Intel: From Silicon to Platforms

"If it computes, it does it best with Intel" -- this statement underscores Intel's mission, said company CEO Brian Krzanich, speaking at the Intel Investor's Day conference in Santa Clara, California. Intel is dedicated to "a new pragmatism" that will make the company much more market driven, said Krzanich, with a the goal of capturing significant inroads in the data center and mobile computing. Among the changes to the way the company does business is that decision to open its foundry to any company able to utilize its silicon and the decision to create platforms for the data center, not just server and switching silicon.

Some highlights taken from half-dozen executive presentations (now available on the company's website).

Data Center

• Intel sees a 15% CAGR for data center products through 2016.
• Intel's data center business spans Enterprise, Telco, HPC, Work stations and Cloud.  The company will move from delivering just silicon to complete solutions for each of these segments.
• Intel believes the Telco market will transition to common server platforms for many workloads, including signal processing at the edge, control plane processing, application processing and data plane processing.  This is a major transition and will help offset Service Provider CAPEX/OPEX.
• AT&T's Supplier Domain 2.0 program is an example of the move to open software and hardware solutions.
• The move to SDN and NFV will also drive the move to Intel architectures. Over 15 major telcos worldwide are in the process of qualifying new systems based on Intel systems.
• Proprietary network appliances are being virtualized and migrated on open servers based on Intel.
• Intel currently estimates that it has about 5% of the overall network equipment compute market, compared with 94% of the enterprise server compute market.  The company believes the performance gains of its Xeon processors will enable it to challenge the ASIC-based systems currently used in many networking platforms.
• Intel estimates that every 400 new Connected Devices sold leads to the sale of 1 new server. Every new 20 Digital Signs leads to 1 new server.
• Internet of Things will drive faster change: a metro area smart traffic deployment will require 30K cameras, 10K gates, 2.5K servers, 650 network switches, 250 storage systems -- based on a real project in China.
• 6 of 7 top data center customers bought “higher bin” CPUs vs. prior year.
• Intel delivers unique server processors for eBay (liquid cooled), Facebook (cold storage server), and Nuance (optimized for voice processing)
• Intel is delivering its new open rack-scale architecture to the Open Compute project and a similar "Scorpion" initiative in China.
• In terms of connecting systems in a rack, copper will be challenged >25Gbps.
• Current optical interconnect products are challenged >100m, >25Gbps.
• Intel's Silicon Photonics has demonstrated 800m reach at 25Gbps.  This will enter production in Q1 2014.
• Intel currently holds No.1 market share in enterprise SSDs.  Upcoming technologies will redefine the boundary between memory and storage.

Mobility and PC

• About 1.5 billion smartphones and tablets will ship in 2014 (overall market).
• Intel believes the PC market is stabilizing, although still declining at single digit rates.
• In 2014 aims for 40 million tablets sold -- a 4X gain over expected 2013 Intel tablet shipments.
• Intel seeks to change the "PC experience" by pushing 2-in-1 convertible and detachable PC/Tablet devices, with prices under $300.
• Look for Intel-powered tablets on the market for under $100.
• The first LTE chipset (XMM7160) is shipping and the LTE-Advanced chipset (XMM7260) will be out next year.
• The forthcoming Broxton chip (next gen Atom) will offer a unique design that will allow it to be quickly adapted for specialized devices. Target date is mid-2015.
• A new SoFIA chipset will provide integrated global LTE multi-comm connectivity with Intel Atom inside.  Initially it will be built in an external foundry for market pragmatics, but brought back inside with a move to 14nm.
• Intel believes "perceptual computing" will be a big trend - using voice and motion sensors to make computing a 3D experience.

Manufacturing

• Intel's 10nm process technology will be ready in 2015.
• Opening the foundry means focusing on a much wider range of customers.
• Initial foundry customers include achronix, Altera, Microsemi, Netronome and Tabula.

