Digital Realty's Manifesto: Enabling Connected Data Communities

Digital Realty published a manifesto called "Enabling Connected Data Communities" that offers a collaborative roadmap for interconnection partners to build an "open fabric of fabrics connecting centers of data." The company says its manifesto represents a vision, a solution approach and a call to action to remove legacy barriers across the interconnection industry, and tackle the challenges of data gravity head-on. 

"We are laying out our industry manifesto and a call to action today to remove legacy barriers in the interconnection industry to address data gravity," said Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer at Digital Realty. "We look forward to engaging with industry participants as we shape our vision for a fabric of fabrics that will unlock new opportunities and value for all sectors. We will be an industry steward championing this shift and together we can tackle data gravity head-on and build a new era of open, secure and dynamic connected data communities globally."

As outlined in the manifesto, Digital Realty will take the following specific actions to support the industry's transformation to a data-centric architecture:

• Extending the coverage, capacity, connectivity and control capabilities of its PlatformDIGITAL. The idea is for local copies of private, shared and public data sets to be integrated as part of decentralized workflows which originate and traverse across multiple internal and external platforms, with policy enforcement controls, real time analytics and interactive cross-platform orchestration. 
• Developing new native orchestration and native fabric connectivity options to further this industry shift. 
• Integrating the IP and engineering team of Raleigh, NC-based Pureport, adding in-house network software development to support the company's vision of building open, SDN-enabled cross platform orchestration with multiple industry partners. 
• Extending its global partnership with Megaport on its Service Exchange offering, continuing the companies' long-standing collaboration on open orchestration, and aims to accelerate integration with Interxion's Cloud Connect interconnection product in EMEA. 
• Digital Realty will create a native direct network path between its global campuses, offering new industrialized multi-path options in collaboration with industry-leading partners.

Digital Realty also noted that over the last year, it has seen the uptake of virtual interconnection increase by 27% for its Service Exchange offering and 46% for its Cloud Connect product across Digital Realty's global portfolio of over 290 data centers, as the company expanded coverage from 36 metros in 2019 to now cover 49 metros and increased its presence from 15 countries to now address 24 countries globally.

• In March 2020, Digital Realty significantly expanded its global coverage in completing its combination with Interxion. The combined entity added 53 new data centers in EMEA to the company's global portfolio and incorporated key assets such as the submarine landing cable station and Internet hub in Marseille, France. As a result, customers now have access to more than 700 providers on PlatformDIGITA in EMEA alone. Globally, participants in Digital Realty's connected data communities more than doubled from 2,000 to over 4,000 in 2020.
• Growth in peering traffic volumes on the Digital Realty Internet Exchange (DRIX) also led customers to increasingly migrate to a new baseline for peering connectivity, with adoption of 100G ports growing 70%, and total port capacity on DRIX growing 46% year on year.
• Across Digital Realty's global portfolio of more than 290 data centers, the pace of network cross-connect deployments has also accelerated in the last year, growing to a total of over 168,000 by the end of 2020, up 88,000 from the previous year.

https://www.digitalrealty.com/enabling-connected-data-communities

Read More

Virgin Media tests Infinera XR optics - coherent optical subcarrier aggregation

Virgin Media has trialed prototype Infinera XR optics technology in its network in Reading, UK to send and receive data at up to 400Gbps in a single fiber.

In 2019, Virgin Media trialed 10Gbps symmetric full fiber home broadband technology in Papworth, Cambridgeshire. 

Infinera said this new trial goes a step beyond that, demonstrating that the operator’s passive fiber optic access network (PON) – which provides multiple premises with full fiber connections – could deliver 400Gbps symmetrical services.

In the trial, the traditional network transceivers were replaced with Infinera XR optics technology, splitting a single fiber optic cable into many connections.

Jeanie York, Chief Technology and Information Officer, Virgin Media, said: “Our next-generation network already offers gigabit connectivity to more than 7 million homes, but with data use and demand for hyperfast speeds surging, we’re continually investing in our network to prepare for whatever the future brings.

