IDC: Worldwide public cloud spending to double by 2023

IDC is predicting that worldwide spending on public cloud services and infrastructure will more than double over the 2019-2023 period.

The latest update to IDC's Worldwide Semiannual Public Cloud Services Spending Guide forecasts a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.3%, public cloud spending, taking the market from $229 billion in 2019 to nearly $500 billion in 2023.

"Adoption of public (shared) cloud services continues to grow rapidly as enterprises, especially in professional services, telecommunications, and retail, continue to shift from traditional application software to software as a service (SaaS) and from traditional infrastructure to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) to empower customer experience and operational-led digital transformation (DX) initiatives," said Eileen Smith, program director, Customer Insights and Analysis.



Some highlights from IDC:

• Software as a Service (SaaS) will be the largest category of cloud computing, capturing more than half of all public cloud spending in throughout the forecast. SaaS spending, which is comprised of applications and system infrastructure software (SIS), will be dominated by applications purchases. The leading SaaS applications will be customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource management (ERM). SIS spending will be led by purchases of security software and system and service management software.
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) will be the second largest category of public cloud spending throughout the forecast, followed by Platform as a Service (PaaS). IaaS spending, comprised of servers and storage devices, will also be the fastest growing category of cloud spending with a five-year CAGR of 32.0%. PaaS spending will grow nearly as fast (29.9% CAGR) led by purchases of data management software, application platforms, and integration and orchestration middleware.
• Three industries – professional services, discrete manufacturing, and banking – will account for more than one third of all public cloud services spending throughout the forecast. While SaaS will be the leading category of investment for all industries, IaaS will see its share of spending increase significantly for industries that are building data and compute intensive services. For example, IaaS spending will represent more than 40% of public cloud services spending by the professional services industry in 2023 compared to less than 30% for most other industries. Professional services will also see the fastest growth in public cloud spending with a five-year CAGR of 25.6%.
• On a geographic basis, the United States will be the largest public cloud services market, accounting for more than half the worldwide total through 2023. Western Europe will be the second largest market with nearly 20% of the worldwide total. China will experience the fastest growth in public cloud services spending over the five-year forecast period with a 49.1% CAGR. Latin America will also deliver strong public cloud spending growth with a 38.3% CAGR.
• Very large businesses (more than 1000 employees) will account for more than half of all public cloud spending throughout the forecast, while medium-size businesses (100-499 employees) will deliver around 16% of the worldwide total. Small businesses (10-99 employees) will trail large businesses (500-999 employees) by a few percentage points while the spending share from small offices (1-9 employees) will be in the low single digits. All the company size categories except for very large businesses will experience spending growth greater than the overall market.

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS45340719

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Amazon's Project Kuiper aims for 3,236 LEO satellites

Amazon filed an application with the FCC to launch up to 3,236 low-Earth orbit satellites for delivering advanced broadband services.

Amazon's Project Kuiper proposes up to 3,236 Ka-band satellites in 98 orbital planes with an apogee of 630km. Each satellite would have an estimated life of 7 years. The company says its Kuiper System will deliver satellite broadband communications services to tens of millions of unserved and underserved consumers and businesses in the United States and around the globe. The Kuiper System includes high-performance satellites, terrestrial gateways, internetworking technologies, and a range of customer terminals.

The Kuiper System will be capable of providing continuous coverage to customers within approximately 56˚N and 56˚S latitude serving the continental United States, Hawaii, U.S. territories, and other regions of the world.

Amazon also noted that its proposed Kuiper System would leverage its own secure, high-quality global networking and cloud infrastructure (AWS).

https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/ib/forms/attachment_menu.hts?id_app_num=131001&acct=322741&id_form_num=12&filing_key=-434810

SpaceX launches the first 60 Starlink LEO satellites

Thursday, May 23, 2019  Satellites, SpaceX  

SpaceX successfully launched the first 60 satellites of its Starlink LEO constellation.