Archived materials are here:
http://intelstudios.edgesuite.net/im/2013/live_im.html

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NTT DATA to Acquire Optimal Solutions Integration for SAP Consulting

NTT DATA will acquire Optimal Solutions Integration, a consulting company based in Irving, Texas that specializes in SAP services.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

Optimal offers a broad range of planning, implementation, and maintenance services for the SAP product suite.

NTT DATA said its SAP-related revenues already exceed $1 billion annually and the acquisition will expand this business. Optimal’s 2012 fiscal year revenue was $153 million.  With the acquisition expected to close in early 2014, NTT DATA will have approximately 7,500 SAP professionals, including more than 950 from Optimal.

“Optimal complements and brings further innovation to support the growing market demand for emerging technologies in the SAP space such as HANA, big data, analytics, mobility, and cloud, areas where NTT DATA is heavily focused today,” stated Robb Rasmussen, President of NTT DATA’s Enterprise Services.  “Optimal is well-respected in the SAP ecosystem and brings business process expertise in industries such as Consumer, Retail, Wholesale and Distribution, Mining, Public Sector, and Manufacturing.”

"This combination is all about growth,” said Gurvendra Suri, CEO of Optimal. "We are very excited to bring our SAP expertise to NTT DATA to strengthen its leadership position in the market. This combination strengthens an already robust SAP services portfolio, providing more options for our clients and opening up new opportunities to expand and innovate in ways others cannot.”

http://americas.nttdata.com/News/News/Press%20Releases/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/press-release-21-nov-2013.aspx

http://www.optimalsol.com/#&panel1-1

More recent acquisitions from NTT

NTT Com Expands Global Cloud Vision with 2 Investments: Virtela and RagingWire

Monday, October 28, 2013  Data Centers, Japan, Mergers and Acquisitions, NTT, NTT Com  No comments

NTT Communications announced two major international investments:  the acquisition of Virtela for US$525 million in cash, and the acquisition of an 80% stake in RagingWire for US$350 million. Virtela Technology Services (Virtela), which is based in Denver, is a leading global managed and cloud network services provider serving over 500 multinational companies.

NTT Comm to Acquire Arkadin for Cloud Collaboration

Monday, August 05, 2013  #cloud, Cloud, France, Mergers and Acquisitions, NTT, UC  No comments

NTT Communications will acquire a maximum 91.2% equity stake in Arkadin, which delivers SaaS conference-related solutions covering audio, web, video conferencing and unified communications services. Arkadin, which was launched in 2001 by CEO, Olivier de Puymorin, serves approximately 37,000 customers in 32 countries, including France, Germany, the UK, USA, Australia, China, Singapore and Japan. The company is based in Paris.

NTT to Acquire Solutionary for Managed Security Services

Monday, June 17, 2013  Cyber Security, Mergers and Acquisitions, NTT, Service Providers  No comments

NTT agreed to acquire Solutionary, a privately held company based in Omaha, Nebraska that specializes in managed security in an all-cash transaction. Financial terms were not disclosed. Solutionary is a pure-play managed security service provider (MSSP) that helps enterprises fulfill the requirements of major compliance frameworks (such as PCI DSS, GLBA, FFIEC, HIPAA, HITECH and SOX). Solutionary's cloud-based ActiveGuard security services and analytics.

NTT to Acquire Centerstance for Cloud Integration Expertise

Tuesday, September 18, 2012  Mergers and Acquisitions, NTT. Cloud  No comments

NTT will acquire Centerstance, a U.S.-based consulting company specializing in cloud integration projects, for an undisclosed sum. Centerstance is a platinum cloud alliance partner for Salesforce.com.  The company is based in Portland, Oregon.  The company helps clients to identify and move key business processes to the cloud leveraging the Salesforce.com platform.

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NTT DOCOMO Updated Indoor Base Station + Antenna for LTE-A

NTT DOCOMO has developed an indoor multi-band base station and antenna that are newly compatible with the 1.5 and 1.7 GHz frequency bands for LTE-Advanced in addition to the conventionally supported 2 GHz band.  Maximum downlink is rated at 150 Mbps currently and up to 225 Mbps when DOCOMO launches its LTE-Advanced service.  Installations of the new base station and antenna are beginning immediately in parts of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Aichi, Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures.

