Thursday, June 22, 2023

Arelion doubles capacity per fiber pair on long-haul route with L-band

Arelion has upgraded its existing Infinera FlexILS flexible-grid line system to support the L-band on a high-traffic route from Ashburn, VA to Atlanta. The upgrade doubles capacity per fiber pair, marking Arelion’s first route with active L-band capacity in service.

Arelion, which plans additional L-band deployments on high-traffic routes in North America, said this innovation enables it to bring more capacity to market on a continent where long-distance fiber is in short supply in many regions.

“We’re seeing significant demand for additional capacity from our customers along this high-traffic route as these tech hubs grow rapidly,” said Georgios Tologlou, Senior Network Architect, Arelion. “This innovation is a strong business case for us to optimize the cost per bit and minimize operational expenditures. Leveraging L-band, we can maximize the capacity per fiber pair to quickly serve our customers’ demands and supercharge our sales growth on one of the most popular routes in our North American network.”

Infinera FlexILS is the industry’s most widely deployed flexible grid-compliant open optical line system, featuring C+L-band support and colorless-directionless-contentionless ROADM. It seamlessly doubles fiber capacity through L-band expansion from the adjacent C-band without impacting service or operational quality.

Infinera said its system enhances flexibility by supporting programmable configuration that optimizes operation based on performance, spectral efficiency, long span reach, and fiber conditions.

“Our platforms are purpose-built to enable seamless upgrades to provide the greatest amount of investment protection and enable our customers to meet relentlessly growing bandwidth demand,” said Ron Johnson, Infinera’s General Manager, Optical Systems and Network Solutions Group. “Expanding the network to support L-band doubles the spectrum that can be used to transmit optical signals, hence enabling Arelion to double the amount of services they can provide per fiber while simultaneously achieving simplification of their network through automation and flexible operation.”

https://www.infinera.com/press-release/arelion-doubles-capacity-on-ashburn-atlanta-route-with-infinera-l-band-technology/

Tech Update: LLM-as-a-Service via Supercomputer

Hewlett Packard Enterprise offer large language models on a cloud subscription basis. The upcoming service will use HPE's supercomputing resources attained via its acquisition of legendary supercomputing pioneer Cray Inc. in 2019.

https://youtu.be/GvVk4izNCY0

In this video, Edmondo Orlotti discusses the LLM-as-a-Service model, how and where it will be deployed, and additional resources that HPE brings to the table.

Recorded at HPE Discover 2023 in Las Vegas.

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Verizon tests 5G network slicing

Verizon recently demonstrated multiple network slices using a commercially available smartphone, virtualized and non-virtualized RAN equipment in production in the field, and Verizon’s multi-vendor 5G standalone core.. 

This end-to-end test successfully accessed network slicing capabilities from the device and validated the ability for the device chipset, operating system, application, radio network base station, and the core of the network to work in harmony to demonstrate a full end-to-end path for data to travel on a virtual network slice. Network slicing will be made available with the evolution of Verizon’s 5G standalone core.

Verizon said its 5G standalone core’s cloud-native virtualized applications, in combination with built-in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), will enable the dynamic allocation of the appropriate resources, referred to as network slicing. It will also allow for automated network configuration changes, including the ability to scale up or scale down network function capacity in real time - to provide the right service levels and network resources needed for each use case.

“Matching network performance characteristics to specific application requirements, network slicing promises differentiated customer experiences to efficiently provide our customers with the type of service they need to complete the task they want to complete on our network and provide them an exceptional experience,” said Adam Koeppe, Senior Vice President of Technology Planning at Verizon.

https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-major-step-network-slicing-capabilities

Argonne National Lab advances Aurora supercomputer

The Aurora supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory, which is a collaboration of Intel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and the Department of Energy (DOE), reached a milestone with the installation of  all 10,624 compute blades, boasting 63,744 Intel Data Center GPU Max Series and 21,248 Intel Xeon CPU Max Series processors.

The system incorporates more than 1,024 storage nodes (using DAOS, Intel’s distributed asynchronous object storage), providing 220 terabytes (TB) of capacity at 31TBs of total bandwidth, and leverages the HPE Slingshot high-performance fabric. Later this year, Aurora is expected to be the world’s first supercomputer to achieve a theoretical peak performance of more than 2 exaflops (an exaflop is 1018 or a billion billion operations per second) when it enters the TOP500 list.

