U.S. Air Force Base to deploy AT&T 5G

AT&T will deploy 5G services on Tyndall Air Force Base (Tyndall), which is located in the Florida panhandle. Tyndall suffered catastrophic structural damage in 2018 caused by Hurricane Michael’s Category 5, 160-mph winds.

Under the agreement with the Air Force, AT&T  is rebuilding and modernizing communications infrastructure and capabilities across Tyndall. It is providing future-forward networking capabilities powered by AT&T 5G to support augmented and virtual reality, IoT, and a broad array of innovative technologies. AT&T will also deliver and manage commercial and private enterprise information technology capabilities at Tyndall. Initial services include mobility, cloud access, unified communications, voice, broadband, Wi-Fi expansion and an array of connected devices. AT&T’s networking solution at Tyndall will support network compute and storage as well as network edge capabilities that can more quickly deliver data and applications to users.

“The Air Force and AT&T share a vision for the smart base of the future: one that uses modern, commercially available communications capabilities to help our military maintain its globally competitive edge in defending our freedoms,” said Xavier Williams, President, AT&T Global Public Sector. “We’re proud to work with the Air Force and help fulfill its vision for how technology can power improvements in mission delivery while helping it keep its technological advantage.”

The Air Force also plans to equip its first responders and eligible public safety users at Tyndall with FirstNet – the nationwide, dedicated communications platform purpose-built for public safety. FirstNet operates on a dedicated core network that supports enhanced security and provides always-on priority and preemption services for Tyndall’s contingency and disaster response operations.

http://www.att.com

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SiTime surges 43% in IPO

SiTime completed its initial public offering (IPO) and shares are now trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol SITM.

On the first day of trading, SITM surged 43% over the opening price to close at $18.65.

“SiTime’s IPO on Nasdaq begins an exciting new chapter for us,” said Rajesh Vashist, CEO of SiTime. “SiTime is a timing pure-play leader that is using the power of silicon to transform the timing industry. Our sole focus on timing, along with our industry-leading MEMS, analog and systems technologies, enables significant growth opportunities for us in the $7.7B timing market. On behalf of SiTime, I want to thank our customers, employees, partners and suppliers who have played a key role in our success, and will continue to do so in the future.”

SiTime prepares for IPO -- MEMS timing solutions

Thursday, November 07, 2019  IPO, SiTime  

SiTime, a supplier or MEMS timing, has launched a roadshow for the initial public offering of 4,300,000 shares of its common stock. The underwriters will also have a 30-day option to purchase up to 645,000 additional shares of common stock at the IPO price, less underwriting discounts and commissions.  The IPO price is currently expected to be between $13.00 and $15.00 per share. SiTime expects to list its common stock on The Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “SITM.”

SiTime Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MegaChips Corporation. The company has shipped over 1.5 billion devices to date.

http://www.sitime.com

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AT&T activates first 400G circuit on Dallas/Atlanta route

AT&T activated its first 400-gigabit optical connection on a Dallas-to-Atlanta fiber route -- an industry first for a 400G long haul commercial link, according to the company.

The 400G trunk is now carrying live Internet traffic for customers. This connection – between Dallas and Atlanta – is believed to be a first in the industry.

The 400G Dallas/Atlanta facility was deployed on an SDN-enabled Ultra Long Haul (ULH) system from Ciena. The 400G circuit was routed and configured completely through software using Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller. The 400G transport was terminated in the Dallas and Atlanta offices by a white box router from UfiSpace that is compliant with the Broadcom Jericho2 Distributed Disaggregated Chassis (DDC) design that AT&T recently submitted to the Open Compute Project (OCP). 400G pluggable transceivers from InnoLight were installed in the white box router and Ciena transponder to create the cross-office connectivity between the packet and optical technologies. Ciena’s MCP controller is integrated into AT&T’s ONAP management and control framework using an Application Programming Interface (API) specified by the Open ROADM Multi-Source Agreement (MSA).