DOCOMO said its new multi-band base station fits into limited spaces in indoor locations and the new multi-band antenna, which is about the same size as the current single-band antenna, can replace existing antennas using the same space.

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/english/info/media_center/pr/2013/1121_00.html

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Facebook Backs RocksDB Open Database in Flash

At last week's Data@Scale event, Facebook announced support for RocksDB, a high-performance, embedded key-value store database optimized for flash storage.

Facebook said RocksDB builds on LevelDB to be scalable to run on servers with many CPU cores, to efficiently use fast storage, to support IO-bound, in-memory and write-once workloads, and to be flexible to allow for innovation.

A video by Dhruba Borthakur, software engineer at Facebook, presents Rocksdb.


https://www.facebook.com/Engineering
http://rocksdb.org/intro.pdf
http://rocksdb.org/

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Twitter Implements Forward Secrecy

Twitter announced the implementation of Forward Secrecy for traffic on twitter.com, api.twitter.com, and mobile.twitter.com.  The new security seeks to defend against an adversary that may be recording all of Twitter's encrypted HTTPS traffic.

On a blog post, Twitter's engineering team said that unlike traditional HTTPS, Forward Security enables the EC Diffie-Hellman cipher suites, which lets the client and server share a random session key without ever sending the key across the network, even under encryption.

Twitter is encouraging other websites to adopt Forward Secrecy as "the new normal" in web traffic, saying this type of protection is increasing important on today's Internet.

https://blog.twitter.com/2013/forward-secrecy-at-twitter-0

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NYT: N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power

The New York Times reported on a top secret, 2012 N.S.A. document leaked by Edward Snowden that outlines the agency's ambition to expand its surveillance powers through new access channels, by integrating its technical tools and by leveraging global business trends in data and communications services.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/politics/nsa-report-outlined-goals-for-more-power.html

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Level 3 Opens Tier III Data Center in Bogotá

Level 3 Communications has launched its newest data center in Bogotá, Colombia. The new facility adds 1,700 square meters to Level 3’s current data center complex in Bogotá.  The Tier III data center is built for earthquake preparedness and energy efficiency.  It implements the 2N philosophy (system + system), which results in higher redundancy and reliability.

“Demand for colocation, housing, hosting and value-added services continues to grow in Colombia as the adoption of cloud-based applications increases,” said Gabriel del Campo, Level 3's senior vice president of Data Centers for Latin America. “As a result, companies are increasingly looking to outsource these services to ensure they can capitalize on efficient cloud solutions and remain focused on their core business objectives. Level 3's data center services range from traditional network equipment hosting to comprehensive support for managed IT solutions, helping position enterprises for successful growth amid a dynamic global marketplace.”

http://www.level3.com/datacenter

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Dell'Oro: LTE RAN Market Advances, Nearly Offsetting Declines in GSM, WCDMA, CDMA

The LTE RAN market continued to grow at a rapid pace in 3Q13, nearly offsetting declining RAN technologies (GSM, WCDMA, CDMA), according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group.  After three quarters of consecutive year-over-year RAN growth, Dell'Oro Group estimates that the total RAN (2G, 3G, 4G, excluding TD-SCDMA and SP WiFi) market declined approximately one percent year-over-year in 3Q13.

"Even though growth is slowing down in some of the more advanced Mobile Broadband (MBB) markets, we are now seeing great demand for LTE in other markets, particularly Europe, with LTE RAN revenues more than doubling year-over-year", said Stefan Pongratz, Director of Mobile RAN research at the Dell'Oro Group.

Other highlights from the 3Q13 quarterly market share report:

• Ericsson maintained its dominant position in LTE with a 15 point four-quarter trailing share lead over number two, Huawei.
• Alcatel-Lucent passed NSN to take the number three spot in LTE RAN revenue share in the quarter.  NSN maintained the number three LTE position on a four-quarter trailing basis.
• Total RAN market is expected to grow in 2014, as growth in China offsets declines in the U.S. and Japan.
• Dell'Oro Group maintains an optimistic view of the Small Cell RAN market with small cell revenues expected to account for approximately one percent of total RAN revenues in 2014.

http://www.delloro.com

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NTT DOCOMO to Deliver Wi-Fi on Bus

NTT DOCOMO will begin delivering Wi-Fi on busses in Japan later next month.