SpaceX has disclosed plans to deploy as many as 12,000 satellites in three, low earth orbit (LEO) shells. Cost estimates for full deployment approach $10 billion.

The launch used a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a first stage that had previously been used on the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission in September 2018 and the Iridium-8 mission in January 2019. Following the launch, the booster successfully landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Starlink satellites were deployed at an altitude of 440km. Onboard propulsion was then used to boost each satellite to an operational altitude of 550km.

The Starlink satellites feature a flat-panel design with multiple high-throughput antennas and a single solar array. Each Starlink satellite weighs approximately 227kg.

SpaceX also said the Starlink satellites are able to track and maneuver around orbiting space debris using thrusters powered by Krypton.

In March 2018, the FCC authorized SpaceX to construct, deploy, and operate a proposed non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system comprising 4,425 satellites for the provision of fixed-satellite service (FSS) around the world.

In July 2016, OneWeb was granted approval to build a similar constellation of MEO satellites.

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KDDI and Softbank agree on 5G network sharing in rural Japan

KDDI and SoftBank agreed to share their base station assets to jointly promote the rapid build-out of 5G networks in Japan's rural areas.

Specifically, the companies plan to set up a joint construction management company that would facilitate construction designs and manage construction work to efficiently utilize the base station assets of both companies. As a first step, both companies will establish a preparatory office, and starting this fall, conduct joint trials in Asahikawa City in Hokkaido, Narita City in Chiba Prefecture and Fukuyama City in Hiroshima Prefecture.

In addition to streamlining processes from design to construction management stages, the trials will be used to verify the effects of 5G network quality improvements and shortened construction periods in rural areas.

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Taiwan Star Telecom picks Nokia for 5G

TST (Taiwan Star Telecom) has chosen Nokia's end-to-end (E2E) solution to expand the coverage and capacity of its LTE network to support subscriber growth. The new solution will also enable TST to offer narrowband Internet of Things (IoT) services, as well as prepare TST to migrate to 5G services in the future. The expansion will enhance network quality and improve the user experience. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The Nokia 5G-ready solutions selected by TST include:

• The AirScale eNodeB solution, which introduces the Nokia AirScale Remote Radio Head (RRH). This will help TST to cost-effectively create the capacity they need with more flexible cell sizes. The diverse deployment options include macro, mini-macro and small cells for dense urban spots, grey/white spots, indoor and stadium coverage.
• The 7750 Mobile Gateway (MG) and Cloud Mobility Manager (CMM) for expansion of the packet core.
• The 7750 Service Router for IP backbone expansion, due to its reliability, high capacity, and 5G compatibility.
• The Smart Plan Suite (SPS), which provides a full policy and charging solution and paves the way for 5G monetization.  

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Taiwan's Far EasTone tests drones for tower inspections

Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET), one of Taiwan's largest mobile operators and a capital affiliate of NTT Docomo, has begun testing the docomo sky service for inspecting base-station towers/

The service uses drones to photograph the towers and then wirelessly communicate the information to a command center in real time. This is the second overseas deployment of docomo sky, following Indonesia. Docomo sky service is also currently inspecting base-station towers in Japan.

Going forward, DOCOMO said it will continue to develop and enhance its advanced drone services.

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Colombia plans free Wi-Fi hotspots in rural towns using SES-14 satellite

The Colombian Ministry of Telecommunications (Mintic) has selected local services provider INRED to install, operate and maintain 1,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in rural areas around the country as part of the Sustainable Universal Access project.

SES Networks will provide satellite services for the project using its SES-14 satellite, which comprises a mix of wide beams and high throughput (HTS) spot beams to cover the entire Latin America region, the Caribbean and the North Atlantic.

“By working together with SES Networks, we were able to quickly and cost-effectively expand our data and Internet services via satellite throughout the Colombian territory, reducing the digital divide that still separates cities from the countryside,” said Jhon Jairo Ureña CEO at INRED. “This project will allow end users in 20 Colombian departments to have high speed Internet access, even in those areas that have been historically underserved or tough-to-reach.”