The optical transport system consists of a new 400G transponder based on Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai coherent optical technology. The Ciena Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexors (ROADMs) have been upgraded with new software to support a sophisticated feature known as flex grid. This allows us, through software control, to optimize the allocation of spectrum on the long-haul fiber based on the required speed and reach of each wavelength. The Broadcom Jericho2 white box was supplied by UfiSpace and provides 10 x 400G interfaces on a 2RU “pizza box”. The white box uses the Broadcom Jericho2 packet processing chip, a state-of-the-art chip designed to meet the demanding needs of a service provider.

“The move from a 100G interface to 400G is a milestone for the communications industry, because it means we can continue to stay ahead of the tsunami of data demand we’ve seen over the last decade-plus,” said Andre Fuetsch, executive vice president and chief technology officer, AT&T. “This accomplishment also speaks to the tremendously collaborative ecosystem we’ve helped foster with key innovators in optical technology, white box hardware, and software-defined networking. Ciena, UfiSpace, Broadcom, and InnoLight have brought great ideas and technologies to bear to make 400G a reality.”

“We are very proud to collaborate with AT&T on the design of the white boxes based on Broadcom’s Jericho2,” said Vincent Ho, general manager of UfiSpace. “In spite of the complexity and difficulty with the design from an electrical, mechanical, and thermal perspective, we’ve used our breadth of understanding in networking to overcome the challenges rolling out the first 400G carrier-scale white box solution. UfiSpace is very excited to be amidst the first to participate and contribute to this new paradigm. We are thankful to AT&T for their leadership in building a robust and open white box ecosystem.”

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MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Certification Program gets underway

MEF is launching a MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Certification Program, with Spirent Communications as the SD-WAN Authorized Certification and Test Partner (ACTP), enabling service and technology providers to validate that their SD-WAN services and products conform to the recently published SD-WAN Service Attributes and Services (MEF 70) standard.

The certification will test the service attributes and their behaviors defined in MEF 70 and described in detail in the upcoming MEF SD-WAN Certification Test Requirements (MEF 90) standard. Demonstration of conformity with the industry’s first SD-WAN services standard is a valuable reference baseline for users choosing a service supplier in the inevitable confusion of a fast-growing new market.

MEF and Spirent have already begun working with an initial group of 7 service providers and technology vendors selected to participate in the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Certification Pilot Program. The first certified companies are expected to be announced in Q1 2020.

“There are expansive opportunities in the SD-WAN market, with tens of billions of dollars in revenue at stake during the next five years, and many service providers are looking to quickly develop and advance their SD-WAN offerings to ensure they remain competitive,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF. “MEF 3.0 SD-WAN standardization and certification will play a vital role in accelerating SD-WAN market growth and facilitating creation of powerful new hybrid networking solutions optimized for digital transformation. Spirent’s technology, market leadership, and global reach make it a great partner to help maximize SD-WAN’s full market potential through certification.”

Commenting on the significant new partnership, Abhitesh Kastuar, General Manager of Spirent’s Cloud and IP business, said, "Spirent has earned a global reputation as the advisor and vendor-neutral authority that guides complex deployments of new technologies. SD-WAN is a particularly important innovation that accelerates the value realization of virtualized infrastructures, and Spirent solutions assure that resulting SD-WAN services are ready to perform as expected. We are pleased to join forces with MEF on the first SD-WAN Certification Program and look forward to the important work ahead of us as MEF 3.0 SD-WAN rolls out around the world.”

“SD-WAN is a dynamic service delivered using software-defined networking, virtualization, and inherent security and therefore requires a significant level of testing, validation, and assurance to achieve certification,” said Marc Cohn, Spirent Head of Virtualization. “The transition from traditional to MEF 3.0 orchestrated and assured services is significant to Spirent and for the entire global communications industry. We are thrilled to participate as the official SD-WAN Authorized Certification and Test Partner.”

