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https://www.onboardoptics.org/_files/ugd/8abe6c_8b419af450954e9b932845335adefdba.pdf
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Paper: Design considerations in a CPO or On-Board Optics switch
Juniper delivers AI-driven enterprise access switch
Juniper Networks introduced its EX4100 series enterprise-grade wired access switches powered by its Mist AI.
The new EX4100, which is the latest addition to the Juniper’s EX Switching portfolio, is optimized for simplicity and scale with native cloud-based operations for all enterprise access layer switching environments, including campus fabric architectures.
Mist AI expedites deployment times with zero touch provisioning and automated workflows, and it delivers rapid troubleshooting with full stack event correlation, proactive anomaly detection and self-driving network actions. The EX4100 also enables IT teams to seamlessly design an EVPN-VXLAN network fabric that extends to distribution and access layers, coupled with important security capabilities such as MACsec AES256 and standards-based microsegmentation using group-based policies (GBP) for growing needs of IOT devices. In addition, specific versions of the EX4100 support Power over Ethernet++ (802.3bt), making the switch a perfect fit for customers looking to transition to Wi-Fi 6E technology.
In addition, Juniper has expanded its Wired Assurance, Wireless Assurance and Marvis cloud services with more AI-driven insights to maximize end user experiences and minimize wireless management costs, including new automated AP placement/orientation verification and new prescriptive actions to address common Microsoft client, DHCP and wired authentication issues.
“Juniper has become a leader in wired and wireless access thanks to our innovative cloud-native, AI-driven and session smart platforms, which save time and money and maximize user experiences by proactively solving real-world problems,” said Sudheer Matta, Group Vice President, Product Management, AI-driven Enterprise at Juniper. “These latest enhancements to our AI-driven Enterprise portfolio expand our value proposition to even more campus and branch environments while also doubling down on Juniper’s unique AI-driven advantages across the entire network lifecycle, from installation and configuration to operations and troubleshooting.”
https://www.juniper.net/us/en/it-networking.html
Ericsson's Q2 sales rise 5% driven by networks in North America, Europe
Ericsson reported Q2 2022 revenue of SEK 62.5 billion (US$5.9 billion), up 5% YoY driven primarily by Networks in North America and Europe. Reported gross income increased to SEK 26.3 (23.9) b. driven by higher sales. Gross margin was 42.1% (43.4%). Reported net income was SEK 4.7 (3.9) billion.
- Networks sales grew organically by 6% in Q2 underpinned by market share gains. Gross margin was 45.1% (47.9%), impacted by lower IPR revenues, increased component and logistics costs, and proactive investments in supply chain resilience, which enabled continued delivery performance in the quarter. We continue to invest in enhancing and expanding our offerings, and we increased R&D in the quarter primarily for Cloud RAN and acceleration of the next-generation Ericsson Silicon (ASICs).
- Digital Services sales grew organically by 2% YoY with strong growth in cloud native 5G Core, and an EBIT of SEK -1.3 (-1.6) b. The accelerated 5G Core projects with initial deployment costs partly offset the margin improvement from increased software sales.
- Managed Services sales were flat YoY with an EBIT margin of 11.2% (8.1%). With a 4Q rolling EBIT margin of 9.5%, we achieved our 2022 target two quarters ahead of plan.
Some of the comments posted by Börje Ekholm, President and CEO of Ericsson:
Strong business momentum continued during the second quarter. Rollout of 5G networks and market share gains resulted in a 5% organic sales growth in the quarter. We have adjusted our group structure to strengthen execution of our strategy to be a leading mobile infrastructure provider and to establish a focused enterprise business. Consumers, enterprises, and society will be digitalized through 5G in a way we have not seen before. With our strategy, we are in a position to capture these opportunities to enable further growth.
The global supply chain situation remains challenging and inflationary pressures are strong. Combined, this results in cost increases which we work hard to mitigate as far as possible. As contracts expire, we aim to adjust pricing. However, we believe the best way to compensate for cost increases is the continued investment in technology to increase the cadence of bringing new innovative solutions to the market.