Aurora's sleek rectangular blades contain processors, memory, networking and cooling technologies. Each blade consists of two Intel Xeon Max Series CPUs and six Intel Max Series GPUs. The Xeon Max Series product family is already demonstrating great early performance on Sunspot, the test bed and development system with the same architecture as Aurora. Developers are utilizing oneAPI and AI tools to accelerate HPC and AI workloads and enhance code portability across multiple architectures.

“Aurora is the first deployment of Intel’s Max Series GPU, the biggest Xeon Max CPU-based system, and the largest GPU cluster in the world. We’re proud to be part of this historic system and excited for the groundbreaking AI, science and engineering Aurora will enable,”states Jeff McVeigh, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the Super Compute Group.

“While we work toward acceptance testing, we're going to be using Aurora to train some large-scale open source generative AI models for science," said Rick Stevens, Argonne National Laboratory associate laboratory director. "Aurora, with over 60,000 Intel Max GPUs, a very fast I/O system, and an all-solid-state mass storage system, is the perfect environment to train these models.”

https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1631/aurora-supercomputer-blade-installation-complete

Vertical Systems: 2022 Global Provider SD-WAN LEADERBOARD

Vertical Systems Group announces that the following eight companies attained a position on the year end 2022 Global Provider Carrier Managed SD-WAN LEADERBOARD (in rank order based on site share outside of home country as of December 31, 2022): AT&T (U.S.), Orange Business (France), Verizon (U.S.), BT Global Services (U.K.), NTT (Japan), Telefonica Global Solutions (Spain), Hughes (U.S.), and Vodafone (U.K.). This industry benchmark for multinational SD-WAN market presence ranks companies that hold a 4% or higher share of billable retail sites outside of their respective home countries.

Twelve companies qualify for the 2022 Global Provider Managed SD-WAN Challenge Tier (in alphabetical order): Aryaka (U.S.), Colt (U.K.), Comcast Business (U.S.), Deutsche Telekom (Germany), Global Cloud Xchange (India), GTT (U.S.), Liberty Networks [formerly Cable & Wireless] (Barbados), PCCW Global (Hong Kong), Singtel (Singapore), Tata (India), Telia (Sweden), and Telstra (Australia). The Challenge Tier includes companies with site share between 1% and 4% of this defined SD-WAN segment.

“Leading global SD-WAN providers continued to expand their footprints into dozens of new countries during 2022, with the goal of providing multinational customers with seamless connectivity,” said Rosemary Cochran, principal of Vertical Systems Group. “There was some shuffling of provider rankings since our last Leaderboard release, as competition for global customers is intense and share differentials in this segment are extremely tight.”

Research Highlights

  • Vertical’s initial benchmark for this specialized segment was the Mid-2021 Global Provider Managed SD-WAN LEADERBOARD, which included site installations as of June, 30 2021. The share comparisons provided in this analysis are based on these two time periods.
  • The roster of companies ranked on the LEADERBOARD increased to eight in 2022, up from seven previously.
  • AT&T advances to first position on the LEADERBOARD, up from second and displacing Orange Business. AT&T also ranks first on the 2022 U.S. Carrier Managed SD-WAN LEADERBOARD.
  • BT Global Services moves up to the fourth LEADERBOARD position, which drops NTT to fifth position.
  • Hughes enters the LEADERBOARD in seventh position, moving up from the Challenge Tier. Vodafone dips from seventh to the eighth and final position.
  • The 2022 Challenge Tier remains at twelve companies, however with lineup changes. Lumen drops from the Challenge Tier into the Market Player tier, and Comcast Business (includes Masergy) moves up from the Market Player tier.
  • Carrier Managed SD-WAN solutions for multinational customers are typically custom hybrid network configurations that require global infrastructures and technical expertise, and may incorporate MPLS VPNs bundled with cloud connectivity, plus advanced security that is integral or provided with technology partners.
  • MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification has been attained by the top three companies ranked on the 2022 Global Provider Carrier Managed SD-WAN LEADERBOARD – AT&T, Orange Business, and Verizon. Additionally, five companies cited in the Challenge Tier have MEF 3.0 SD-WAN certification as follows: Colt, Comcast Business, PCCW Global, Tata and Telia.
  • The primary technology suppliers utilized by the Global Provider SD-WAN LEADERBOARD and Challenge Tier companies are as follows (in alphabetical order): Cisco, Fortinet, HPE Aruba, Nuage Networks from Nokia, Palo Alto, Versa and VMware.