“Colombia’s geographically diverse landscape makes it challenging to build up infrastructure to connect people who live in sparsely-populated regions,” said Omar Trujillo, Vice President of Sales for Fixed Data Americas at SES Networks. “We are extremely proud to partner with INRED to help the Colombian government bring Internet connectivity to more people in remote areas of the country.

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ScaleMP and TidalScale resolve their patent dispute

ScaleMP and TidalScale have settled all litigation between them.

Under the settlement, TidalScale has taken a paid-up five-year license to ScaleMP’s patent portfolio and all trade-secret claims asserted against TidalScale, Dr. Ike Nassi and Dr. David Reed have been resolved without payment or admission of liability.

ScaleMP specializes in virtualization for high-end computing. Its Versatile SMP (vSMP) architecture provides software-defined computing and software-defined memory by aggregating multiple independent systems or high-performance SSDs into single virtual systems.

TidalScale specializes in Software-Defined Servers that deliver in-memory performance at any scale, are self-optimizing, use standard hardware and are compatible with all applications and operating systems.

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Nokia and ADVA demo end-to-end 5G synchronization

ADVA and Nokia jointly demonstrated end-to-end network timing with the accuracy and resilience needed for 5G services.

The demonstration, which was presented at Orange Poland’s Innovation Garden Summit, highlighted how precise phase and frequency synchronization can be delivered and assured from the core to the cell site without risk from GNSS vulnerabilities.

The live showcase in Warsaw featured ADVA’s diverse range of Oscilloquartz products. This includes ultra-compact small-form-factor solutions designed to be utilized in large numbers even in the most challenging and space-restrictive conditions.

ADVA said its solutions meet the urgent demand for precise timing at the network edge. At the other end of the scale are Oscilloquartz modular, high-performance IEEE 1588v2 PTP core grandmasters that provide ultimate scale with a carrier-class design and in-built hardware redundancy. As part of the OSA ePRTC system, these provide an ultra-precise source of time with guaranteed holdover performance, removing the risk of reliance on GNSS alone.

“Our joint demo with Nokia answers the most urgent timing challenges facing today’s network operators. It highlights how our solutions can accelerate the deployment of 5G, IoT and mobile edge computing by delivering new levels of accuracy and stability for phase and frequency synchronization,” said Jörg Urban, senior director, business development, Oscilloquartz, ADVA. “We’re showing Tier 1 CSPs how easy it is to distribute, monitor and assure end-to-end timing that is fully resistant to GNSS outages. The precision and reliability that our technology offers will empower operators to support emerging applications in fields such as highly interactive augmented reality and self-driving vehicles.”

http://www.advaoptical.com
http://www.oscilloquartz.com

BT employs ADVA's precision synchronization for 5G

Monday, March 25, 2019  ADVA, BT  

BT is deploying ADVA's Oscilloquartz synchronization technology to bring 4G coverage to previously underserved areas and begin the rollout of 5G services across the UK. The new synchronization solution is deployed nationwide in 10 core time base sites, 106 metro time sites and close to 1,000 Tier 1 sites at the network edge. Prior to this deployment, BT’s timing network was based purely on frequency synchronization. ADVA said its Oscilloquartz...

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ADVA's Oscilloquartz delivers enhanced PRTC for 5G network timing

Tuesday, June 19, 2018  ADVA  

Oscilloquartz, which is a division of ADVA, launched an enhanced primary reference time clock (ePRTC) system for 5G network timing. The Oscilloquartz solution, which is able to provide timing accuracy and stability even when the GNSS signal is lost, features the OSA 3230B ePRC atomic cesium clock connected to an Oscilloquartz clock combiner and grandmaster. The company said the technology provides the ideal timing source for mission-critical transport...

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Radisys contributes seed code to the O-RAN Alliance

Radisys is contributing its Open 5G Software seed code to the O-RAN Alliance for its 5G NR Stack Reference Architecture thereby helping to accelerate the O-RAN ecosystem and enable the delivery of open APIs and open architectures for mobile operators.