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Nokia has signed over 120 private wireless network customers

Nokia has deployed private wireless networks for more than 120 customers across multiple industries and geographies, including:

• 24 customers in transportation including Port of Kokkola, Port of Oulu and Vienna Airport
• 35 customers in Energy including Minera Las Bambas S.A
• 32 customers in public sector and smart cities including Sendai City and Nordic Telecom/Czech Republic
• 11 customers in manufacturing and logistics including China Unicom/BMW and  Ukkoverkot/Konecranes
• 18+ customers across other industries

Nokia’s private 4.9G/LTE and 5G wireless networking portfolio is backed by an ecosystem of service providers and partners across cloud, systems integration, strategic consulting and industry specialists, including :

• Communications service providers such as Telefonica Peru, Ukkoverkot and Globalstar and A1
• Cloud providers such as Microsoft
• Industrial partners such as Hitachi Kokusai Electric, Kalmar, part of Cargotec and Komatsu
• Strategic consulting, advisory service providers, and system integrators such as Ernst & Young (EY), DXC Technology, Infosys, Accenture and ATOS

Yousef Khalidi, Corporate Vice President, Azure Networking, Microsoft, said: “Microsoft Azure recently introduced plans to develop an ecosystem for our Multi-access Edge Compute platform featuring the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud. Our intelligent cloud and intelligent edge portfolio of services and tools such as Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Dev Ops, and Azure IoT Edge combined with Nokia’s private wireless leadership gives enterprises a wide variety of robust industrial automation solutions to offer reliable, secure connectivity with superior mobility.”

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Verizon Business Group launches Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) service

Verizon Business Group has embedded its Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) service over its Private IP networks, creating a Zero Trust Architecture. The service is now available to the company’s global Private IP and Ethernet customers who currently run over 330,000 connections covering 800,000 network route miles in more than 150 countries. The technology isolates an enterprise’s servers from vulnerabilities and configuration errors and integrates multifactor authentication, using a One-Time Password (OTP) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) for multi-factor authentication.

“For the past decade, enterprises have connected their employees and third parties directly to their internal networks via virtual private networks (VPN). Once they are through the firewall, they then have access to a multitude of critical data. With Zero Trust Architecture embedded in the network, all users are isolated from the corporate network but are still able to directly access their authorized applications. It’s all about protecting corporate data, but also enabling people to do their job,” said Vickie Lonker, Verizon’s vice president of product management and development.

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MOBITV signs with Telia Carrier

MOBITV, which offers app-based TV video delivery solutions, will utilize Telia Carrier’s global IP backbone to provide scalable capacity and connectivity for its pay TV operator customers across the U.S.

Direct access to Telia Carrier’s scalable and redundant backbone seamlessly delivers the low-latency, high-capacity connectivity demanded by streaming video. This allows MOBITV operator customers to benefit from flexibility in both cost and service level, whilst maintaining a high quality of experience for their end-users.

“Connectivity is key to us when launching a relationship with a new customer. It can take months for that operator to explore potential partners, secure quotes, select and then wait for connectivity to be established, all of which slows their time to success as a MOBITV partner,” said Casey Fann, VP of Operations, MOBITV. “Now, with Telia Carrier and the diverse, secure, scalable access it’s offering our customers, the entire process is accelerated. We can refer customers to a partner we trust, confident that we’re extending our value and service levels along with fast access to the direct connectivity they need to take advantage of our services.”

“We share MOBITV’s focus on value and customer service. By offering a predictable, three-tier option for connectivity from more than 100 PoPs in the U.S., we are supporting MobiTV’s efforts to stand up new clients in a timely, efficient manner,” said Rob Pulkownik, Director, Market Development, Telia Carrier. “Our partnership simplifies the connectivity aspect of MOBITV’s offering, decreasing time to market from a couple of months to a couple of weeks. This also helps MOBITV’s ISP and operator customers to accelerate service delivery to their customers.”