Fulfilling customer commitments under current challenging conditions, comes at a cost which dilutes gross margin. The increased costs have been largely absorbed through our investments in innovation and continuous improvements. Increased sales resulted in a gross income improvement in absolute terms of SEK 2.4 b. compared with Q2 last year, despite lower IPR revenues of SEK 0.9 b. YoY.
While 5G is the fastest scaling mobile technology, global penetration is still in an early phase. We foresee that the global 5G build-out will be larger and continue for longer than previous mobile generations. The build-out will include evolving consumer use cases, such as Fixed Wireless Access, mobile gaming and XR applications, in addition to new areas, such as enterprise and first responders.
Our strategy targets a higher growth trajectory as we aim to grow our core mobile infrastructure business and capitalize on the fast-growing enterprise market. With 5G, the world is experiencing the largest innovation platform to date, where anything that can go wireless, will go wireless.
https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2022/7/ericsson-reports-second-quarter-results-2022
DT to sell 51% stake in towers business to Digital Bridge and Brookfield
Deutsche Telekom will sell 51 percent of GD Towers comprising its tower assets in Germany and Austria, to Digital Bridge and Brookfield at 17.5 billion euros enterprise value on a cash and debt free basis.
With around 800 employees, GD Towers operates more than 40,000 sites in Germany and Austria and has a successful track record in delivering new sites for its anchor tenant Telekom Deutschland and securing revenues with third party customers. The Company generated 1.1 billion euros of pro forma revenues in 2021. Pro forma adjusted EBITDA AL 2021 amounted to 640 million euros.
Both Digital Bridge and Brookfield have substantial exposure to the European towers sector. In joining forces with Deutsche Telekom, the partners will provide both expertise and long-dated capital to further refine and evolve the GD Towers strategic plans and ambitions for enhanced value creation in both the core towers business and in fast-growing adjacent segments as well as through M&A. The transaction structure enables GD Towers to pursue these value-accretive investments with a capital structure appropriate for an infrastructure business, which otherwise would be subject to the constraints of the Deutsche Telekom balance sheet.
“Deutsche Telekom once again delivers on its strategic agenda. We crystalize the value of our tower assets, thereby creating value for our shareholders,” said Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom. “At the same time the deal allows us to continue improving Deutsche Telekom’s undisputed network leadership in Germany and benefit from further value upside of the towers business through our retained 49 percent stake.”
“The partnership being formed today is about building the next generation digital infrastructure champion of Europe,” said Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge. “The combination of Deutsche Telekom’s leading mobile network and market position, alongside one of the largest real asset managers in the world in Brookfield, combined with the digital infrastructure domain expertise of DigitalBridge, creates a team of unmatched capabilities to support GD Towers as it grows to meet the evolving network demands of enterprises and consumers across Europe.”
“We’re delighted to be partnering with Deutsche Telekom and DigitalBridge to expand our presence in the European telecom infrastructure sector,” said Sam Pollock, Managing Partner at Brookfield and CEO Infrastructure. “This represents a great opportunity to invest in a highly attractive tower portfolio, with highly contracted cash flows and strong upside potential. Brookfield is already a leading global infrastructure investor, with approximately 200,000 telecom tower and rooftop sites under management globally. We hope to bring that experience and expertise to this new partnership, for the benefit of our customers in Germany, Austria and beyond.”
DT and Tele2 to sell T-Mobile Netherlands for EUR 5.1 billion
Deutsche Telekom and Tele2 AB will sell T-Mobile Netherlands to private equity funds advised by Apax Partners and Warburg Pincus for 5.1 billion euros. The deal follows DT's 0.7 billion euros divesture of its Dutch mobile tower business earlier this year.T-Mobile NL is the leading mobile operator in the Netherlands with a market share of 42% in 2020 based on number of mobile SIMs. T-Mobile NL successfully entered the fixed market with the acquisition...