Radisys, along with China Mobile and AT&T as the Operator co-chairs, is teamed with Intel to co-chair Work Group 8 to define the 5G NR stack reference architecture. Radisys is the first contributor to this effort with its seed code. The O-RAN Alliance’s additional workgroups will leverage the code for their own deliverables.

The Radisys’ Open 5G Software seed code was made available as open source code by the O-RAN Alliance’s Software Community during MWC Shanghai, which occurred June 26-28.

"We share a common vision with our WG8 co-chairs – China Mobile, AT&T and Intel – to accelerate RAN evolution through the principles of disaggregation and openness, while laying the groundwork for 5G networks that are being built today,” said Neeraj Patel, vice president and general manager, Software and Services, Radisys. “We thank our mobile operator co-chairs for welcoming us as co-chair, re-affirming our own commitment to the open telecom revolution, and we call on other vendors and operators to make their own contributions to this important work."

http://www.Radisys.com

O-RAN Open Source Community gets underway

Tuesday, April 02, 2019  Linux Foundation, ORAN  

The O-RAN Alliance and the Linux Foundation have established the O-RAN Software Community (O-RAN SC) to provide open software aligned with the O-RAN Alliance’s open architecture.

As a new open source community under the Linux Foundation, the O-RAN SC is sponsored by the O-RAN Alliance, and together they will develop open source software enabling modular, open, intelligent, efficient, and agile disaggregated radio access networks. The initial set of software projects may include: near-real-time RAN intelligent controller (nRT RIC), non-real-time RAN intelligent controller (NRT RIC), cloudification and virtualization platforms, open central unit (O-CU), open distributed unit (O-DU), and a test and integration effort to provide a working reference implementation. Working with other adjacent open source networking communities, the O-RAN SC will enable collaborative development across the full operator network stack.

“This collaboration between the O-RAN Alliance and the Linux Foundation is a tremendous accomplishment that represents the culmination of years of thoughtful innovation around the next generation of networks,” said Andre Fuetsch, Chairman of the O-RAN Alliance, and President of AT&T Labs and Chief Technology Officer at AT&T. “The launch of the O-RAN SC marks the next phase of that innovation, where the benefits of disaggregated and software-centric platforms will move out to the edge of the network. This new open source community will be critical if 5G is to reach its full potential.”
http://www.o-ran-sc.org

O-RAN Alliance readies Open Fronthaul Specification

Tuesday, February 19, 2019  #MWC19, Fronthaul, O-RAN  

The O-RAN Alliance is preparing to release the first O-RAN standard Open Fronthaul Specifications comprised of control, user, synchronization and management plane protocols.

Sachin Katti, Stanford University Professor and O-RAN TSC co-chair said, “we are excited to release the first O-RAN Open Fronthaul Specification. O-RAN has leveraged significant specification work done in xRAN and will accelerate interoperability testing and product commercialization. Further, the O-RAN fronthaul workgroup has also started discussions on potential new study items to pursue for 2019.”

At next week's MWC19 in Barcelona, O-RAN Alliance members will showcase six strategic proof-of-concepts across various member booths covering four key themes: intelligent RAN control, Open Interfaces, virtualization and white box.