The service uses the LTE network to enable an on-board router to supply up to 72 Mbps downstream.  The company plans to have 1,452 busses installed by the end of March 2014.

https://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/info/news_release/2013/11/22_00.html

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IBM Tests SDN-based Disaster Prevention Intervention App

IBM is working with Marist College on a rapid re-provisioning application for cloud computing that could move resources to a safe location in the event of a pending natural disaster.  The effort comes in response to last year's Hurricane Sandy, in which many data center operators were warned of the impending weather disaster, but were unable to re-provision applications and storage to a safe location at short notice.

The cloud computing disaster prevention invention that IBM and Marist are currently testing could slash re-provisioning time from days to minutes -- avoiding costly network disruptions and outages. Marist’s SDN Innovation Lab is testing an SDN solution from IBM that enables data center operators to more efficiently control data flows within physical and virtual networks.
 
IBM said this cloud-based solution could significantly reduce or eliminate the loss of services and data in a major weather event or other crisis that threatens voice and data network resources. It is now being demonstrated to clients and is expected to be commercially available in 2014.

"A year ago, Sandy left millions of individuals and businesses in the Northeast without electronic communications for days, weeks and even months -- in some cases, data centers were literally under water," said IBM Distinguished Engineer Casimer DeCusatis. "With our invention, a data center operator could quickly and simply move data and applications to another data center outside the danger zone in minutes -- from a remote location using a tablet or smartphone."

"Our SDN Innovation Lab provides a cloud networking test bed for early SDN adopters, including IBM clients, and also offers an opportunity to evaluate new technologies across our entire infrastructure here at Marist College," said Robert Cannistra, senior professional lecturer for computer science and information technology at Marist. "We gain practical experience with the latest technology that we can apply to our own operations and curricula, and our students gain valuable knowledge they can apply to their future careers."

Other IBM cloud inventions and projects being tested at the SDN Innovation Lab include:

• The recently announced "noisy neighbor' invention (U.S. Patent #8,352,953) for dynamically managing network bandwidth for systems running within a cloud that experience dramatic or unexpected peaks and valleys in demand for services.
  
• A patent-pending IBM invention that creates a "heat map" of network activity within a cloud to automatically predict and prevent congestion before it occurs. This invention is included in IBM Flex System servers and System Networking offerings.
  
• A prototype streaming video invention that monitors server CPU and memory function to dynamically shift the video stream from one virtual machine to another within a cloud while it's running, to ensure picture quality and continuous transmission.
  
• An open-source SDN controller that will allow developers to build redundancy, high availability and automation into cloud networks. The controller is based on IBM's DOVE technology, which is being donated to the Linux Foundation's OpenDaylight Project.
  
• Additional research partners in the Marist SDN Innovation Lab include Columbia University, City University of New York, the State University of New York 

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Optical Internetworking Forum Continues 100G and 400G Work

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) launched three new projects following its Q4 Technical meeting last month in Hong Kong:

400G Framework Document  - the Physical and Link Layer (PLL) and Carrier Working Groups joined forces to begin developing a 400G Framework Document that will analyze and discuss trade-offs between high-order modulation formats, high data rates per channel and a number of subcarriers.  The effort is expected to lead to the definition of application scenarios and limits for 400G operation. The framework document will also consider single optical carrier vs. multi-carrier solutions for long haul and metro applications.

Integrated Polarization Multiplexed Quadrature Modulated Transmitters for Metro Applications -- targeting 100G coherent optical modulator modules for metro applications. This new project will incorporate the use of new and advanced modulator technologies which will enable smaller and more cost-effective components needed for these metro applications.