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Finnish University and Research Network deploys ADVA's FSP 3000 OLS

CSC – IT Center for Science, which operates the Finnish University and Research Network (FUNET), has deployed ADVA's FSP 3000 open line system (OLS) to support speeds up to 200G.
The fully redundant network leverages ADVA’s QuadFlex transponders and ultra-flexible ROADM technology. Continual, real-time assurance is provided by ADVA’s ALM fiber monitoring solution. The network is also ready to expand to 400G, ensuring that it will satisfy the needs of Finland’s research and education (R&E) community both now and in years to come.

“ADVA’s open, future-proof technology empowers us to support the ambitions of Finland’s researchers, educators and students. They need constant access to high-bandwidth applications and enhanced data sharing. With this network, we can deliver fast, always-on services in a flexible and highly efficient way,” said Matti Laipio, development manager, FUNET network, CSC – IT Center for Science. “Our new solution connects more than 80 organizations with each other, with other Nordic R&E transport networks, and with the world. It also offers researchers rapid access to the high-performance supercomputer in Kajaani. What makes this deployment so valuable, though, is that it provides superb capacity while also enabling an easy route to further expansion. With the inherent scalability of the modular FSP 3000 OLS, we know we’ll be able to continue to meet the demands of learners and scientists.”

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MEF targets orchestrated services across automated networks

At its annual members' event in Los Angeles, MEF showcased significant progress in its efforts to bring cloud-like agility, performance, and security to service provider networks. MEF 3.0 initiatives define, deliver, and certify on-demand and assured communications services orchestrated across a global federation of automated networks. Going forward, the combination of standardized overlay SD-WAN services and dynamic underlay connectivity services will enable service providers to offer MEF 3.0 hybrid networking solutions with unprecedented user- and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities.

Some highlights:

MEF 3.0 Services
The MEF 3.0 service family includes dynamic SD-WAN, Carrier Ethernet, Optical Transport, IP, and security services that will be orchestrated over programmable networks using LSO APIs. MEF has advanced standardization work across each major type of service this year.

• MEF 3.0 SD-WAN. In August, MEF published the industry’s first global SD-WAN standard to help accelerate market growth. SD-WAN Service Attributes and Services (MEF 70) describes requirements for an application-aware, over-the-top WAN connectivity service that uses policies to determine how application flows are directed over multiple underlay networks.  
• MEF 3.0 Security. In January, MEF launched a new Application Security for SD-WAN project focused on defining policy criteria and actions to protect applications (application flows) over SD-WAN services.
• MEF 3.0 CE. In December, MEF enhanced its family of orchestratable MEF 3.0 CE services by publishing several standards related to subscriber and operator services: Subscriber Ethernet Service Attributes (MEF 10.4), Operator Ethernet Service Definitions (MEF 51.1), and Layer 2 Control Protocols (MEF 45.1).
• MEF 3.0 IP. In May, MEF published its IP Service Attributes (MEF 61.1) standard that is foundational for defining subscriber and operator MEF 3.0 IP services that can be orchestrated across multiple service providers.
• MEF 3.0 Optical Transport. MEF’s upcoming standard for operator Optical Transport Services (MEF 64) is moving through the final phase of membership and Board approval. This standard defines services that support Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and SONET/SDH subscriber client protocols at the UNI and support OTN operator interconnect at the ENNI, with rates of 2.5G, 10G, 40G, and 100G.

LSO APIs Enabling Service Automation
MEF has made major progress in the development and adoption of standardized LSO APIs for service orchestration across multiple service providers and over multiple technology domains. More than 50 global and regional service providers are at various stages of evaluation, demonstration, implementation, and certification of LSO Sonata APIs to enable frictionless inter-provider commerce.

• Inter-Provider Service Automation – LSO Sonata. MEF is pleased to announce the availability of LSO Sonata SDK (Software Development Kit) Release 4 with APIs for inter-provider serviceability (address validation, site queries, and product offering qualification), product inventory, quoting, and ordering.
• Intra-Provider Service Automation – LSO Presto. In recent quarters, MEF has published several LSO Presto standards for orchestration of CE and Optical Transport services over technology domains within provider networks.