DigitalBridge to acquire Switch for $11 billion for its data centers
DigitalBridge Group agreed to acquire Switch, a leading colocation data center operator, for $34.25 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $11 billion, including the assumption of debt.Switch, which was founded in 2000, operates SuperNAP data center campuses in Las Vegas, Reno, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The company touts its high-resiliecy and high-security designs for mission critical workloads in its "Class 5" data centers....
Dell'Oro: RAN expected to surpass $40B by 2026,
The radio access network (RAN) market remains on track for a fifth consecutive year of growth in 2022 and global revenues are projected to stay above $40 billion by 2026, according to a recent report from Dell'Oro Group.
“Even with the unusual uncertainty surrounding the economy, the war in Ukraine, the supply chains, and China’s zero-Covid-19 policy, the baseline scenario assumes that risks have changed but the underlying fundamentals remain healthy,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President and analyst with the Dell’Oro Group. “Consequently, the more optimistic and pessimistic projections have been modified, but we have not made any major adjustments to the baseline scenario with global RAN expanding further over the near term before decelerating in the outer part of the forecast period, resulting in a flat CAGR in nominal USD terms between 2021 and 2026,” continued Pongratz.
Additional highlights from the Mobile RAN 5-Year July 2022 Forecast Report:
- Cumulative 2022-2026 RAN Revenue projections have been adjusted upward, partly due to revised 5G projections in China and North America.
- RAN excluding China is projected to increase while the Chinese RAN market is expected to peak in 2022 before decelerating in the outer part of the forecast period.
- RAN investments in the North America region are also expected to peak in 2022 and give up some gains in the outer part of the forecast period.
- Slower mmWave growth in 2021 is not materially impacting the forecast – mmWave is still projected to account for 2 percent to 4 percent of the 2022-2026 RAN market.
- Global Massive MIMO growth prospects are projected to slow somewhat, reflecting challenging comparisons in some of the advanced Massive MIMO markets.
- Small cell RAN revenues are projected to grow at a 6 percent CAGR, underpinned by healthy 5G growth.
Brazil’s Mob Telecom deploys 800G with Ciena
Mob Telecom (Mob), part of Mobwire hub which provides internet and broadband in Brazil and is owned by Alloha Fibra group, has deployed Ciena’s Waveserver 5 platform, powered by WaveLogic 5 Extreme coherent optics.
This network enhancement delivers high-bandwidth connectivity, scaling up to 800 Gbps per channel, across several data centers and four cable landing stations in Fortaleza, Brazil. The provider is also utilizing Ciena’s 6500 photonic line system leveraging L0 control plane with photonic restoration to significantly improve network resiliency, increase service availability and offer a variety of differentiated services. Additionally, Ciena’s Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller provides real-time visibility and intelligent network control of the company’s network to simplify lifecycle operations and accelerate service deployment.
“Mob Telecom and Wirelink are taking strategic steps to bring scalable, high-capacity bandwidth to Brazil, meeting the digital needs of its customers,” said Fernando Capella, Country Manager, Ciena Brazil. “With Ciena’s technology, this innovative provider is creating a more adaptive network that can adjust to meet surging customer demands for bandwidth-hungry services like 5G and cloud-based applications.”
Telstra appoints Mundt as VP Enterprise and Tech for the Americas
Telstra has named Steve Mundt as Vice President of Enterprise and Technology for the Americas, responsible for direct sales and new business development across the region.
Mundt most recently was Global Account Director for Media and Technology at Telstra. Prior to joining Telstra in 2017, he held sales and business development roles at global technology and telecommunications companies supporting enterprise, cloud and hybrid infrastructure initiatives.
Mundt takes on his new role during a time when Telstra is investing heavily to grow its network infrastructure and expand its connectivity solutions portfolio in the Americas and in key regions worldwide.
“This is an exciting time to be in the telecommunications industry,” said Mundt. “Demand for global network services remains high across enterprise and technology market verticals. Helping organizations scale and adapt the right solution for their unique needs is a challenge we continue to tackle, and Telstra is well-positioned to remain a major player in this space.”