“The trial with Virgin Media provides a solid proof point that Infinera’s XR optics technology can be seamlessly applied to existing networks,” said Dave Welch, Infinera Chief Innovation Officer and Co-founder. “This represents a radical shift in the way networks can be built, promising a more flexible and sustainable way to meet the ever increasing need to transmit more data at higher speeds.”

https://www.infinera.com/press-release/virgin-media-trials-infineras-cutting-edge-multi-gigabit-network-technology

Infinera announces XR optics partnerships with II-IV and Lumentum

Tuesday, February 18, 2020  Infinera  

Infinera announced a collaboration with II-VI, a global leader in optical communications modules, to bring to market XR optics-based networking solutions. The companies said the partnership will result in the introduction of a family of easily deployable, pluggable XR optics offerings applicable across a wide variety of market applications.

Infinera said XR optics enables radically more efficient and cost-effective solutions for the transport networking challenges operators face in delivering new 5G, enhanced broadband, and cloud-based business services. Infinera's XR optics technology, which is optimized for hub-and-spoke traffic patterns, is powered by independently routable Nyquist subcarriers and coherent optical aggregation capabilities. XR optics technology enables a single high-speed transceiver to simultaneously send and receive independent data streams to/from numerous low-speed transceivers.

In addition, Infinera announced a separate partnership with Lumentum to bring to market XR optics-based networking solutions. The partnership will result in the introduction of a family of easily deployable, pluggable XR optics offerings applicable across a wide variety of market applications.

Infinera's XR Optics delivers coherent optical subcarrier aggregation

Monday, September 23, 2019  100G, ECOC, Infinera  

Infinera introduced a point-to-multipoint coherent optical subcarrier aggregation technology with the potential to significantly reduce the number of transceivers required in an access network while eliminating intermediate aggregation.

Infinera's XR optics technology, which is optimized for hub-and-spoke traffic patterns, is powered by independently routable Nyquist subcarriers and coherent optical aggregation capabilities. With coherent subcarrier aggregation (CSA) capabilities, XR optics technology enables a single high-speed transceiver to simultaneously send and receive independent data streams to/from numerous low-speed transceivers.

Subcarriers can be flexibly sized. For example, 4 X 25G subcarriers defined in a 100G QSFP-28 transcrivers; or 16 X 25G subcarriers defined in a 400G QSFP-DD transceiver.

The company says that by leveraging these capabilities, network operators will be positioned to significantly reduce the number of transceivers in the network, eliminate the need for costly intermediate aggregation devices, and more efficiently optimize transport infrastructure for hub-and-spoke end-user traffic flows.

Initial areas of focus include DAA fiber deep networks, 5G X-haul, DSL/PON backhaul, and fiber-enabled business services.

XR optics is designed to be integrated into a variety of form factors, including industry-standard pluggables, from low-speed interfaces with a single subcarrier to high-speed (400G+) interfaces with numerous subcarriers.
https://www.infinera.com/innovation/xr-optics

Read More

Lumentum introduces multi-junction VCSEL arrays for sensing applications

Lumentum introduced new high-power and high-efficiency five and six junction vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays for advanced consumer, automotive LiDAR, and other 3D sensing applications.

Lumentum's multi-junction VCSEL arrays emit at 940 nm and 905 nm and are manufactured on the same production lines as current high-volume VCSEL array products serving the consumer electronics market. The company said these new VCSEL arrays enable much lower power dissipation, very high slope efficiencies, and record-breaking optical peak powers compared with existing devices. Optical powers exceeding 2 W per individual VCSEL emitter have resulted in over 800 W of peak power from a compact one square millimeter sized VCSEL array. The peak optical power, low thermal dissipation, and small die size of these new multi-junction VCSELs arrays are important to extending their use to high performance all-solid-state medium and long-range LiDAR.

"Automotive, consumer, and industrial customers increasingly need higher performance VCSEL arrays to drive increased functionality and adoption of LiDAR and 3D sensing enabled products," said Dr. André Wong, Vice President of 3D Sensing Product Line Management. "Our latest multi-junction VCSEL arrays continue our long history of pioneering innovative optical solutions in close collaboration with customers. These new products leverage the well proven high-volume, 6-inch wafer supply that we established more than four years ago."

