Thursday, January 14, 2021

Google Cloud and Nokia announce Telco Cloud Partnership

Google Cloud and Nokia announced a global, strategic partnership focused on cloud-native solutions for communications service providers (CSPs), including a cloud-native 5G Core and a network edge for business services.

Under this partnership, Google Cloud and Nokia will work closely to validate, optimize and evolve cloud-native network functions, and the two companies will also co-innovate new solutions that will help CSPs deliver 5G connectivity and services at scale.


Nokia is supplying its voice core, cloud packet core, network exposure function, data management, signaling, and 5G core. This includes Nokia’s IMPACT IoT Connected Device Platform, which enables automated, zero-touch activation and allows for remote management of IoT devices, as well as Nokia’s Converged Charging solution provides real-time rating and charging capabilities

Google Cloud’s Anthos for Telecom will serve as the platform for deploying applications, enabling CSPs to build an ecosystem of services that are deployable anywhere, from the edge of the network, to public clouds, private clouds and carrier networks. By delivering cloud-native applications at the edge, businesses can benefit from lower latency and reduce the need for costly, on-site infrastructure, enabling them to transform their businesses in industries such as smart retail, connected manufacturing and digital consumer experiences.

George Nazi, VP, Telco, Media & Entertainment Industry Solutions at Google Cloud, said: “Communications service providers have a tremendous opportunity ahead of them to support businesses’ digital transformations at the network edge through both 5G connectivity and cloud-native applications and capabilities. Doing so requires modernized infrastructure, built for a cloud-native 5G core, and we’re proud to partner with Nokia to help the telecommunications industry expand and support these customers.”

Ron Haberman, CTO of Cloud and Network Services at Nokia, said: “In the past five years, the telecom industry has evolved from physical appliances to virtual network functions and now cloud-native solutions. Nokia is excited to work with Google Cloud in service of our customers, both CSPs and enterprise, to provide choice and freedom to run workloads on premise and in the public cloud. Cloud-native network functions and automation will enable new agility and use-cases in the 5G era.”

In a news release, Neil McRae, Chief Architect at BT Group, and Alex Choi, SVP, Strategy and Technology Innovation at Deutsche Telekom, voiced their support for the Google-Nokia partnership.


Nokia migrates its on-premise IT infrastructure to Google Cloud

 Nokia and Google Cloud entered into a five-year strategic collaboration under which Nokia will migrate its on-premise IT infrastructure onto Google Cloud. Specifically, Nokia will migrate its data centers and servers around the world, as well as various software applications, onto Google Cloud infrastructure. Nokia will also use a suite of Google Cloud products and professional services.  Nokia plans to exit its IT data centers on a rapid...

Orange enters strategic partnership with Google Cloud

Orange has entered into a strategic partnership with Google Cloud. The collaboration aims to accelerate the transformation of Orange’s IT infrastructure and the development of future cloud services, in particular edge computing. Under the partnership, Google will provide its know-how in cutting-edge cloud technologies, world-class analytics and AI tools, as well as proven digital transformation methodology and dedicated resources. Orange will contribute...

Google Cloud and Telefónica form partnership

Google Cloud and Telefónica announced a strategic partnership to foster Spain's digital transformation and advance 5G mobile edge computing. The companies said their partnership marks the significance and relevance of cloud computing for the future of the telecommunications industry. Under the arrangement: Google Cloud will launch a cloud region in Spain using Telefonica's Madrid region infrastructure. Telefónica will use Google Cloud services...

Google Cloud sharpens focus on telco opportunity

Google Cloud is refocusing its effort to become a strategic technology provider for telecom operators. Highlights of the announcement include: Anthos for Telecom, a cloud application platform to the network edge that is based on Kubernetes. a collaboration with AT&T to test 5G edge computing for retail, manufacturing, transportation, etc.  a partnership with Amdocs to enable communications service providers to run Amdocs’ on Google Cloud,...


Cisco and Acacia reach new merger deal - $4.5B vs $2.6B

Cisco and Acacia Communications reached a new deal under which Cisco will pay $115 per share in cash, or for approximately $4.5 billion on a fully diluted basis, to acquire Acacia.

The companies believe the acquisition can be completed by the end of this quarter.

