Thursday, June 24, 2021

ONF launches SD-Core and SD-Fabric for private 4G/5G

The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) has launched two projects that further the open source movement for carrier and private enterprise 5G networks with functionality tied to public clouds.

SD-Core, an open source project for building a 5G/4G disaggregated mobile core optimized for emerging private 5G and enterprise use cases, starts with a pre-integrated dual-mode control plane. The SD-Core control plane simultaneously supports 5G standalone (SA), 5G non-standalone (NSA) and 4G/LTE deployments, thus optimizing for flexibility and future-proofing networks.

It leverages components of the free5GC and ONF OMEC projects, and builds on this with refactoring to add cloud-native capabilities for scale-out, resiliency, multi-cloud agility and SaaS deployment APIs. SD-Core is further structured to allow a single control plane to work with many user plane instances, thus optimizing for edge cloud deployments and for delivering enterprise private 5G from a common core running in the public cloud. 



SD-Fabric, an open source, P4-programmable hybrid cloud network fabric with the power to push customized packet processing deep into networking elements. Think of SD-Fabric as a cloud-managed, full stack, programmable network fabric for edge applications for Industry 4.0 powered by 5G. SD-Fabric can be deployed as-a-service, and exposes northbound APIs to enable developers to request advanced capabilities of the network such as load balancing, in-band telemetry, custom protocol processing, etc. SD-Fabric provides a full complement of classic connectivity functionality (such as L2, L3, Multicast and ACLs).  Hosts and applications require no modification to run on SD-Fabric, but the network is designed and controlled by SDN applications running on the edge cloud by ONOS rather than in embedded software running on all the individual switches in the network. This greatly simplifies the running of the network, and provides opportunities for the applications and the network to all be controlled by the same CI/CD DevOps stack by the same set of developers.

Introducing SD-Core and SD-Fabric for Private Mobile Networks

The Open Networking Foundation's Timon Sloane introduces SD-Core, an open-source project for building a 5G/4G disaggregated mobile core optimized for emerging private 5G and enterprise use cases. 

This is complemented by SD-Fabric, an open-source, P4-programmable hybrid cloud network fabric with the power to push customized packet processing deep into networking elements. Think of SD-Fabric as a cloud-managed, full-stack, programmable network fabric for edge applications for Industry 4.0 powered by 5G.

https://youtu.be/ba4VT3R0vf4

OIF's 3.2T Co-packaged Optics Module Project

COBO/OIF Board Member Jeff Hutchins discusses the industry's Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) collaboration with regards to the OIF's recently launched 3.2T Co-packaged Optics Module Project.


https://youtu.be/nUp2Ytovlhk

OIF begins 3.2T Co-Packaged Module Project for data center switching

OIF started a 3.2T Co-Packaged Module project for intra data center switching applications. The 3.2T Co-Packaged Optical Module Implementation Agreement (IA) is the first project initiated under the umbrella of the Co-Packaged Framework Project announced in November 2020. The IA will define a 3.2T co-packaged optical module that targets Ethernet switching applications utilizing 100G electrical lanes. It will include the following interoperability specifications:

  • Optical interface options supporting 400GBASE-FR4 and 400GBASE-DR4 with backwards compatible to 200G interfaces
  • CEI-112G-XSR high speed electrical interfaces
  • Electrical, mechanical, and management interfaces

“This 3.2T Co-Packaging project builds on OIF’s 20+ year successful track record to anticipate and address the industry’s needs,” said Jeff Hutchins, Ranovus and OIF Physical and Link Layer Working Group, Co-Packaging Vice Chair. “With its broad membership from across the eco-system, OIF is well positioned to create unified host, module and control specifications.”

“The industry has clearly articulated the need for a standardized co-packaged solution to address data center power constraints, and further, to enable new network architectures and applications,” said Mark Filer, Microsoft Principal Hardware Engineer and OIF Board Member. “The 3.2T Co-Packaged Optical Module project is a concrete step toward that goal, and OIF is uniquely qualified to rapidly execute on the implementation agreement in order to meet the market needs.”

https://www.oiforum.com/

Nokia powers AirScale massive MIMO with homegrown ReefShark

Nokia launched new AirScale 5G products covering baseband, remote radio heads, and massive MIMO active antennas with digital beamforming -- powered by the latest generation of its homegrown ReefShark System-on-Chip (SoC) chipsets.