In addition to these new high-power VCSEL array illuminators, Lumentum also offers a wide variety of optical solutions for 3D sensing, automotive, and LiDAR applications. These include VCSEL solutions for vehicle in-cabin monitoring, high-performance Gallium Arsenide and Indium Phosphide edge-emitting laser chips for 3D sensing and LiDAR, and 1550 nm narrow-linewidth DBR diode lasers for long-range frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) coherent LiDAR.

https://www.lumentum.com/en/media-room/news-releases/lumentum-announces-five-and-six-junction-vcsel-array-products-advanced

Read More

Telecom Egypt plans Hybrid African Ring Path (HARP) system

Telecom Egypt unveiled its plans to launch Hybrid African Ring Path (HARP) by 2023, a new subsea system that will outline the African continent, forming the shape of a harp. 

HARP  will connect Africa’s East and West bounds to Europe, from South Africa to Italy and France along the continent’s East Coast, and to Portugal along its West Coast. Terrestrial routes will connect the landing points within South Africa, Europe, and Egypt, forming a complete ring around the continent. The HARP system will leverage its diverse and resilient subsea segments to branch out to multiple potential landing points.

In Egypt, HARP’s planned routes will cross the Sinai Peninsula with multiple ring protection topologies, and will extend to include premium routes on both banks of the Suez Canal. Sharm Elsheikh, located at the southern tip of Sinai, will serve as a new landing point and will be connected to coastal cities on the Gulf of Suez, forming a hybrid terrestrial and subsea fiber connectivity solution between landing points in Egypt.

Adel Hamed, TE’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, commented: “I am very proud of the upcoming launch of this new system, as it will provide seamless connectivity services to the African continent by integrating Telecom Egypt’s current and planned projects to offer end-to-end connectivity solutions. HARP will enable Telecom Egypt’s plans to establish open points of presence in various new locations in Africa and Europe to serve its enterprise and wholesale customers. It will also support the digital transformation efforts exerted throughout African nations, and expand the company’s international footprint.”

Read More

Dell'Oro: Optical transport market slowed in 4Q2020

 Optical transport equipment revenue increased 1 percent in 2020 reaching $16 billion with growth in all regions with the exception of North America and Latin America, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.

“Between concerns on starting new optical builds during the start of the pandemic and aggressive plans on 5G deployments that required a larger share of a service provider’s capital budget, the spending on optical transport dramatically slowed by the end of 2020,” said Jimmy Yu, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “It was a really dramatic drop in optical equipment purchases in the fourth quarter. While we anticipated a slowdown near the end of the year due to concerns around COVID-19, we were surprised by a 29 percent year-over-year decline in WDM purchases in North America as well as a 12 percent decline in China. That said, there was good growth in the other parts of the world, especially Japan,” continued Yu.

https://www.delloro.com/news/optical-transport-equipment-market-grew-1-percent-in-2020-to-16-billion/

Read More

Xsight secures funding for its 25.6T data center switch with 100G PAM4 SerDes

Xsight Labs, a fabless semiconductor startup based in Tel Aviv, announced the closing of its Series D funding. The round was led by Valor Equity Partners and Atreides Management and was joined by new investor Fidelity Management & Research Company. Existing investors Battery Ventures, Intel Capital, M12 Microsoft’s Venture Fund and Xilinx, increased their investments. Additionally, Accton Technology joined as a new strategic investor. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“Xsight Labs’ Series D was significantly oversubscribed and is the largest round ever raised by our group,” said Avigdor Willenz, Xsight Labs’ founding investor. “The completion of this round will help Xsight Labs execute its ambitious vision of delivering end-to-end connectivity solutions for cloud infrastructure.”

“I would like to welcome Fidelity Management & Research Company to the Xsight Labs family and thank all of our investors for their continued support, especially Valor and Atreides for their leading efforts. With this new investment, we are poised to ramp up the X1 family of data center switches and drive exciting new additions to our roadmap,” said Guy Koren, Co-Founder and CEO of Xsight Labs.