"I am delighted that Cisco and Acacia have decided to come together in this mutual deal," said Chuck Robbins, chairman and CEO, Cisco. "We look forward to welcoming Raj and the Acacia team to Cisco to offer our customers world-class coherent optical solutions to power the Internet for the future.""Both Cisco and Acacia have been focused on helping customers create a simpler operations environment, with a shared vision for the future of routing and switching with pluggable optics," said Bill Gartner, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Optical Systems and Optics Group. "Together we will ignite our strategy to transform the optical world as we know it, with innovative solutions to boost network capacity inside and outside the data center."

"We maintain our strong conviction in the strategic benefits of joining the Cisco family and believe it will enable us to better support our existing customers, while reaching an expanded footprint of new customers globally," said Raj Shanmugaraj, president and CEO of Acacia. "We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Cisco and are excited to move forward with the combination which we believe will transform the optical industry, while providing great opportunities for Acacia employees to continue their innovation." 

http://ir.acacia-inc.com/news-releases/news-release-details/cisco-and-acacia-communications-announce-amended-merger

Cisco to acquire Acacia for Coherent Optics

Cisco agreed to acquire Acacia Communications for $70.00 per share in cash, or for approximately $2.6 billion on a fully diluted basis, net of cash and marketable securities. The deal is expected to close during the second half of Cisco's FY2020. Acacia employees will join Cisco's Optical Systems and Optics business within the networking and security business under David Goeckeler.

Acacia, which is headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts and is publicly traded ((NASDAQ: ACIA), develops, manufactures and sells high-speed coherent optical interconnect products, including digital signal processing / photonic integrated circuit modules, and transceivers.



http://ir.acacia-inc.com/static-files/3364e03b-6e70-4933-8c93-84b6fe4c74df

Cisco to acquire Luxtera for silicon photonics -- $660M

Cisco agreed to acquire privately-held Luxtera, a developer of silicon photonic technologies, for $660 million in cash and assumed equity awards.

Luxtera, which is based in Carlsbad, California, focuses on silicon photonics process and packaging technologies for building integrated optics capabilities for webscale and enterprise data centers, service provider market segments, and other customers.

Luxtera leverages a hybrid integration approach wherein the photonics die forms the base of the transceiver chipset, while the light source and electronics die are attached on top. The company says its ability to integrate all optical components into a single silicon chip enables it to manufacture at wafer scale.

Cisco said the integration of Luxtera will broaden its portfolio of 100GbE and 400GbE optics. Cisco plans to incorporate Luxtera's technology across its intent-based networking portfolio, spanning enterprise, data center and service provider markets.

IDC: Private LTE/5G infrastructure market to reach $5.7 billion in 2024

 Worldwide revenue attributable to the sales of private LTE/5G infrastructure will grow from $945 million in 2019 to an estimated $5.7 billion in 2024 with a 5-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43.4%, according to International Data Corporation (IDC) . This includes aggregated spending on RAN, core, and transport infrastructure.


"Private LTE infrastructure is already used by select verticals worldwide to solve mission-critical networking challenges. However, the barrier to consumption has remained high, limiting adoption to organizations possessing in-house competency and access to dedicated spectrum," said Patrick Filkins, senior research analyst, IoT and Mobile Network Infrastructure. "With more spectrum being made available for enterprise uses, coinciding with the arrival of commercial 5G, interest has grown toward using private LTE/5G solutions as a basis for connectivity across a multitude of mission-critical, industrial and traditional enterprise organizations."

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS47318621

Versa Networks now serves 100s of thousands of sites with SD-WAN

Versa Networks reported a record year for 2020 which saw sales nearly double with hundreds of thousands of sites and tens of millions of end users across thousands of Enterprises worldwide. 

The privately-held company said it doubled registered channel partners around the world in 2020, increased its workforce by 25 percent and grew to 150 Service Providers, including seven of the world’s top 10, who have standardized on Versa.

“Versa customers and partners enabled us to deliver an exceptional year in 2020 while helping many businesses, their employees, and their customers to enable a safer, digitally transformed, and continuous business environment during a difficult business environment,” said Kelly Ahuja, CEO with Versa. “Versa SASE and Versa Secure SD-WAN accelerated growth and market leadership in 2020 as recognized by industry experts, analysts, customers, and partners, who we give our gratitude. 2021 is on track to surpass expectations as the adoption of SASE, 5G, and multi-cloud accelerates.”