Telstra appoints Noah Drake as President for the Americas
Telstra has named Noah Drake as President for the Americas, responsible for leading the company’s future direction within the region. Drake will oversee all sales and business operations, playing a key role in further expanding Telstra’s portfolio of technology solutions and continuing to accelerate strategic partnerships. Most recently, Drake led Telstra’s Customer Solutions and Architecture group, directing a specialized team of professionals...
Samsung launches 24Gbps GDDR6 DRAM
Samsung Electronics has begun sampling the industry’s first 16-gigabit (Gb) Graphics Double Data Rate 6 (GDDR6) DRAM featuring 24 Gbps processing speeds.
Built on Samsung’s third-generation 10-nanometer-class process using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology, the new memory is designed to significantly advance the graphics performance for next-generation graphics cards (Video Graphics Arrays), laptops and game consoles, as well as artificial intelligence-based applications and high-performance computing (HPC) systems.
Samsung claims its 24Gbps GDDR6 will deliver 30% faster speeds compared to the previous 18 Gbps product. When integrated into a premium graphics card, the GDDR6 DRAM can transfer up to 1.1-TB of data, or about 275 Full HD movies, in just one second.
"The explosion of data now being driven by AI and the metaverse is pushing the need for greater graphics capabilities that can process massive data sets simultaneously, at extremely high speeds," said Daniel Lee, executive vice president of the Memory Product Planning Team at Samsung Electronics. "With our industry-first 24Gbps GDDR6 now sampling, we look forward to validating the graphics DRAM on next-generation GPU platforms to bring it to market in time to meet an onslaught of new demand."
AT&T to provide fiber Internet to 750 McDonald’s USA locations
“In 5 years, the restaurant experience could be very different than what it is today. High-speed internet is a critical engine for growth and expansion, creativity and innovation, and a reimagined consumer experience in the industry. We’re thrilled to work together with McDonald’s to help shape the future of restaurants.” – Michael Colaneri, Vice President, Retail Enterprise Solutions.
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Deutsche Telekom to test 5G Standalone with Google Cloud
Deutsche Telekom and Google Cloud announced an expanded partnership focused on the following areas:
- Core Network Services: Deutsche Telekom and Google Cloud will jointly pilot several network services such as 5G Standalone in Austria, as well as remote packet gateway functions, leveraging Google Cloud and Google Distributed Cloud Edge, a fully managed product that brings Google Cloud’s infrastructure and services closer to where data is being generated and consumed.
- Network Analytics: Through Google Cloud’s extensive expertise in data analytics, Deutsche Telekom will gain an even-deeper understanding of its networks to achieve accurate planning, optimized operations, and better customer experience management. Deutsche Telekom will pilot several use cases regarding anomaly detection, performance counter, and trace data in a first step in utilizing data-driven operations and automated workflows with open, Kubernetes-based solutions offered by Google Cloud.
- Customer Experience Analytics: Deutsche Telekom will trial Google Cloud’s data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) solutions in a joint proof of concept in order to improve actionable insights and better understanding of customer needs and optimize offerings.
“At Deutsche Telekom we are implementing our Leading Digital Telco strategy by investing in best-in-class network infrastructure and by establishing cloud-based service platforms,” says Claudia Nemat, board member of Deutsche Telekom. “We are excited to expand our partnership with Google Cloud by conducting trials in key areas that will allow us to more rapidly innovate and launch new services and customer experiences.”
“Communication service providers are increasingly looking for cloud-native solutions to advance the deployment of network functions and drive automation, elasticity, and scalability,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “We believe our partnership with Deutsche Telekom will deliver significantly improved experiences for end users that will ultimately raise the standard for the telecommunications industry.”
MobiledgeX acquired by Google Cloud
MobiledgeX, the edge computing company founded by Deutsche Telekom, has been acquired by Google Cloud, according to TelecomTV and other sources. Neither company has commented on the transaction, although the MobiledgeX website and social media presence have been taken down. Financial terms have not been disclosed.Deutsche Telekom deploys MobiledgeX Edge-Cloud Tuesday, February 19, 2019 Deutsche Telekom, Edge, MobiledgeX MobiledgeX,...