Highlights of the demos

1. "O-RAN aligned implementation of Radio Intelligent Controller (RIC) Load Balancing" showcases predictive load balancing using Smart Radio Fingerprint technology that provides opportunities to interoperability using O-RAN architecture interfaces and established industry elements. The solution enables the accurate redirection of UE attachment, optimized load balancing, and improved user experience. This demo is being sponsored and hosted by China Mobile and ZTE at their respective booths. 
2. “AI empowered User Quality of Experience (QoE)” showcases predictive user QoE enabled by machine learning micro services chained together, to autonomously recognize traffic types in real-time, predict quality and provide closed-loop network controls resulting in a consistent, high-quality 5G user experience. This demo is being sponsored by China Mobile and Nokia; and hosted in the China Mobile booth. 
3. “Open Fronthaul Interface” showcases the use of O-RAN’s Open Front Haul specification with a variety of vendors to achieve interoperability between the O-DU and O-RU enabled by a fully specified control, user, synchronization and management plane protocols. This demo is being sponsored by Verizon, NTT DOCOMO, KT Corporation, SK telecom, Fujitsu, HFR, Intel, Keysight, Mavenir, NEC and SOLiD; and hosted by NTT DOCOMO, KT Corporation, Keysight, Mavenir and NEC at their respective booths. 
4. “Virtualized O-CU on Akraino edge cloud orchestrated by ONAP” -- showcases the integration of virtualized CU with a community supported Akraino edge stack blueprint packaged into a “cloud appliance” enabling the flexibility of virtualization and cloud, while retaining the simplicity and low cost of an appliance. This demo is being sponsored by AT&T and Nokia; and hosted in the Nokia booth.
5. “Programmable mmWave White-Box Radio Unit,” showcases a mmWave smart O-RU transmitting a 5G NR signal with 100MHz bandwidth using a 5G open RAN test platform and a 28 GHz ORU whitebox with a beamformed active antenna system to two UEs test emulators. This demo is being sponsored by AT&T, Anokiwave, Ball Aerospace, Xilinx and Keysight; and hosted in the Xilinx booth.
6. “Open hardware reference design for sub 6GHz indoor coverage” showcase two live demos of white-box and general-purpose hardware supporting sub 6GHz indoor coverage deployment scenarios for both 4G and 5G. The first demo is being sponsored by China Mobile, Lenovo, Baicells; and hosted at Lenovo booth. The second demo is being sponsored by China Telecom, Intel, H3C; and hosted in the Intel booth.

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China Mobile activates its first Access CDN at the OLT

China Mobile (Zhejiang) activated its first commercial Access CDN deployed at the OLT.

To address the problem of huge video traffic volume, Zhejiang Branch of China Mobile has adopted ZTE's innovative Light Cloud solution to push the CDN to the OLTs, which is the network node nearest to the users, by loading IT capabilities into the OLTs. The solution reduces access latency, increases download speeds, and enhances service experience. In addition, it saves upstream bandwidth by up to 60 percent, thereby alleviating upstream network bandwidth shortages.

https://www.zte.com.cn/global/about/news/20190701e1.html

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CyrusOne builds third cata center in Frankfurt

CyrusOne has commenced construction on the first phase of its newest data center location in Frankfurt, Germany. The facility is CyrusOne’s third in the Sossenheim district of the city, offering cloud providers, systems integrators and multinational corporations customized, secure and resilient data center solutions within a key business hub.

Upon completion, expected in Q2 2020, the site will comprise two adjoining, four-story buildings delivering 22 MW of IT power to 11,500 sq. m of world-class technical space. Indirect adiabatic air cooling in each data hall will ensure an extremely low Power Usage Efficiency (PUE). CyrusOne is using a modular construction method and will work closely with valued partners including Mercury and Klein Architekten.

“Frankfurt is one of the fastest growing and most strategically important locations for CyrusOne due to its economic strength and proximity to one of the most important European financial centers,” said Tesh Durvasula, President Europe, CyrusOne. “This will mark our third expansion facility in Frankfurt and I expect it will effectively be pre-leased by the time we complete construction next year.”

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Rockley Photonics raises $52 million

Rockley Photonics, a start-up based in Oxford, UK, announced US$52 million in the first closure in its Series E funding round for its silicon photonics technology.

Rockley Photonics, which was formed in 2013, developed a third-generation silicon photonics platform specifically designed for the optical I/O challenges facing next-generation sensor systems and communications networks. The company says its platform exploits optimized waveguide dimensions.

Andrew Rickman, chief executive officer at Rockley added: “Rockley is uniquely positioned having developed a proprietary photonics platform and manufacturing technologies, underpinned by a depth of expertise that goes back some 30 years. We are currently using our platform to address applications in the data center and high-performance computing, medical and life sciences, and 3D imaging/sensing verticals with the potential for additional verticals in the future.”