Community Activities
MEF has also been working with the broader industry community to make dynamic services orchestrated across automated networks a reality.

• LSO Developer Community. In August, MEF introduced the LSO Developer Community – composed of software developers and IT staff from MEF member companies – to accelerate production of LSO SDKs that will make it easier for service providers to adopt MEF data models and implement LSO APIs.
• MEF & ONUG. In October, MEF and ONUG announced they are collaborating to ensure that enterprises are provided with SD-WAN services optimized for digital transformation in the multi-cloud era.

Certification
Throughout 2019, MEF has seen significant growth in the number of companies offering MEF 3.0 certified services and technologies. At the same time, MEF has invested heavily in expanding certification programs for MEF 3.0 services, technologies, and professionals.

• MEF 3.0 Certified Services & Technologies. Twenty-five companies have achieved MEF 3.0 certification to date, including 15 service providers based in multiple geographic regions worldwide and 10 industry-leading technology vendors. 
• MEF 3.0 LSO Sonata Certification Program. In Q4 2019, MEF commenced the pilot MEF 3.0 LSO Sonata certification program for inter-provider service automation, with an initial focus on automating ordering of MEF 3.0 CE Access E-Line services. Thirteen service providers representing every major geographic region of the world are participating in the pilot, with the first certified companies expected to be announced in Q1 2020.
• MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Services Certification Program. MEF today formally introduced the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Services certification program to accelerate implementation of standardized SD-WAN services worldwide. Seven service and technology providers are participating in the pilot phase of the program, with the first certified companies expected to be announced in Q1 2020. 
• MEF SD-WAN Professional Certification Program. MEF today formally announced the MEF SD-WAN Certified Professional (MEF-SDCP) program. A record number of more than 200 professionals from 80 companies participate in the beta exam phase that recently ended. General availability of the MEF-SDCP exam is scheduled for 15 December, including the availability of associated SD-WAN training by MEF Accredited Training Providers.

“We are gathering at MEF19 to celebrate the tremendous progress to enable service providers to transform their businesses, services, and networks, federate to remove friction in inter-provider commerce, and deliver certified solutions that comply with the highest industry standards,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF. “In 2020, our focus will be on enabling providers to innovate with highly synergized overlay and underlay network services, accelerate the rollout of MEF 3.0 certified services powered by certified technologies and professionals, and federate with increased implementation of inter-provider LSO APIs worldwide.”

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Infinera releases packet optical switch for 5G networks

Infinera introduced an X-haul-optimized packet-optical switch purpose-built for Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) in 5G and fiber deep applications.

The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF)-compliant Infinera EMXP-XH800, which is part of Infinera’s XTM Series, enables mobile operators and wholesale providers to deliver Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI), eCPRI, and Ethernet-based X-haul transport services for 4G/5G with lower latency and industry-leading synchronization, including a broad range of Ethernet service and resiliency options. The EMXP-XH800 extends the benefits of the XTM Series’ widely deployed EMXP range for all Ethernet aggregation and backhaul applications, increasing switching capacity, improving the EMXP’s already impressive synchronization performance, and adding capabilities such as TSN to support current and new requirements as more networks evolve to 5G.

The XTM Series with the EMXP-XH800 offers operators 800G of Ethernet aggregation, including 100G/200G coherent dense wavelength-division multiplexing optics, within a hardened street-cabinet-deployable device. With optimization for street cabinets, including right-to-left cooling and all-front access on the 1 rack unit ETSI 300-compliant hardened device, the EMXP-XH800 enables network operators to push high-capacity packet-optical capabilities deep into access networks for any Ethernet-based backhaul application. Taking advantage of the XTM Series’ low power heritage, the EMXP-XH800 has proven to be significantly lower in power than many leading competitors’ solutions, using approximately 200 watts in the most demanding conditions and significantly less under normal operating conditions.