DT and Google expand partnership for RCS messaging, cloud and TV
Deutsche Telekom and Google are expanding their partnership in three key areas: enhanced mobile messaging services for businesses through Telekom RCS Business Messaging powered by Google and Jibe Cloud; the new Sovereign Cloud for Germany will be available to German cloud customers ahead of schedule; and Telekom’s premium TV experience, MagentaTV One, powered by Android TV OS available now in Germany and expanding to additional European markets. CEO...
T-Systems teams with Google Cloud on sovereign cloud for Germany
T-Systems announced a strategic, long-term partnership with Google Cloud to provide a sovereign cloud for German enterprises, the public sector, and healthcare organizations. The companies agreed to develop a large spectrum of next-generation sovereign cloud solutions and infrastructure where customers can host their sensitive workloads whilst continuing to leverage the scalability, elasticity and reliability of public cloud services. Service...
Lumen expands its edge network in Europe
Lumen Technologies is expanding its Edge Computing Solutions into Europe, providing the low latency platform businesses need to extend their high-bandwidth, data-intensive applications out to the cloud edge.
Lumen Edge Computing Solutions bring together the company's global fiber network, on-demand networking, integrated security, and managed services, with edge facilities and compute and storage services. The company says it can meet approximately 70% of enterprise demand within 5 milliseconds of latency in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Additional locations are planned by end of year. As part of the Edge Computing Solutions deployment in Europe, Lumen enabled an additional 100G MPLS and IP network connectivity, as well as increased power and cooling at key edge data center locations.
Customers can procure Lumen Edge Computing Solutions online, and within an hour gain access to high-powered computing infrastructure on the Lumen platform.
Lumen's edge infrastructure and services include:
- Lumen Edge Bare Metal offers dedicated, pay-as-you-go server hardware hosted in distributed locations and connected to the Lumen global fiber network. Edge Bare Metal delivers enhanced security and connectivity with dedicated, single tenancy servers designed to isolate and protect data and deliver high-performance.
- Lumen Network Storage enables customers to take advantage of secure, scalable, and fast storage where and when they need it. The service allows enterprises and public sector organizations to ingest and update data at the edge using whatever file storage protocol meets their needs.
- Lumen Edge Private Cloud provides pre-built infrastructure for high performance private cloud computing connected to the Lumen global fiber network. Lumen Edge Private Cloud is fully managed by Lumen and helps businesses go-to-market quickly with the capacity needed for interaction-intensive applications.
- Lumen Edge Gateway is a scalable Multi-access Edge Compute (MEC) platform for the premises. The service offers a compute platform for the delivery of virtualized wide area networking (WAN), security, and IT applications from multiple vendors on the premises edge.
"Edge computing is a game-changer. It will drive the next wave of business innovation and growth across virtually all industries," said Annette Murphy, regional president, EMEA and APAC, Lumen Technologies. "Customers in Europe can now tap into the power of the Lumen platform, underpinned by Lumen's extensive fiber footprint, to deploy data-heavy applications and workloads that demand ultra-low latency at the cloud edge. This delivers peak performance and reliability, as well as more capability to drive amazing digital experiences. Customers can focus efforts on developing applications and bringing them to market, rather than on time-consuming infrastructure deployment."
https://news.lumen.com/2022-07-12-Lumen-expands-Edge-Computing-Solutions-into-Europe,1
AWS Cloud WAN connects on-prem data centers, branches, regions
Amazon Web Services introduced AWS Cloud WAN, a new managed wide area network (WAN) service that connects on-premises data centers, colocation facilities, branch offices, and AWS Regions into a single, unified global network with just a few clicks in a central management dashboard. This removes the need to configure and manage individual networks that use different technologies. Using the central management dashboard, networking teams can have a single view of their global network, apply policies, and automate configuration and security tasks across their entire network.
