to serve customers better. The strategic rationale is fully aligned with our core ‘Data Center Evolved’ strategy built around providing customers broad geographic reach as they move their content and applications closer to the edge,” said Raul K. Martynek, CEO of DataBank. “We look forward to integrating zColo into our portfolio while elevating our existing level of service to meet the increasingly diverse workloads of our enterprise customers.”

“This agreement allows both parties to focus on their core strengths,” said Dan Caruso, Zayo Group’s CEO. “We’ll continue building the most fiber-rich digital infrastructure in the world while DataBank focuses on hosting the innovations and digital workloads that our fiber and network infrastructure were designed to fuel.”

The transaction is being funded by an investor group led by Colony Capital (NYSE: CLNY), DataBank’s controlling shareholder, which includes Nuveen Real Estate and others. In addition to leading a consortium of world-class institutional investors to support the acquisition, Colony Capital is investing $145 million from its balance sheet to maintain its 20% stake in DataBank. Debt financing associated with the transaction has been underwritten by TD Securities, Truist Securities and Société Générale, acting as Joint Lead Arrangers and Joint Bookrunners for the new Credit Facility.

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Telstra launches 400G service based on Ciena

 Telstra has launched commercial wavelength services based on 400G technology from Ciena. For the deployment, Ericsson delivered Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai and WaveLogic 5 Extreme solutions along with associated local professional services for optical transmission. The higher bandwidth services can now quickly be delivered with a single card, offering on-demand capacity, from 100G up to 400G. 

In a trial, Telstra also achieved 700G per wavelength transmission between Melbourne and Sydney – a distance of greater than 1,000km.

“Telstra’s network is geared for 5G, cloud computing, and applications like edge-computing, and this is a significant and fundamental upgrade to the hidden infrastructure that powers our business across Australia.  By upgrading our optical transmission networks with 400G technology, Telstra will be able to cater for capacity demands of up to 400% of what was previously achievable. The upgrade enables us to rapidly deliver services to customers at scale without fibre builds, decreasing the time to market from weeks, to days” Chris Meissner, Transport, IP Core & Edge Engineering Telstra Executive, said.

“This optical transmission upgrade is an important step in increasing capacity requirements to meet unprecedented capacity demands.  This critical infrastructure capability forms the foundation of Telstra’s current and future network requirements and ensures Telstra can achieve transmission cost efficiencies and scale to meet the traffic demands that come with media rich and next generation services including 5G and edge compute services. This latest industry milestone will ensure that Australia remains at the cutting-edge of telecommunications technology,” Emilio Romeo, Head of Ericsson Australia and New Zealand said.

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IDC: Infrastructure spending on public and private cloud increased 34.4% in Q2

Vendor revenue for infrastructure products (server, enterprise storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud environments, including public and private cloud, increased 34.4% year over year in the second quarter of 2020 (2Q20), according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker. Investments in traditional, non-cloud, IT infrastructure declined 8.7% year over year in 2Q20.

Some observations from IDC:

• Rapid shifts in business, educational, and societal activities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had a direct effect on IT infrastructure spending.
• These include massive shifts to online tools in all aspects of human life, including collaboration, virtual business events, entertainment, shopping, telemedicine, and education. 
• Spending on public cloud IT infrastructure increased 47.8% year over year in 2Q20, reaching $14.1 billion and exceeding the level of spend on non-cloud IT infrastructure for the first time. Spending on private cloud infrastructure increased 7% year over year in 2Q20 to $5 billion with on-premises private clouds accounting for 64.1% of this amount.
• IDC believes the hardware infrastructure market has reached the tipping point and cloud environments will continue to account for an increasingly higher share of overall spending. 
• While IDC increased its forecast for both cloud and non-cloud IT spending for the full year 2020, investments in cloud IT infrastructure are still expected to exceed spending on non-cloud infrastructure, 54.8% to 45.2%. 
• Most of the increase in spending will be driven by public cloud IT infrastructure, which is expected to slow in 2H20 but increase by 16% year over year to $52.4 billion for the full year. Spending on private cloud infrastructure will also experience softness in the second half of the year and will reach $21.5 billion for the full year, an increase of just 0.3% year over year.
• Within cloud deployment environments in 2020, compute platforms will remain the largest segment (50.9%) of spending at $37.7 billion while storage platforms will be the fastest-growing segment with spending increasing 21.2% to $27.8 billion, and the Ethernet switch segment will grow 3.9% year over year to $8.5 billion.
• Spending on cloud IT infrastructure increased across all regions in 2Q20 with the two largest regions, China and the U.S., delivering the highest annual growth rates at 60.5% and 36.9% respectively. 
• In all regions except Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East & Africa, growth in public cloud infrastructure exceeded growth in private cloud IT.
• At the vendor level, the results were mixed. Inspur more than doubled its revenue from sales to cloud environments, climbing into a tie* for the second position in the vendor rankings while the group of original design manufacturers (ODM Direct) grew 63.6% year over year. Lenovo's revenue exceeded $1 billion, growing at 49.3% year over year.

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS46895020

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VMware and NVIDIA partnership spans enterprise and data center solutions

VMware and NVIDIA entered into a broad partnership to deliver both an end-to-end enterprise platform for AI and a new architecture for data center, cloud and edge that uses NVIDIA DPUs (data processing units) to support existing and next-generation applications.

Highlights:

• AI software available on the NVIDIA NGCTM hub will be integrated into VMware vSphere, VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware Tanzu. This will help accelerate AI adoption, enabling enterprises to extend existing infrastructure for AI, manage all applications with a single set of operations, and deploy AI-ready infrastructure where the data resides, across the data center, cloud and edge.
• the companies will partner to deliver an architecture for the hybrid cloud based on SmartNIC technology, including NVIDIA’s programmable NVIDIA BlueField-2. The combination of VMware Cloud Foundation and NVIDIA BlueField-2 will offer next-generation infrastructure that is purpose-built for the demands of AI, machine learning, high-throughput and data-centric apps. It will also deliver expanded application acceleration beyond AI to all enterprise workloads and provide an extra layer of security through a new architecture that offloads critical data center services from the CPU to SmartNICs and programmable DPUs.

“We are partnering with NVIDIA to bring AI to every enterprise; a true democratization of one of the most powerful technologies,” said Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware. “We’re also collaborating to define a new architecture for the hybrid cloud—one purpose built to support the needs and demands of the next generation of applications. Together, we’re positioned to help every enterprise accelerate their use of breakthrough applications to drive their business.”

“AI and machine learning have quickly expanded from research labs to data centers in companies across virtually every industry and geography,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “NVIDIA and VMware will help customers transform every enterprise data center into an accelerated AI supercomputer. NVIDIA DPUs will give companies the ability to build secure, programmable, software-defined data centers that can accelerate all enterprise applications at exceptional value.”

Innovative Ways to Accelerate Public and Private Cloud Infrastructure

Customers deploying cloud infrastructure run into performance issues in four key areas: virtualization, SDN, storage, and security. In this video, Ash Bhalgat, Senior Director of Cloud & Telco Market Development at NVIDIA’s Networking Business Unit, explains how to achieve maximum cloud infrastructure efficiency without sacrificing performance by using NVIDIA’s Mellanox Networking products and open-source software tools.

https://youtu.be/bUf0QFJglWU

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BT picks Nokia as key 5G RAN supplier

BT awarded a major contract to Nokia it making its largest 5G supplier.

As part of the deal, Nokia will provide equipment and services at BT radio sites across the UK. Nokia will supply its AirScale Single RAN (S-RAN) portfolio for both indoor and outdoor coverage, including 5G RAN, AirScale base stations and Nokia AirScale radio access products.