Multi-Link Gearbox (MLG) 3.0 - an effort to define a protocol to support in-band and remote Monitoring & Control and define IEEE 802.3bj RS-FEC compatibility.  In some applications the transport of 10GBASE-R signals over Nx20G links requires definition, including 2X20G and 1X40G links. The MLG 3.0 Project will define in-band coding that preserves 10GBASE-R physical lane-to-lane ordering and in-lane bit ordering to support synchronous and asynchronous 10G lanes.

The OIF also announced the election of its new leadership.  Newly elected to the board of directors is Dave Brown of Alcatel-Lucent, who will serve a one-year term as vice president of marketing. Re-elected to the OIF board of directors are the following: Steve Joiner of Finisar, who will serve a two-year term; John McDonough of NEC America, who will serve a one-year term, was appointed vice president; and Vishnu Shukla of Verizon, who will serve a two-year term, was appointed president.

Newly elected OIF officers and committee chairs, each serving a one-year term, include: Nathan Tracy of TE Connectivity as Technical Committee chair; Jonathan Sadler of Tellabs as Technical Committee vice chair, Brian Holden of Kandou as Market Awareness & Education Committee co-chair, PLL; Lyndon Ong of Ciena as Market Awareness & Education Committee co-chair, Networking.

“Recently, several approaches to achieving 400G data transmission have been proposed with reported transmit fiber distances from short haul to long haul applications,” said Nathan Tracy, TE Connectivity and the OIF’s Technical Committee chair.  “To develop this white paper, the OIF intends to bring the industry together to discuss the options and where the gaps exist for initial 400G long haul implementations.”

http://www.oiforum.com

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Internap's AgileCLOUD to Offer Native OpenStack API

Internap Network Services announced the beta availability of the next generation of its public cloud.

Internap's AgileCLOUD will fully expose both virtualized and bare-metal compute instances over a native OpenStack API. The company said this will allow customers to easily provision and manage thousands of virtual or bare-metal cloud AgileSERVER instances – to best fit their application and use case requirements – across Internap’s global cloud footprint, which includes locations in New York, Dallas, Silicon Valley, Amsterdam and Singapore.

“AgileCLOUD is now 100% OpenStack ‘under the hood,’ which provides an open, interoperable framework that helps us deliver a dramatically more scalable platform,” said Raj Dutt, senior vice president of technology at Internap. “Not only can we offer our customers all the benefits of the OpenStack platform, but we’ve implemented existing features that our hybridized customers find valuable – such as bare-metal cloud instances, static IP addresses, Layer 2 VLANs and compatibility with our existing hosting API (hAPI).”

Other key features include:

• Flexible configuration options and hybridization – Bare-metal cloud AgileSERVERs will function as just another instance flavor, providing customers with a seamless choice on a per-application or per-instance basis. AgileCLOUD continues to support Layer 2 VLANs for hybridization across customers’ colocation and managed hosting services with Internap, all of which can be managed through a “single-pane-of-glass” customer portal and API.
  
• High-performance storage – AgileCLOUD provides 100% SSD for both local (ephemeral) and networked (persistent) block storage.
  
• Improved interoperability and no vendor lock-in – native OpenStack API and third-party OpenStack ecosystem for both virtualized and bare-metal cloud instances, including the ability to more easily hybridize between on-premise and third-party OpenStack clouds.

http://www.internap.com/press-release/internap-announces-beta-availability-of-first-openstack-powered-hybrid-virtualized-and-bare-metal-public-cloud/

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China Mobile Selects HP for Wireless City Search

China Mobile has selected HP Autonomy's Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL) to power the search capability of its strategic Wireless City platform, which allows users to access information on thousands of public services directly from their mobile phones.

HP IDOL uses advanced pattern-matching technology to understand key concepts in all forms of information, including free text, video, audio, image, social media and the web. Unlike traditional, keyword-dependent systems, HP IDOL retrieves all relevant information that is conceptually related to a query, going beyond search to help users discover information they may not know to look for.