For example, with just a few clicks, teams can quickly and easily apply a policy that requires network traffic from branch offices to be routed through a specific network firewall before reaching cloud resources running in an AWS Region.
AWS Cloud WAN integrates with leading SD-WAN, network appliance, and independent software vendors—including Aruba, Aviatrix, Checkpoint, Cisco Meraki, Cisco Systems, Prosimo, and VMware—making it easier for customers to connect their on-premises SD-WAN devices to AWS. Enterprises can now use AWS Cloud WAN to simplify the way they build, manage, and monitor their networks using a single dashboard with minimal complexity.
“Many wide area networks used by enterprises today consist of a patchwork of connections between branch offices and data centers that were optimized for applications that run on premises,” said David Brown, vice president of Amazon EC2 at AWS. “As the edge of the cloud continues to be pushed outward, and more customers move their applications to AWS to become more agile, reduce complexity, and save money, they need an easier way to evolve their networks to support a modern, distributed model that allows them to reach their customers and end users globally with high performance. With AWS Cloud WAN, enterprises can simplify their operations and leave the time-consuming task of managing complex webs of networks behind.”
AWS Cloud WAN is available in US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California), Africa (Cape Town), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (Milan), Europe (Paris), Europe (Stockholm), and Middle East (Bahrain).
http://www.aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-cloud-wan-a-managed-wan-service
Prosimo raises $30 million for its multicloud networking
Prosimo, a start-up that offers an Application eXperience Infrastructure (AXI) platform for secure application delivery in multi-cloud environments, has secured $30 million in Series B funding. Prosimo, which is based in San Jose, California, was co-founded by Ramesh Prabagaran (CEO), Pradeep Aragonda (Head of Engineering) and Nehal Bhau (CTO), who were part of the founding team at Viptela that was acquired by Cisco for its SD-WAN solutions....
Video: Simplifying Connectivity at Cloud Scale - Prosimo
https://youtu.be/oT6fNlB1Kj4Enterprises, including major financial institutions, have been struggling to provide connectivity at cloud scale for all of their application workloads, says Faraz Siddiqui, Head of Solutions Architecture, Prosimo.Filmed at ONUG Spring 2022.https://prosimo.ioWho is Prosimo? CTO presentationTuesday, April 06, 2021 Prosimo, SD-WAN, Start-Ups https://youtu.be/58YMebmBJwMProsimo, a start-up...
NVIDIA unveils Quantum Optimized Device Architecture
NVIDIA outlined a new Quantum Optimized Device Architecture (QODA) for creating a coherent hybrid quantum-classical programming model.
Leading quantum organizations are already using NVIDIA GPUs and highly specialized NVIDIA software – NVIDIA cuQuantum – to develop individual quantum circuits. With QODA, developers can build complete quantum applications simulated with NVIDIA cuQuantum on GPU-accelerated supercomputers.
“Scientific breakthroughs can occur in the near term with hybrid solutions combining classical computing and quantum computing,” said Tim Costa, director of HPC and Quantum Computing Products at NVIDIA. “QODA will revolutionize quantum computing by giving developers a powerful and productive programming model.”
In addition, NVIDIA announced QODA collaborations with quantum hardware providers IQM Quantum Computers, Pasqal, Quantinuum, Quantum Brilliance and Xanadu; software providers QC Ware and Zapata Computing; and supercomputing centers Forschungszentrum Jülich, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“Quantinuum is partnering with NVIDIA to enable users of Quantinuum’s H-series quantum processors, powered by Honeywell, to program and develop the next generation of hybrid quantum-classical applications with QODA,” said Alex Chernoguzov, chief engineer at Quantinuum. “This ties together the best performing classical computers with our world-class quantum processors.”
“The hybrid quantum-classical capabilities developed by NVIDIA will enable HPC developers to accelerate their existing applications by providing an efficient way to program quantum and classical resources in a consolidated environment,” said Yudong Cao, chief technology officer at Zapata. “Near-term applications in chemistry, drug discovery, materials science and more can now be seamlessly integrated with quantum computing, driving new discoveries in these fields as practical quantum advantage emerges.”