BT’s Nokia-powered network, which currently includes Greater London, the Midlands and rural locations, will be extended to also cover multiple other towns and cities across the United Kingdom. 

BT will also utilize Nokia Software’s ng-SDM and NetAct network management platform, supporting the network evolution to 5G. These build upon the existing network architecture and provide an immediate cornerstone and single platform for new 5G-based services. Nokia will also provide its state-of-the-art Cell Site Gateway product providing key backhaul connectivity. 

Nokia will also provide digital design and deployment for a faster time to market as well as optimization and technical support services.

Philip Jansen, CEO, BT Group said: “Digital connectivity is critical to the UK’s economic future, creating jobs and underpinning sustainable growth. That’s why BT is making game-changing investments in full fibre and 5G. In a fast-moving and competitive market, it’s critical we make the right technology choices. With this next stage of our successful relationship with Nokia we will continue to lead the rollout of fixed and mobile networks to deliver stand-out experiences for customers.”

Nokia to supply fiber solutions to Openreach

Thursday, May 21, 2020  Nokia, UK  

Nokia will supply its fiber solutions to Openreach to help meet its target of bringing ultra-fast and reliable broadband access to 20 million homes across the UK by the mid-to-late 2020s. Nokia will provide GPON and XGS-PON technologies to expand Openreach’s fiber-rich network to reach 4.5 million premises by the end of March 2021. The solution, which includes the 7360 ISAM FX, Nokia 7362 ISAM DF and Nokia ISAM ONTs, is capable of delivering up...

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BT confirms Ericsson for 5G core

Wednesday, April 15, 2020  BT, Ericsson, UK  

BT signed a deal to deploy Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core (Evolved Packet Core and 5G Core), a fully container-based, cloud native Mobile Packet Core for 4G, 5G Non-standalone and 5G Standalone services as a single fully integrated core. The solution, delivered on BT’s Network Cloud, will form a key component in BT’s move to a single converged IP network. It will incorporate network orchestration and automation, including continuous delivery and integration...

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Lumen links with VMware

Lumen Technologies (formerly CenturyLink) and VMware announced an alliance covering edge compute, networking, and security. As part of the collaboration:

• Lumen will deliver edge services using integrated VMware technologies. 
• Lumen will integrate VMware SD-WAN, VMware Workspace ONE and VMware Carbon Black to deliver a “Work from Anywhere” solution on their global edge infrastructure to create thin-branch solutions for businesses of all sizes across a variety of industries.
• Lumen will also be able to develop edge computing services for enterprises to develop new digital services using VMware Tanzu so applications can run consistently from the data center to the cloud to the edge, leveraging the Lumen network. The reach of Lumen’s distributed edge computing sites will also improve application performance with quicker access to multi-cloud environments.

“The combined capabilities of Lumen and VMware will empower organizations to take on the next phase of digital business,” said Rajiv Ramaswami, chief operating officer, products and cloud services, VMware. “We are helping customers take advantage of holistic solutions that support the people, processes, apps, and data that power business.”

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NETGEAR combines multigigabit cable modem with mesh WiFi 6

 NETGEAR introduced its Orbi WiFi 6 Tri-band Mesh System with DOCSIS 3.1 built-in cable modem.

The 8 stream WiFi 6 mesh system includes a dedicated quad stream 5Ghz backhaul channel for connectivity between the router and satellite which reduces congestion while allowing all devices on the network to run faster.

“Since 2016, NETGEAR has led the mesh category with the performance of our Orbi Tri-band Mesh WiFi Systems. Now, with the combination of the leading DOCSIS 3.1 modem technology and advanced WiFi 6 mesh, cable subscribers are being introduced to a new world of broadband access with the fastest internet speeds,” said David Henry, senior vice president of Connected Home Products for NETGEAR. 

MSRP is $599.99 USD. The stand-alone Orbi Mesh Cable Modem Router can also be purchased separately to add to an existing Orbi Mesh WiFi 6 System for an MSRP of $449.99 USD. 

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