Xsight Labs samples 25.6T data center switch chip with 100G SerDes

Sunday, December 13, 2020  Israel, Silicon, Start-Ups, Switching  

Xsight Labs, a fabless semiconductor start-up based in Israel, emerged from stealth to announce sampling of a 25.6T 32 x 800G data center switch and a 12.8T 32 x 400G data center switch based on 100G PAM4 SerDes.

The company's X1 switch chip, which is now sampling to alpha customers, is fabricated in 7nm silicon. 

Some highlights: 

• The X1 chip operates at less than 300W for 25.6T and under 200W for 12.8T (for typical data center use cases)
• Built with256 x 100G LR PAM4 SerDes, X1 enables retimer-less design, supporting in-rack DAC connectivity for the 100G ecosystem. 
• X1 supports the new 800G optics ecosystem, delivering a 2x improvement in port density vs. 400G optics.
• X1 leverages a fully shared buffer architecture with wire speed in-cast performance for worst-case microburst absorption.
• X1 supports an extensive suite of programmable Dataplane Telemetry that enables visibility into the network for monitoring, troubleshooting and real-time analysis and decision making.

Supports a broad range of switch configurations: 

• 25.6T: 256 x 100G, 128 x 200G, 64 x 400G, 32 x 800G
• 12.8T: 256 x 50G, 128 x 100G, 64 x 200G, 32 x 400G, 16 x 800G

“Xsight Labs is the first in the world to sample a monolithic 7nm switch silicon that is on the frontier of the 100G SerDes ecosystem,” said Erez Shaizaf, Xsight Labs’ Co-Founder and Switch General Manager. “It is a true testament to the caliber of engineering talent that we have been able to assemble and we, as a team, are extremely proud of our execution.”

“The X1 family architecture has been built from the ground up to incorporate a unique set of value-added features like Application Optimized Switching, X-PND™, and X-IQ™, enabling customers’ switch deployments to achieve optimized latency and power,” said Gal Malach, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Xsight Labs.

https://xsightlabs.com/

 

• Xsight Labs was co-founded by Guy Koren (CEO), who previously was CTO of EZchip Technologies (acquired by Mellanox in 2016 for $811M); Erez Shaizaf (GM of Switch Product Line), who previously was Vice President of Silicon at Mellanox and Director of VLSI at EZchip Technologies and Freescale; and Gal Malach (CTO), who previously was previously was Lead Architect and Director of VLSI at Mellanox, through the EZchip Technologies acquisition, where he drove architecture definition and execution.

Read More

Mavenir teams up with Platform9 for Kubernetes at the 5G edge

Mavenir will leverage Platform9’s Kubernetes solution to deliver a robust web-scale platform that runs containerized cloud-native network functions. The companies say their strategic partnership will accelerate the rollout of 5G services because Kubernetes is ideally suited for building scalable 5G networks at the edge by running on vendor-neutral hardware and providing open-source orchestration.

Mavenir has integrated Telco PaaS (Platform as a Service) that it contributed to Opensource XGVela (https://xgvela.org/) on top of the Platform9 Managed Kubernetes (PMK) solution to meet the requirements of OpenRAN and other telco workloads. 

Platform9’s Kubernetes solution is also an option for Mavenir’s Private Networks deployments. The open-source and cloud-native capabilities of the platform provide the scale, velocity and agility sought by service providers as they roll out their next generation 5G networks.

“With the advent of 5G, there’s a cloud touch to the service provider’s network and ecosystem. It represents an evolution of a cloud-native software platform that offers competitive and differentiated services for many customers,” said Mavenir Chief Strategy Officer, Bejoy Pankajakshan.

“We are delighted that Platform9’s Kubernetes solution has been included to power Mavenir’s industry leading vision for cloud-native 5G infrastructure,” said Sirish Raghuram, CEO of Platform9. “Our automation technology for Kubernetes can accelerate new site deployments, reduce ongoing operational complexity and provide cloud elasticity for Mavenir’s solutions.”