Nokia's newest ReefShark-powered AirScale massive MIMO antennas support 32TRX and 64TRX, as well as 8T8R remote radio head solutions. The 32TRX, which weighs in at only 17kg, boasts high radio frequency bandwidth (200 MHz occupied bandwidth and 400 MHz instantaneous bandwidth) and  high radio frequency power output. Both the new 32TRX and the new 64TRX massive MIMO antennas support both fragmented spectrum and network sharing cases.

Nokia also introduced its new SoC-based baseband plug-in cards to boost the capacity of the AirScale System Module for up to 90,000 connected users simultaneously and has 84 Gbps throughput. Nokia also says its ReefShark powered plug-in cards will reduce power consumption by up to 75 percent. 

Additional highlights:

  • Nokia Single RAN software now includes 5G , accelerating 5G rollouts with common transport, common operability, common software delivery, and increased hardware sharing. 
  • The combination of Nokia’s Single RAN software and the new baseband plug-in cards offer multi-mode (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G) and multi-band and supports the latest fronthaul interfaces (eCPRI) on a single baseband platform, simplifying the network and lowering costs.
  • Nokia’s AirScale baseband architecture keeps the L1 and L2 (Layer 1 and Layer 2) computing separate from L3 (Layer 3) and Transport baseband plug-in units, allowing capacity tp be added when and where it is needed in the network. 
  • Nokia’s ReefShark chipsets now leverage AI/ML for features such as predictive load balancing, anomaly detection, and intelligent traffic steering. 
  • Nokia is carrying out proof of concepts with customers this year in innovative areas such as Massive MIMO beam pattern optimization, energy-saving, advanced traffic steering, advanced packet scheduling, and alarm pattern discovery.

Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks, Nokia, said: “Our new generation of ReefShark-powered AirScale radio and baseband products is evidence of the successful transformation of our business and ability to deliver market-leading products to our global customers. Nokia’s new portfolio enables communication service providers to offer both consumer and enterprise customers with cutting-edge 5G experiences with premium speeds, capacity, and connectivity underpinned by seamless, simple, and efficient ‘plug-in’ deployment. Our new AirScale products are O-RAN ready. They consume less energy and highlight our commitment to climate change. We’re excited to see our customers deploying these products and see the transformative impact of 5G technology.”

https://www.nokia.com/airscale/

NEC announces new 5G massive MIMO radio units

NEC is launching new radio units (RU) for 5G base stations that are geared for global markets and are scheduled to be available in 2022.

NEC's new RUs will be compatible with the n77, n78 and C-Band 3.7GHz frequency band (3.3-4.2GHz), which is globally used as a 5G frequency. In addition, ultra-multi-element antennas utilizing Massive MIMO and digital beamforming for high-precision beams will help to provide high-speed, high-capacity communications between a wider range of terminals. 

The new RUsfeature higher output and wider bandwidth when compared to conventional products, thereby expanding the communications area and providing high-speed transmission.

The RUs will conform to O-RAN fronthaul interface specifications defined by the O-RAN Alliance and will be compatible with base station equipment from different vendors, making it possible to realize open, flexible and optimized networks according to a wide range of use cases.

Patrick Lopez, VP of product management, 5G products, NEC, said: “NEC has long been developing 5G base station equipment for global markets. As illustrated by the announcement from Vodafone earlier this month, NEC is investing to maintain a market-leading position in the Open RAN ecosystem."

https://www.nec.com/en/press/202106/global_20210623_02.html

 Illumio raises $225 million for its Zero Trust Segmentation

Illumio, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California, announced a $225 million Series F funding round at a $2.75 billion valuation for its Zero Trust Segmentation solutions. 

Illumio says its Zero Trust Segmentation SaaS platform delivers automated enforcement in minutes, dramatically reducing risk by stopping successful cyberattacks and ransomware from moving to other applications, clouds, containers, data centers, and endpoints. Th company claims many Fortune 100 companies and hundreds of global enterprises as customers, including the three top enterprise SaaS companies, five of the leading insurance companies, and six of the ten biggest banks in the world.

The round was led by Thoma Bravo and is also supported by Franklin Templeton, funds managed by Hamilton Lane, and Owl Rock, a division of Blue Owl Capital.

“Adopting Zero Trust strategies has never been more important for organizations across all industries, as the Biden Administration’s recent cybersecurity Executive Order demonstrates. This investment signals that now is the time to reimagine the cybersecurity model as we know it, with Zero Trust Segmentation playing a fundamental role in this strategic shift,” said Andrew Rubin, CEO and co-founder of Illumio. “With this funding, we will accelerate our innovation in product and engineering, further invest in customer success, and build upon our global partner strategy.”