Mahesh Karanth, chief financial officer at Rockley explained: “With this latest round of investment, Rockley is strengthening its position as a leading integrated silicon photonics solutions provider. It will support the full execution of our business plan and continued growth as we make significant strides in co-packaging for optoASICs and data center connectivity, LiDAR and consumer electronic applications.”

Investors in the lastest funding round include a key strategic partner, Morningside Technology Ventures and numerous private investors. The company has now raised $165 million to date.

www.rockleyphotonics.com

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Intel names Baidu as an AI development partner

Intel confirmed that it is collaborating with Baidu on development of the new Intel Nervana Neural Network Processor for Training (NNP-T). The collaboration involves the hardware and software designs of the new custom accelerator with one purpose – training deep learning models at lightning speed.

Since 2016, Intel has been optimizing Baidu’s PaddlePaddle deep learning framework for Intel® Xeon Scalable processors. Now, the companies give data scientists more hardware choice by optimizing the NNP-T for PaddlePaddle.

"The next few years will see an explosion in the complexity of AI models and the need for massive deep learning compute at scale. Intel and Baidu are focusing their decade-long collaboration on building radical new hardware, co-designed with enabling software, that will evolve with this new reality – something we call ‘AI 2.0,"  stated Naveen Rao, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the AI Products Group.

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China Mobile approves ZTE's CE-band 96-wavelength system

ZTE's commercial CE-band 96-wavelength beyond 100G OTN system passed the on-site test of Hubei Branch of China Mobile and the FOA network access test of China Mobile Group.
Compared with the traditional C-band 80-wavelength 100G system,

ZTE’s CE-band 96-wavelength 200G system increases the capacity by 140% compared with a C-band 80-wavelength 200G system.

In August 2018, ZTE cooperated with Hubei Branch of China Mobile to build the new provincial backbone beyond 100G IDC network, adopting the CE-band 96-wavelength 200G system. This system implements electrical cross-connection to achieve fast connection.

By means of the fast assignment of ROADM system wavelengths, it supports flexible hybrid scheduling of optical and electrical layer services, thereby improving service provisioning and operation efficiency.  Meanwhile, the solution provides multiple routing channels and supports one-hop transmission on the optical layer, enabling lower network latency and mesh network services.

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Telia acquires Fello for prepaid in Sweden

Telia has acquired Fello AB, a prepaid MVNO in Sweden.

Fello AB started in 2013, has seven employees and the business is located in Gothenburg. Telia has provided network services to Fello since its beginning.

Fello AB will be implemented in the Swedish operations and the brand Fello will remain within Telia.

Telia said the deal does not require any approval from Sweden's Competition Authority.

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In Memoriam: Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom

Robert (Bob) William Collymore, CEO of SAFARICOM, passed away at the age of 61 due to Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). He leaves behind a wife and four children.

Collymore has served as CEO of Safaricom since 2010. Previously he has worked in the UK, Japan, and South Africa in a number of senior executive roles in Marketing, Purchasing, Retail, Governance and Corporate Affairs. He also served in various roles at the United Nations, including on the UN Commission on Life Saving commodities for women and children.

Safaricom is an international service provider based in Nairobi, Kenya.

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NTT restructures as a new global technology services provider

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT Corporation) is restructuring and integrating 28 of its subsidiary companies, including NTT Communications, Dimension Data and NTT Security, into one US $11 billion business to be called NTT Ltd.

NTT Ltd., which is headquartered in London, will be a global technology services provider employing around 40,000 people in offices across 70+ countries and regions. The new company's portfolio and mission include:

• Clients access to a more comprehensive range and greater depth of skills across multiple technologies and capabilities
• Global technology and managed services that are world leading in scale and depth
• Improved ability to deliver more in-depth industry solutions
• World-class managed services platforms with the ability to deliver local customizations to meet clients’ needs in each market.
• Increased investment in innovation and R&D.