“Introducing the EMXP-XH800 is the natural evolution of Infinera’s packet-optical portfolio, enhancing its existing solutions to better meet the needs of operators as networks advance to 5G,” said Glenn Laxdal, Senior Vice President, Disaggregated, Edge, and Access Solutions, Infinera. “The XTM Series is already successful in networks globally, and with the latest switching capabilities delivered on the EMXP-XH800, we are confident our solution will continue to help our customers launch new services, achieve their business needs, and remain ahead of their competition.”

The EMXP-XH800 has tested positively in customer trials, and will be generally available in Q1 2020.

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ADVA demos 1200 Gbps transmission with PSNC

At this week's SC19 in Denver, ADVA demonstrated its 1200Gbit/s optical channel transmission in collaboration with Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC), which is affiliated to the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The demo leverages the ADVA FSP 3000 TeraFlex terminal using fractional QAM capabilities to boost fiber utilization and channel capacity, TeraFlex will carry 1200Gbit/s channels in a 150GHz window or 800Gbit/s channels in a 100GHz window, delivering an industry-leading spectral efficiency of 8bit/s/Hz. These figures set a new benchmark for a commercially available product. The ADVA FSP 3000 TeraFlex has now been shipping for several months.

“As we approach the Shannon Limit, our compact and open FSP 3000 TeraFlex provides an entirely new route to network capacity expansion. This demo reveals how operators can enhance optical paths and reduce cost per bit right now,” said Christoph Glingener, CTO, ADVA.

“Terabit channels are fast becoming essential. Our network enables Europe’s scientific community to share huge data sets and access the most advanced supercomputing applications. But empowering those researchers to stay at the forefront of discovery requires a new level of reach and spectral efficiency. With this demo, we’re showing how mission-critical long-haul networks like ours, which are not fiber-rich, can meet unprecedented data demand,” commented Artur Binczewski, director, Network Division, PSNC.

https://adva.li/sc19-slides

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Clumio raises $135 million for data management in the cloud

Clumio, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, announced $135 million in series C funding for its SaaS for enterprise backup.  The company first emerged from stealth in August to launch its secure backup as a service,

Series C is led by Mike Speiser, managing director of Sutter Hill Ventures and new investor Altimeter Capital - a global investment firm notable for funding Okta, Twilio, and Snowflake among other SaaS companies. Index Ventures, an existing investor, is also a participant in the round. This more than triples Clumio’s funding to date for a total of $186M through three rounds.

“Enterprise IT can no longer afford the time, complexity and expense of building and managing data protection solutions on-prem or in the cloud,” said Poojan Kumar, Clumio CEO and co-founder. “Unlike legacy backup vendors, Clumio SaaS is born in the cloud. This round of investment allows us to push that advantage as we accelerate our development and go to market strategy while continuing to meet customer requirements for backup, regardless of where the data is.”

In addition, Clumio announced a secure SaaS Backup for AWS. With the addition of Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS) as a data source, Clumio customers can protect volumes in the AWS public cloud alongside their VMware on-prem and VMware Cloud on AWS virtual machines.

https://clumio.com/

Clumio raises $51 million for enterprise backup SaaS

Tuesday, August 13, 2019  Start-Ups  

Clumio, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, announced $51 million in venture funding for its SaaS for enterprise backup.

Clumio's newly launched service helps enterprises eliminate hardware and software for on-premise backup and avoid the complexity and cost of running 3rd party backup software in the cloud. The solution protects on-premise, VMware Cloud for AWS, and native AWS service workloads.

Clumio was founded in 2017 by serial entrepreneur Poojan Kumar, co-founder and former CEO of PernixData (acquired by Nutanix, alongside Woon Ho Jung and Kaustubh Patil.

The $51 million in funding was received over two rounds: A Sutter Hill Ventures-led Series A round and a Series B round driven by Index Ventures with significant participation from Sutter Hill Ventures. Several individuals experienced at investing in disruptive technologies also participated including, Mark Leslie, founder of Veritas Technologies, and John Thompson, chairman of the board at Microsoft.