“Versa substantially increased our product velocity with many new releases introduced in 2020,” said Kumar Mehta, Chief Development Officer for Versa. “The Versa engineering performed flawlessly and even accelerated the delivery of Versa Secure Access ahead of schedule to meet the sudden demand for work from anywhere and work from home requirements experienced by our customers in 2020.”

https://versa-networks.com/

Nokia selected for U.S 5G Cybersecurity Project

Nokia has been selected as a technology provider for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) 5G Cybersecurity Project. Nokia will provide software, 5G RAN and core solutions, and IP-Backhaul, as well as innovations from Nokia Bell Labs.

The 5G Cybersecurity Project will identify a number of 5G use cases and demonstrate how the components of the 5G architecture can provide security capabilities to mitigate identified risks and meet industry sectors’ compliance requirements. The scope of this project is to leverage the 5G standardized security features which are defined in 3GPP standards to provide enhanced cybersecurity capabilities built into network equipment and end user devices.


Kevin Stine, Chief of the Applied Cybersecurity Division at NIST, said: “5G will touch every aspect of our lives and security must be integrated up front rather than an add-on element of 5G networks. We’re looking forward to working with our project collaborators such as Nokia to show 5G’s advanced standards based security features as well an architecture that leverages foundational security capabilities available in cloud technologies.”

Raghav Sahgal, President, Cloud and Network Services at Nokia, said: “Previous cellular technology generations have been industry-led whereas 5G development must evolve in collaboration with governments to ensure availability and access of secure trusted networks. The 5G Cybersecurity Project fills this role with a cross-section of government and industry collaborators on board. At Nokia, we embed security into every solution that we ship, and we are committed to enabling the secure shift to the cloud by working with government agencies and the industry to advance cybersecurity for 5G use cases that leverage both open and commercial components.”



Lightpath appoints Chris Morley as CEO

Lightpath, which serves the greater New York Metropolitan area, has appointed Chris Morley as its new chief executive officer. Morley has more than 20 years of experience in the communications infrastructure and telecommunications industry, most recently serving as senior operating advisor for Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners. Prior to that, Morley spent nearly a decade at Zayo Group, a leading communications infrastructure provider in the US, Canada and western Europe, where he served in various roles of increasing responsibility including most recently as chief operating officer, leading the company’s fiber infrastructure, data center, enterprise networks, and transport service business segments.

Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (MSIP) recently acquired 49.99% of Lightpath from Altice USA, with Altice USA maintaining 50.01% controlling interest in Lightpath.

“Lightpath has a rich and successful history of providing advanced communications services in the greater New York metropolitan area, and I’m excited to partner with Altice USA and MSIP to invest in and grow the business,” said Morley. “Leveraging our shared experiences from Lightpath, Lightower and Zayo, coupled with the extensiveness of the Company’s fiber infrastructure network create a unique and relevant platform to the benefit and enablement of our customers.”


Advantech joins O-RAN Alliance

Advantech has joined the O-RAN ALLIANCE, a world-wide community of mobile network operators, vendors, and institutions that works to re-shape the Radio Access Network (RAN) industry. 

Advantech brings to the O-RAN ALLIANCE ecosystem its white-box hardware provider expertise as well as the Advantech SKY-8000 Series of 5G Edge Servers that integrates lessons learnt from over 20 years of experience designing carrier-grade hardware for leading telecom equipment manufacturers.

“The O-RAN ALLIANCE is disrupting how mobile networks are deployed for the first time since early analogue cellular days. As it happened to other industries before, virtualization and open interfaces lower entry barriers and stimulate the creation of a competitive ecosystem that drives innovation,” said James Yang, VP, Cloud-IoT Group, Advantech. “Advantech supports the O-RAN ALLIANCE in taking an ecosystem approach to collectively address the challenges of deploying multi-vendor and disaggregated 5G networks. As new O-RAN contributors, we will take the opportunity to expand our collaborations in the RAN industry to continue developing white-box base station servers ready for 5G. ”