President and CEO for NTT Corporation, Jun Sawada said, “I’m delighted to announce that we launched NTT Ltd. today. When we combine the new capabilities of NTT Ltd. along with NTT DATA, we create a top five global technology and business solutions provider with US$20 billion revenues outside of Japan. Going forward, we will accelerate our execution as one NTT in order to contribute to a smarter and better world through digital transformation.

“We are also excited to confirm that our global headquarters for NTT Ltd will be in London and that our commitment to the UK remains extremely strong. We considered several locations as the headquarters for NTT Ltd and made a deliberate decision to choose London. It has many benefits, including a stable economy, wealth of skills and talent, diversity in population and thinking, strong infrastructure, schools and housing for global talent moving to the city. In short, it’s a great city to live and work in, and we’re excited that we are making it the home for our new business”.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May said, “Britain has a long standing and proud reputation as a global tech leader and it’s fantastic that NTT Ltd. has chosen London for its global headquarters. A key part of our modern Industrial Strategy is to put the UK at the forefront of the tech and data revolution, and they will join many other world-leading companies who call Britain home”.

https://hello.global.ntt/en-us

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Equinix partners with Singapore's GIC on xScale Data Centers in Europe

Equinix has formed a joint venture with GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, to develop and operate xScaleTM data centers in Europe. The joint venture is initially valued at over $1 billion.

Equinix said initial facilities in the joint venture will serve the unique core workload deployment needs of a targeted group of hyperscale companies, including the world's largest cloud service providers. The facilities will be located on or proximate to some of Equinix's existing IBX campuses.xScale data centers will be managed and staffed by Equinix while ensuring seamless connectivity to the Equinix global platform, providing a consistent experience for the hyperscale companies.

Equinix cites two ways in which the new xScale data centers will provide hyperscale companies a differentiated value proposition from existing wholesale data center operators in two key areas:
xScale data centers will offer access to Equinix's comprehensive suite of interconnection and edge services. These services will tie into the hyperscale companies' existing access points at Equinix, thereby increasing the speed of connectivity to their existing and future enterprise customers.
xScale data centers will be engineered to meet the technical and operational requirements and price points of core hyperscale workload deployments. This enables hyperscale companies to consolidate core and access point deployments into one global provider to streamline and simplify their rapid growth.

Equinix has been working for years with hyperscale operators, including Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Google Cloud. Currently, global deployments from the top hyperscale companies exceed $500 million in annual revenue at Equinix, with interconnection-rich retail deployments representing the most rapid growth segment of their deployments.

Under the deal, GIC will own an 80% equity interest in the joint venture and Equinix will own the remaining 20% equity interest. Equinix will sell both its London LD10 (retaining part of that business under a lease back) and Paris PA8 IBX data centers and the associated leases, as well as certain other development interests, to the joint venture. A significant portion of London LD10 and Paris PA8 are already leased.

The cmpanies envision additional new xScale data centers in Amsterdam, Frankfurt (two sites) and London. These initial six facilities, when fully built out, will provide approximately 155 megawatts (MW) of power capacity.

Charles Meyers, President and CEO, Equinix, said "It has been a long journey to reach this point, but we are tremendously excited to announce the formation of our first xScale data centers joint venture. Partnering with a world-class investment partner like GIC will provide the opportunity to make significant capital investments in order to capture targeted large-footprint deployments while continuing to optimize our capital structure. The JV structure will enable us to extend our cloud leadership while providing significant value to a critical set of hyperscale customers. We look forward to launching similar JVs in other operating regions and believe that these efforts will continue to further differentiate Equinix as the trusted center of a cloud-first world."

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ETSI enhances NFV to support 5G

ETSI announce a number of resource management and orchestration enhacements to its NFV specifications for supporting 5G networks.

Specifically, new NFV Release 3 features that closely relate to 5G include:

• Support for network slicing in NFV
• Management over multi-administrative domains, and 
• Multi-site network connectivity. 