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OIF elects Board of Directors and Working Group representatives

OIF announced its new Board of Directors:

• Nathan Tracy, TE Connectivity, continues to serve on the Board and was re-appointed as President
• Tad Hofmeister, Google, was re-elected (two-year term) and re-appointed as Vice President
• Martin Bouda, Fujitsu, continues to serve on the Board and was re-appointed as Secretary/Treasurer
• Ian Betty, Ciena, was re-elected to the Board (two-year term)
• Mike Li, Intel, was re-elected to the Board (one-year term)
• Cathy Liu, Broadcom Inc., was re-elected to the Board (one-year term)
• Gary Nicholl, Cisco, continues to serve on the Board

Officers:

• Ed Frlan, Semtech, was elected as Technical Committee Chair
• Klaus-Holger Otto, Nokia, was elected as Technical Committee Vice Chair
• Lyndon Ong, Ciena, was re-elected as Market Awareness & Education Committee Co-Chair, Networking
• Richard Ward, Intel, was appointed by the Board as Market Awareness & Education Committee Co-Chair, PLL (filling the vacant position)
• Dave Brown, Nokia, continues to serve as Director of Communications

Technical Committee:

• Junjie Li, China Telecom, was re-elected as Network Operator Working Group Chair

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Western Union designates AWS as preferred strategic cloud provider

Western Union has selected Amazon Web Services (AW)S as its preferred long-term strategic cloud provider.

Western Union plans to move a significant portion of its infrastructure to the cloud. Western Union will be using AWS to build a more seamless and reliable experience for its customers who send money and payments to over 200 countries and territories through its mobile application, website, and agent locations around the globe.

With this move to AWS, Western Union will migrate from current datacenters to a microservices architecture.

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Orange Business Services deploys ThousandEyes

Orange is collaborating with ThousandEyes to deliver real-time, end-to-end visibility on both its enterprise networks and the Open Transit Internet (OTI). Performance visibility ensures improved digital experiences across the Internet to Cloud service providers, Internet service providers and content providers.

The ThousandEyes platform allows Orange to monitor quality of experience at both the application and network level, and speed up troubleshooting in case of Internet-related performance issues. Customers will be able to gain insight into the internal and external dependencies that impact the end-user experience.

Orange has already deployed the ThousandEyes platform successfully with customers, including a German industrial manufacturer, who used it to determine the best cloud connectivity solution in China.

"With ThousandEyes intelligence and the Orange Flexible SD-WAN solution, businesses can see, understand and manage digital experience over the public Internet like it's their own private network and embrace Internet and Cloud with confidence,” said Craig Vario, Vice President, Global Channel Sales at ThousandEyes.

“As multi-cloud and software-defined networking become key deployment models for applications and services, understanding the Internet as a delivery path is crucial. With the ThousandEyes platform, Orange Business Services will give its customers the visibility they need to deliver a superior digital experience to users via both the Internet and multi-cloud. We strongly believe that the ThousandEyes platform will be a critical enabler of our Flexible SD-WAN value proposition to our global clients,” adds Anne-Marie Thiollet, Vice President, Connectivity, Orange Business Services.

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Liqid showcases software disaggregation for converged servers

Liqid’s composable infrastructure software can now disaggregate traditional, off-the-shelf converged servers into pools of shareable data center resources.

The company says its Liqid Command Center software enables underutilized, static devices such as GPU, NVMe, FPGA accelerators, and Intel Optane memory technology to be redeployed for adaptive use and significantly improved utilization. These powerful resources can be shared widely as required across all major fabric types, including PCIe Gen 3, PCIe Gen 4, Ethernet, and Infiniband.

“Liqid’s sophisticated, multi-fabric composable infrastructure software enables comprehensive, adaptive management and automation of previously fixed data center resources without upending existing data center environments,” said Sumit Puri, CEO & Cofounder, Liqid. “By unlocking traditional converged hardware with Liqid Command Center, IT administrators can optimize their overall footprint substantially and build out disaggregated infrastructure to more effectively prepare for the challenges associated with evolving high performance computing applications that are increasingly driven by artificial intelligence.”