Prosimo enters partnership with Google Cloud


Prosimo, which offers an Application eXperience Infrastructure (AXI) platform for secure application delivery in multi-cloud environments, announced a partnership with Google Cloud.

Specifically, Prosimo will deliver edge networking with built in Zero Trust Security and performance stack on Google Cloud with Anthos, and will leverage Google Cloud capabilities like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), as well as Google’s and its partners’ networks, closer to the location of users and applications. With this partnership, enterprises will have a fast and secure way to modernize their application infrastructure and deliver better application experiences, irrespective of where they are hosted - cloud region, edge locations or on-prem data center.

“Businesses like retailers, manufacturers, transportation companies and more can benefit from cloud capabilities and low-latency access to applications at the network edge,” said Tanuj Raja, Global Head, Strategic Partnerships at Google Cloud. “We’re excited to partner with Prosimo to deliver its capabilities in cloud networking, application performance and security on Google Cloud to help these businesses digitize and modernize business processes at the edge.”

“We believe in bringing application connectivity and security as close to the end user as possible,” said Prosimo’s Head of Product, Mani Ganesan. “Our partnership with Google Cloud empowers organizations to modernize their infrastructure and applications with core Google Cloud capabilities that extend the value of their networks and deliver better application experiences to more users, in more locations. Moreover, this partnership validates our approach of bringing multi-cloud and edge networking, security and application experience together in one integrated stack.”

Prosimo targets secure app delivery with multi-cloud networking

Prosimo, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, emerged from stealth to unveil its Application eXperience Infrastructure (AXI) platform for secure application delivery in multi-cloud environments. The platform is positioned for multi-cloud networking, Zero Trust with Identity Aware Proxy, app micro-segmentation, access to lift-and-shift VMware on AWS, Azure or GCP, app-infrastructure modernization for Kubernetes and service mesh apps, and etc.  Promiso,...

Who is Prosimo? CTO presentation

https://youtu.be/58YMebmBJwMProsimo, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California,  has launched its Application eXperience Infrastructure (AXI) platform for ensuring secure application experiences across multi-cloud environments.In this 40-minute presentation, Nehal Bhau, Co-founder & CTO, Prosimo, shares his insights on the SD-WAN market, Prosimo's vertically integrated stack and its method to leverage the global infrastructure of the top...


Mavenir and Qualcomm team on 4G/5G Public and Private Networks

Mavenir announced a collaboration with Qualcomm to develop indoor and outdoor solutions for both private and public network deployments aiming to broaden the choices for Open RAN customers.

Highlights:

The development and integration of Mavenir Open RAN split 2 compliant software solution with Qualcomm 4G and 5G RAN Platforms

Mavenir Software solution adaptation across a variety of Qualcomm 4G and 5G RAN Platforms for Small Cells (FSM) based indoor and outdoor radio products developed by the Small Cell ODM ecosystem


“Mavenir’s role in growing the ecosystem has been to ensure that the market demand is being addressed with a range of radio options to fit all deployments and use cases,” said Mavenir’s Aniruddho Basu, SVP and GM of Emerging Business. “Mavenir’s containerized Open RAN, AI analytics and automation software, coupled with Qualcomm Technologies’ powerful 4G and 5G access point platforms aim to create an extensive range of high performance, cost-effective radio solutions for multiple segments and applications with full architectural flexibility.”

“The Qualcomm 5G RAN Platform for small cells, with support for 5G mmWave and Sub-6 GHz spectrum, is designed to deliver enhanced network coverage, capacity, and superior power efficiency,” said Gerardo Giaretta, Senior Director, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “We are excited about this collaboration with an Open RAN industry leader like Mavenir as it will help drive open and virtualized 5G RAN proliferation globally in places like airports, stadiums, and hospitals."

MaxLinear enters $350 million loan

MaxLinear entered into a new $350 million seven-year senior secured term B loan facility, the proceeds of which will be used to repay and terminate MaxLinear’s existing credit facilities, pay fees and expenses, and provide additional working capital for MaxLinear. MaxLinear also entered into a new $100 million five-year senior secured revolving credit facility which was undrawn at the time of close.


The new credit facility expands MaxLinear’s borrowing capacity, extends the term of the Company’s indebtedness, and reduces amortization expenses. The revolving facility provides MaxLinear with increased strategic and operational flexibility to support the company’s key growth initiatives.

Wells Fargo Securities, MUFG Securities Americas, BMO Capital Markets, and Citizens Bank acted as joint lead arrangers and bookrunners for the transaction.