“Much of the success of Wireless City depends on the users’ ability to quickly find information and harness the full potential of the platform,” said Cao Yang, project manager, Wireless City, China Mobile. “HP Autonomy stood out by having a great support infrastructure. We believe that the unique conceptual search capabilities of HP IDOL can help us deliver an unmatched experience and a highly valuable service to our customers.”

http://www.hp.com

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Infonetics: Banner Year for VoIP and IMS

Bucking the typically soft 3rd quarter, the global service provider VoIP and IMS equipment market totaled $974 million in 3Q13, up 4% sequentially, and up 52% from the year-ago quarter, according to a new report from Infonetics.

“2013 is turning into a banner year for the IMS equipment market due largely to mobile operators in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea purchasing gear for voice over LTE (VoLTE). While many of these networks won’t go live until next year, operators are purchasing and deploying enough capacity to make sure they don’t fall short upon launch,” notes Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research.

Some additional highlights:

• Legacy equipment—gateways and softswitches—showed resiliency rather than being a drag on results
• Owing to LTE-related activity, North America enjoyed the strongest year-over-year growth of any region in 3Q13, despite being down on a quarter-over-quarter basis
• The Caribbean and Latin America (CALA) continues to benefit from the overall expansion of fixed-line VoIP services, notching a 20% sequential increase in revenue in 3Q13
• Strong performances in Asia Pacific, CALA, and EMEA helped Huawei maintain its leadership in the global service provider VoIP and IMS market
• In the 3rd quarter, NEC, Ericsson, Mavenir, Genband, and Metaswitch all posted double-digit revenue growth.

http://www.infonetics.com

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Cable Wi-Fi Now Provides Access Nearly 200,000 WiFi Hotspots across U.S.

Cox Communications is now providing its customers with access to nearly 200,00 Wi-Fi hotspots across the U.S. in the Cable WiFi network.

With the latest integration with Time Warner Cable's hotspots, Cox customers now can access free Wi-Fi in additional cities including Los Angeles, New York City, Austin, Charlotte and Kansas City.

"Cox continues to extend our customers access to WiFi hotspots across the country delivering information and entertainment anytime, anywhere," said Len Barlik, executive vice president and chief product officer. "Not only are we providing our customers access to nearly 200,000 WiFi hotspots throughout the country, we are also making it convenient and simple for customers to locate and logon to these hotspots."

http://www.cox.com/hotspots

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Aruba Posts Quarterly Revenue of $161M, up 11% YoY

Aruba Networks reported record quarterly revenue of $160.9 million, up 11 percent from the $144.5 million reported in Q1’13. G

AAP net loss for Q1’14 was $7.8 million, a loss of $0.07 per share, compared with GAAP net loss of $0.8 million, or a loss of $0.01 per share, in Q1’13.

“In the first quarter, we surpassed our revenue expectations and executed well on our initiatives to grow our sales and channel engine,” said Dominic Orr, Aruba’s president and chief executive officer. “The early strong performance of our 802.11ac solutions validate our technology leadership position in the industry. Additionally, we expanded our addressable market with the launch of our Aruba Central cloud-based management service, bringing Aruba’s enterprise-class performance, manageability and reliability to the cloud. Our competitive position continues to grow as IT teams recognize that upgrading their wired closet will not solve their most pressing needs brought about by an increasingly wireless world and the proliferation of devices needing access to their networks."

http://www.arubanetworks.com/

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Splunk Sees 51% YoY Sales Growth for Analytics

Splunk posted quarterly revenue of $78.6 million, up 51% year-over-year, for its software platform for real-time operational intelligence.

“We are pleased to welcome a record number of new customers to Splunk this quarter,” said Godfrey Sullivan, Chairman and CEO, Splunk. “There is tremendous value to be found in machine data. As a result, more customers are adopting Splunk software as their enterprise standard. We expanded our product portfolio this quarter with the release of Splunk Enterprise 6, Splunk Cloud and Hunk: Splunk Analytics for Hadoop, providing more power, functionality and flexibility for our customers.”

http://www.splunk.com

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LSI Delivers its ARM-based Axxia 4500 Processor for SDN

LSI announced first commercial delivery of its Axxia 4500 family of communication processors for enterprise and data center networking applications such as evolving application aware networking.