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EE expands its 5G rollout

EE activated 5G in 14 new cities and towns across the UK, including Castlereagh, Guildford, Hamilton, Harlow, Hoddesdon, Kimberley, Lisburn, Maidstone, Sydenham, Watford and Wolverhampton, and has switched on its first 5G sites in Liverpool, Glasgow and Huddersfield. Additional sites with new 5G coverage include Bristol Parkway, Cardiff Castle, and London’s Carnaby Street and Camden Market.

Marc Allera, CEO of BT’s consumer division, said: “Switching on 5G in more places is helping us deliver the best mobile experience to our customers, keeping them connected to the things that matter most. RootMetrics’ early 5G testing shows that we are a long way ahead in terms of 5G performance, and our engineers are continuing to build new sites every day, on our journey to keeping our customers connected 100% of the time.”

EE launched its first 5G service in May.

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Nokia signs its 50th 5G deal -- Spark New Zealand

Nokia signed its 50th commercial 5G contract. Nokia is currently powering 16 live networks globally.

New Zealand operator Spark has selected Nokia as one of the radio access network (RAN) equipment suppliers for its 5G upgrade, Nokia will deploy its AirScale RAN solution at more than 200 sites, allowing Spark to target both consumers and enterprises with new services and offers. Nokia will also deploy other products and services from across its end-to-end portfolio including digital design and deployment services. The agreement follows the launch earlier this year of New Zealand’s first 5G trial customer service. The trial, which took place in Alexandra, South Island, used the latest Nokia radio equipment to offer select business and consumer customers the opportunity to experience high-speed wireless broadband delivered by 5G. Nokia is currently working with Spark to deploy 5G capability to an additional 5 sites before the Christmas period.

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Myanmar picks Japanese vendors for infrastructure upgrade

Myanmar has selected Sojitz Corporation, NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), NEC Corporation and NEC Networks & System Integration Corporation (NESIC) to upgrade its communications infrastructure.

Sojitz, which was formed out of the union of Nichimen Corporation and Nissho Iwai Corporation, was named as the principal contractor for the project, which was valued at about 7 billion yen (about 62 million USD).

Under the contract, NTT Com will apply its technological capabilities and expertise in upgrading international internet connection facilities to a maximum capacity of 800 Gbps. NEC will provide optical communication equipment for core communication networks to expand transmission capacity to 1 Tbps, more than three times the current level. NESIC will install DWDM equipment supplied by NEC and carry out design, civil work and installation works of outside plant (optical cable network) total cable length 180km in Yangon and Thilawa SEZ. The company will also supply and install power supply equipment and air conditioning equipment.

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Nokia puts its cloud-native software on AWS

Nokia's Common Software Foundation platform is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS), giving communication service providers (CSPs) an additional deployment choice and faster time to service when rolling out new 5G or digital services.

“Interest in AWS from the CSP market segment beyond IT workloads is growing rapidly,” said Matt Garman, Vice President of AWS Compute Services, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “We are delighted to be working with Nokia and helping them leverage the power of AWS for their network infrastructure solutions and business and operational support applications.”

Nokia already offers several applications on AWS, including customer experience, service fulfillment, and orchestration solutions. Through this engineering collaboration, Nokia will prioritize 5G solutions including mobile core, network & service orchestration, and device management & operational support systems suites. Additionally, all new Nokia Software cloud-native network functions and applications moving forward will be available on AWS upon release.

“Our Common Software Foundation continues to drive commercial value forward for our customers including choice of deployment options. CSF now enables all our cloud-native network functions and applications on AWS,” said Bhaskar Gorti, President of Nokia Software. “And when we combine Nokia pre-engineered solutions with AWS deployment, CSPs will be able to commission a new 5G mobile core or provision a new service offering with the click of a button – meaningfully changing CSP economics and operational time frames.”

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