“As a founding partner in 3GPP, ETSI has a major role to play in contributing and aligning specifications and requirements.” says Cristina Badulescu, ETSI ISG NFV Vice-Chair.

ETSI and 3GPP collaboration has been key throughout the specification work of ETSI NFV Release 2 and 3, to ensure interoperability between management systems - covering upper orchestration and management layers, such as network management or application management. The 3GPP-defined management system interacts with ETSI NFV Management and Orchestration (MANO) system to realize the resource management for virtualized Core Network (CN), virtualized Radio Access Network (RAN) and network slicing.

More specifically, in the NFV Release 3, an external touchpoint between the NFV’s Network Service and network slicing was defined - in which the Network Service becomes a composite element of the 3GPP SA5 network slice subnet construct - enabling market implementations to easily combine the 3GPP SA5 Network Resource Model (NRM) with the ETSI NFV Information Model.

http://www.etsi.org

ETSI and Linux Foundation agree on Open Source collaboration

Sunday, April 28, 2019    

The Linux Foundation and ETSI signed a Memorandum of Understanding to bring open source and standards closer and foster synergies between them.  Areas of mutual interest include technologies concerning NFV, MANO, AI and edge computing. The collaboration agreement is expected to enable faster information-sharing and deployment of open networking technologies. The organinzations will engage in collaborative activities, joint communication, promotion...

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Lean NFV proposes a Key-Value Store to simplify deployments

Sunday, April 07, 2019    

A new industry initiative known as Lean NFV is aiming to simplify the process of onboarding virtualized network functions (VNFs). Six years after the publication of the first Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) specification, proponents of Lean NFV argue that the technology has failed to live up to its promises largely due to complexity and inefficiency in the deployment model. The topic was addressed in a keynote at last week's Open Networking...

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OPNFV Verification Program adds VNF testing

Wednesday, April 03, 2019  NFV, ONS  

LF Networking (LFN) is expanding its OPNFV Verification Program (OVP) to include Virtual Network Function (VNF) compliance testing. The expanded OVP, created in conjunction with the ONAP testing community, now includes publicly-available VNF compliance test tooling based on requirements developed within ONAP, as well as a Verified Labs Program and the induction of the University of New Hampshire-Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL) as the first OPNFV...

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ETSI Multi-access Edge Computing phase 2 specs released

Sunday, March 24, 2019  ETSI, MEC, Standards  

The ETSI Multi-access Edge Computing group (MEC ISG) released the first set of its Phase 2 specifications, including ETSI GS MEC 002 which includes new requirements for Phase 2, ETSI GS MEC 003 dealing with architecture and framework, and  ETSI GS MEC 009 giving general principles for service APIs. The updated specs focus on the integration of NFV integration. The specification also describes example use cases and their technical benefits,...

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Samsung and SK Telecom test 5G standalone commercialization

Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom completed Korea’s first interoperability assessment between 5G Standalone (SA) Core and other commercial network systems over a 5G network, marking the final stage for verifying the validity of 5G SA data transmission and signifying that the SA system is ready to be launched for commercial service.

The 5G SA Core, jointly developed by Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom supports network slicing and function modularization based on 3GPP standards. It also offers additional functions that operators have been using since LTE, include billing, subscriber management and operational convenience system.

The companies also noted their use of data parallel processing technology for performing QoS and transmission control simultaneously; data acceleration technology for classifying and distributing similar traffic types; and path pptimization technology which automatically delivers data traffic to Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) platform.

“The fundamental structure of 5G SA is built on a completely new configuration, successfully delivering the most optimized 5G service to customers and enterprises across numerous industries,” said Jaeho Jeon, Executive Vice President and Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. “Maintaining Korea’s leadership in network innovations through continuous investments in next-generation technologies is important to Samsung and SK Telecom, and the companies will continue to collaborate on developing and commercializing 5G SA.”

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-and-sk-telecom-advance-in-bringing-korea-closer-to-5g-standalone-commercialization

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