Scale Computing raises $55M for edge computing
Scale Computing announced $55 million in funding for its edge computing, virtualization, and hyperconverged solutions.
The SC//Platform is an autonomous, self-healing platform that enables remote edge management of applications and systems at scale, and keeps applications running even as errors happen, utilizing machine intelligence rather than human administrators. The SC//HyperCore software delivers on-premises edge computing with high availability and disaster recovery to remote locations at an affordable entry-level cost. All SC//Hardware can be deployed quickly, managed locally or remotely, and can self-heal almost instantly.
The round was led by funds managed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.
“Data is moving to the edge twice as fast as it moved to the cloud,” said Jeff Ready, CEO of Scale Computing. “Management of the edge is an inverted problem from management of the data center. A typical data center deployment represents hundreds or thousands of servers at one or two locations. On the other hand, a typical edge deployment is a handful of servers each at hundreds or thousands of locations. This requires a completely different approach to deployment and management, and Scale Computing has continually met the challenges of this fast growing market. A growing number of enterprises are implementing the tremendous time and cost savings found in SC//Platform for the edge and we are proud to have the support of Morgan Stanley as we continue to expand.”
https://www.scalecomputing.com
Intel releases AI reference kits
Intel released the first set of open source AI reference kits, including AI model code, end-to-end machine learning pipeline instructions, libraries and Intel oneAPI components, for on-prem, cloud and edge environments.
Intel said its kits enable data scientists and developers to learn how to deploy AI faster and more easily across healthcare, manufacturing, retail and other industries with higher accuracy, better performance and lower total cost of implementation.
Four kits are available:
- Utility asset health: This predictive analytics model was trained to help utilities deliver higher service reliability. It uses Intel-optimized XGBoost through the Intel oneAPI Data Analytics Library to model the health of utility poles with 34 attributes and more than 10 million data points.
- Visual quality control: The AI Visual QC model was trained using Intel AI Analytics Toolkit, including Intel Optimization for PyTorch and Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit, both powered by oneAPI to optimize training and inferencing to be 20% and 55% faster, respectively, compared to stock implementation of Accenture visual quality control kit without Intel optimizations2 for computer vision workloads across CPU, GPU and other accelerator-based architectures. Using computer vision and SqueezeNet classification, the AI Visual QC model used hyperparameter tuning and optimization to detect pharmaceutical pill defects with 95% accuracy.
- Customer chatbot: Conversational chatbots have become a critical service to support initiatives across the enterprise. AI models that support conversational chatbot interactions are massive and highly complex. This reference kit includes deep learning natural language processing models for intent classification and named-entity recognition using BERT and PyTorch. Intel Extension for PyTorch and Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit optimize the model for better performance – 45% faster inferencing compared to stock implementation of Accenture customer chatbot kit without Intel optimizations3 – across heterogeneous architectures, and allow developers to reuse model development code with minimal code changes for training and inferencing.
- Intelligent document indexing: Enterprises process and analyze millions of documents every year, and many of the semi-structured and unstructured documents are routed manually. AI can automate the processing and categorizing of these documents for faster routing and lower manual labor costs. Using a support vector classification (SVC) model, this kit was optimized with Intel Distribution of Modin and Intel Extension for Scikit-learn powered by oneAPI.
Intel to acquire real-time continuous optimization software
Intel agreed to acquire Granulate Cloud Solutions Ltd., an Israel-based developer of real-time continuous optimization software. Financial terms were not disclosed.Granulate’s autonomous optimization service helps reduce CPU utilization and application latencies. It does this by learning the customer’s application and deploying a customized set of continuous optimizations at runtime. This enables deployment on smaller compute clusters and instance...
Intel and Microsoft contribute Scalable I/O Virtualization spec to OCP
Intel and Microsoft have contributed a Scalable I/O Virtualization (SIOV) specification to the Open Compute Project (OCP), enabling virtualization of PCI Express and Compute Express Link devices in cloud servers. SIOV is hardware-assisted I/O virtualization with the potential to support thousands of virtualized workloads per server. SIOV moves the non-performance-critical virtualization and management logic off the PCIe device and into...