LSI's Axxia 4500, which is the company's first ARM technology-based communication processor, features a new "StreamSight" next-generation Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) engine that provides improved Software-Defined Networks (SDN) controller traffic inspection, efficiency of network management, QoS, security and other network functions. The Axxia 4500 processors combine LSI's acceleration engines with up to four ARM Cortex-A15 cores with a CoreLink CCN-504 coherent, QoS aware interconnect in 28nm process technology. The processors also include up to 100 Gbps of L2 switching functionality.

The company said that by combining its Ethernet switches, networking accelerators and "Virtual Pipeline" technology with power-efficient ARM cores, its new Axxia 4500 can address the performance challenges facing next-generation networks. Customers using the Axxia 4500 are able to solve the control plane scalability challenges of SDN and extract the necessary information required to enable Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) implementations without burdening the server processor.

“With so much content and so many applications residing in the cloud, the need to manage network traffic both more efficiently and securely is increasingly important,” said Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager, Networking Solutions Group, LSI. “The Axxia 4500 communication processor family, with its combination of intelligence and acceleration, delivers the high performance necessary for efficient SDN implementations.”

http://www.lsi.com/company/newsroom/Pages/20131120bpr.aspx

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Qualcomm Intros 4th Gen Modem Chipset Supporting LTE-Advanced

Qualcomm introduced its fourth-generation 3G/LTE multimode modem chipset, the Qualcomm Gobi 9x35, and RF transceiver chip, the Qualcomm WTR3925.

The Qualcomm Gobi 9x35 is a cellular modem implemented in 20nm technology.  It offers support for global carrier aggregation with up to 40 MHz for both LTE TDD and FDD Category 6.  This enables download speeds of up to 300 Mbps. It is backwards compatible and supports all other major cellular technologies, including DC-HSPA, EVDO Rev. B, CDMA 1x, GSM and TD-SCDMA.

The Qualcomm WTR3925 is the first announced RF transceiver chip based on the 28 nm process, and is Qualcomm Technologies’ first single-chip, carrier aggregation RF solution that supports all carrier aggregation band combinations approved by 3GPP. The WTR3925 pairs with the Gobi 9x35 chipset and the Qualcomm RF360 Front End Solution, which enable the mobile industry’s premier global, single-SKU LTE platform. Sampling is expected to begin sampling early next year.

“We’re excited to be expanding our portfolio with a fourth generation of 3G/LTE multimode connectivity solutions,” said Cristiano Amon, executive vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and co-president, QCT. “Not only do these products extend our industry-leading Gobi roadmap, they enable the creation of thinner and more efficient mobile devices capable of connecting to the fastest 4G LTE Advanced networks worldwide.”

http://www.qualcomm.com/media/releases/2013/11/20/qualcomm-technologies-announces-fourth-generation-3glte-multimode-modem

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Palo Alto Networks and VMware Partner on Network Virtualization Security

Palo Alto Networks and VMware announced a jointly-developed solution that uses the VMware NSX network virtualisation platform to automate provisioning and distribution of Palo Alto Networks next-generation network security in their software-defined data centers.

The companies said the combined solution will enable customers to use the network services insertion capabilities of VMware NSX to deploy, move, scale and protect applications.   Key features include:

• Automated provisioning of advanced network services
  
• A consistent network security model that protects against cyber threats - known and unknown - across both physical and virtual workloads
  
• Native segmentation of virtual machines into virtual networks
  
• Transparent traffic steering and enforcement at the virtual interface
  
• Fine-grained visibility into applications, users and content associated with virtual machine context
  
• Context-sharing across virtual infrastructure and security management platforms
  
• Separation of duties between server, network and security IT administrators.

"The cloud introduces new security challenges, and legacy security systems based on physical attributes such as port and protocol just aren't adequate to secure these highly dynamic environments," said Jon Oltsik, senior principal analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. "A next-generation security approach that eases operational challenges through integration with network virtualisation is a requirement for customers to confidently extend their deployments to cloud."

http://www.vmware.com
http://www.paloaltonetworks.com

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