Read More

Samsung combines 40MHz of 4G and 800MHz of 5G in mmWave

Samsung has combined 40MHz of 4G frequency and 800MHz of 5G frequency in mmWave, achieving 5.23Gbps in data speeds to a single device. 

For this demonstration of E-UTRAN New Radio Dual Connectivity (EN-DC), Samsung used its commercial end-to-end solutions comprised of devices and network products. This includes the Samsung Galaxy S20+ smartphone, 4G radios, 5G radios (Compact Macro Link), and 4G/5G common Core.

“Through this demonstration, Samsung is proud to achieve another breakthrough record in 5G data speeds, now spotlighting the power of using a dual 4G and 5G approach, delivered directly to a single user,” said Ji-Yun Seol, Vice President, and Head of Air Technology Group, Networks Business at Samsung. “This reinforces our commitment to delivering the best possible 5G solutions to our customers and our ongoing support to help mobile operators accelerate the benefits of 5G services to their users.”

https://news.samsung.com/us/samsung-breaks-5g-speed-record-reaching-5-23gbps

Read More

Yugabyte raises $48 million for distributed SQL databases

Yugabyte, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, announced a $48 million funding round to support its open source, SQL database business.

Yugabyte is the company behind YugabyteDB, an open source, high-performance distributed SQL database for building global, internet-scale applications. The company says enterprise adoption of YugabyteDB continues to accelerate, particularly in the e-commerce, financial services and telecommunications verticals where geographic data distribution, transactional capabilities and horizontal scalability are critical for systems of record. Yugabyte customers include Hudson River Trading, Kroger, Narvar, Turvo, Manetu and Xignite, among others.

Yugabyte is building out its engineering, DevOps and support staff in India, Russia and Canada. To turbo-charge these efforts, it recently acquired India-based Falarica.io to accelerate its development and recruiting efforts in the APAC region. The company is also expanding its sales teams in EMEA and APAC because of strong demand for its open source distributed SQL database, and related products and services.

The funding round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with additional participation by Greenspring Associates, Dell Technologies Capital, Wipro Ventures and 8VC. Coming on the heels of a $30 million capital raise announced in June 2020, the round brings Yugabyte’s total funding to $103 million. The funding will be used to expand Yugabyte’s R&D, sales and customer functions in the EMEA and APAC markets. To support its aggressive expansion plans, Yugabyte will double its headcount in 2021.

“Today’s business environment demands flexibility and elasticity from database solutions, and distributed SQL is now critical for any organization where developer productivity and application uptime are top priorities. YugabyteDB makes something as fundamental and feature rich as PostgreSQL truly cloud native, resilient, elastic, and distributed,” said Kannan Muthukkaruppan, Co-Founder and President, Yugabyte. “With companies of all kinds accelerating their digital transformation initiatives, technologies that help them accelerate, like YugabyteDB, are in high demand. This new round of funding will position Yugabyte to meet this increased enterprise demand and power our global expansion into key markets.”

https://www.yugabyte.com/

Read More

IBM names Elly Keinan to head Managed Infrastructure spinoff

Elly Keinan was named as Group President of the new, independent company that will be created following the previously announced separation of IBM’s Managed Infrastructure Services business (“NewCo”). Maria Bartolome Winans has been named as NewCo’s Chief Marketing Officer. The company’s new name will be announced in the coming months, and the separation is expected to occur by the end of 2021.

Keinan is a veteran of more than three decades in the technology industry, most recently as a venture partner of Pitango Venture Capital, Israel’s leading venture capital group. He served as general manager of IBM North America, general manager of IBM Latin America, and chairman of IBM Japan, among many technology and market leadership roles at IBM. He serves on boards of several technology companies, as well as the board of directors of the United Way of New York City.

Winans has risen to top marketing roles in her 25-year career at IBM and has spent the last three years as the chief marketing officer for IBM Americas, with direct responsibility for marketing sourced revenue, demand generation and all geography marketing professionals across North America, Canada, and Latin America. She has led marketing teams in IBM’s Watson business and in IBM’s Software unit, with specific expertise in industry solutions, and has been a leader in IBM’s Hispanic community.

Read More