Red Hat names Matt Hicks as CEO
Red Hat named Matt Hicks as its president and chief executive officer, replacing Paul Cormier, who will serve as chairman of Red Hat.
Hicks previously served as Red Hat’s executive vice president of Products and Technologies, where was responsible for the entirety of Red Hat’s product strategy and engineering. Notably, under Hicks’ leadership, Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud strategy and portfolio have expanded to help customers build, deploy and manage any application, anywhere, from on-premises environment, to multiple clouds, and to the edge. This includes delivering new managed cloud services that help customers speed the development of cloud-native applications, new capabilities to accelerate AI development, product variants enabling edge use cases and new security approaches that span hybrid cloud environments.
Monday, July 11, 2022
Zayo activates 192-fiber subsea route between UK and Netherlands
Zayo activated its new Zeus subsea route connecting Lowestoft, UK and Zandvoort, Netherlands.
At 192 fibres, Zeus contains the highest fibre count connecting the UK and mainland Europe -- the most dense, deeply-buried and robust cable available in the North Sea. Zayo utilized Ultra Low Loss (ULL) optical fibres, so wavelength throughput on a single channel between London and Amsterdam can reach up to 600G. Zeus offers a full C-band capacity of 2.65 petabits per second (Pbps) and C+L Band of 5.2 Pbps. Corning supplied the SMF-28 fiber.
“Meeting the connectivity needs of tomorrow requires deploying the most advanced network today, and that’s exactly what we’ve built for customers who want a hyper-fast and ultra-reliable connection between the UK and mainland Europe,” said Jesper Aagaard, president of Zayo Europe. “Zeus is now the strongest connection available in the region. We utilized the best cable available, buried it deeper in the seabed than our competitors and made it even more reliable than alternatives. We are confident our customers will benefit from this project for years- and even decades- to come.”
“The North Sea is an extremely challenging body of water for a subsea project like Zeus. Not only are there harsh weather conditions and relentless currents, the seabed is littered with items, some as simple as a discarded aluminum can and some as formidable as unexploded bombs left over from the Second World War,” said Geir Holmer, CEO of JTD Associates and a key consultant on the project. “Not only did we overcome these challenges, we worked tirelessly with Zayo to ensure this route was built to last – making it the most resilient route across the North Sea. I’m proud to have been part of this project, and what it will enable.”
As part of the project, the team worked with the Royal Netherlands Navy to detonate a large, 80- year-old explosive that had been left on the seabed since World War II. The team also put sustainability first, working to limit disruption and preserve the ecology of the sea.
https://www.zayo.com/resources/welcoming-zeus-the-new-connectivity-titan-of-the-north-sea/
Testing planned for 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks
Ericsson, Thales, and Qualcomm Technologies will conduct smartphone-use-case-focused testing and validation of 5G non-terrestrial networks (5G NTN). The goal of the testing will be to validate various technology components needed to enable 5G non-terrestrial networks, including a 5G smartphone, satellite payload and 5G network pieces on the ground.
Ericsson plans to verify a 5G virtual RAN (vRAN) stack, modified to handle radio signals propagating (what happens to 5G radio waves travelling through the vacuum of space and the Earth’s atmosphere) via the fast-moving LEO satellites.
The testing follows the March 2022 go-ahead by 3GPP to support non-terrestrial networks for the first time.
Erik Ekudden, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Ericsson, says: “This testing and validation cooperation between Ericsson, Thales and Qualcomm Technologies will be a major milestone in the history of communications as the ultimate result could effectively mean that no matter where you are on Earth – in the middle of an ocean or the remotest forest – high-end, secure and cost-effective connectivity will be available through collaborative 5G satellite and terrestrial connectivity.”
https://www.ericsson.com/en/press-releases/2022/7/ericsson-qualcomm-and-thales-to-take-5g-into-space