AWS to invest $100 million in Generative AI Innovation program

Amazon Web Services disclosed its intention to invest $100 million in a AWS Generative AI Innovation Center. The program aims to connect AWS AI and machine learning (ML) experts with customers around the globe to help them envision, design, and launch new generative AI products, services, and processes. 

“Amazon has more than 25 years of AI experience, and more than 100,000 customers have used AWS AI and ML services to address some of their biggest opportunities and challenges. Now, customers around the globe are hungry for guidance about how to get started quickly and securely with generative AI,” said Matt Garman, senior vice president of Sales, Marketing, and Global Services at AWS. “The Generative AI Innovation Center is part of our goal to help every organization leverage AI by providing flexible and cost-effective generative AI services for the enterprise, alongside our team of generative AI experts to take advantage of all this new technology has to offer. Together with our global community of partners, we’re working with business leaders across every industry to help them maximize the impact of generative AI in their organizations, creating value for their customers, employees, and bottom line.”

The center will offer workshops, engagements, and training. Customers will work closely with generative AI experts from AWS and the AWS Partner Network to select the right models, define paths to navigate technical or business challenges, develop proofs of concepts, and make plans for launching solutions at scale. The Generative AI Innovation Center team will provide guidance on best practices for applying generative AI responsibly and optimizing machine learning operations to reduce costs. 

Engagements will deliver strategy, tools, and assistance that will help customers use AWS generative AI services, including Amazon CodeWhisperer, an AI-powered coding companion, and Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service that makes foundational models (FMs) from AI21 Labs, Anthropic, and Stability AI, along with Amazon’s own family of FMs, Amazon Titan, accessible via an API. They can also train and run their models using high-performance infrastructure, including AWS Inferentia-powered Amazon EC2 Inf1 Instances, AWS Trainium-powered Amazon EC2 Trn1 Instances, and Amazon EC2 P5 instances powered by NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs. Additionally, customers can build, train, and deploy their own models with Amazon SageMaker or use Amazon SageMaker Jumpstart to deploy some of today’s most popular FMs, including Cohere’s large language models, Technology Innovation Institute’s Falcon 40B, and Hugging Face's BLOOM.

https://aws.amazon.com/generative-ai/

Yokogawa enhances its Optical Spectrum Analyzer

Yokogawa Test & Measurement Corporation released an upgraded optical spectrum analyzer equipped with features that enhance performance and improve usability. The instrument (AQ6370E) can be used to characterize a wide range of components, including lasers for optical communications, optical transceivers, and optical amplifiers.

One of these new features is HCDR (high close-in dynamic range) mode, with which a user can measure a single longitudinal mode laser with a high close-in dynamic range. Close-in dynamic range is a key performance criterion when developing lasers and optical devices.  

There is also a SMSR (side mode suppression ratio) mode, which can reduce SMSR measurement time, and an APP mode.


Wednesday, June 21, 2023

OIF targets Linear Drive / Direct Drive interfaces

OIF has launched a new Energy Efficient Interfaces (EEI) Framework project focused on the next generation of low power optics, also referred to as “Linear” or “Direct Drive”, for data center networking, artificial intelligence (AI) training/machine learning (ML) and disaggregation applications.

“With an increasing industry-wide demand, particularly from data center operators, the focus on energy efficiency is more important than ever,” said Rob Stone, Meta Platforms and OIF Board Member. “Addressing this need head-on, the new OIF framework will explore energy-efficient interfaces for the optical interconnects of next-generation data centers that will support the performance scaling of current internet applications and enable groundbreaking AI-driven applications and immersive experiences.”

Through this project, OIF will explore and study energy-efficient links with less than fully retimed interfaces, which have the potential to unlock a multitude of benefits for diverse stakeholders. The objective is to identify critical applications and their requirements for next-generation electrical and optical links, including die-to-die, co-packaged, near-packaged and pluggable solutions. 

The project will conduct a thorough study to identify critical issues associated with these links and identify opportunities to pursue interoperability standards. The findings of the study will be outlined in the Framework Document, which will serve as a technical white paper for the project.

“A primary goal of this project is to identify new opportunities for interoperability standards, laying the groundwork for potential future collaborations at OIF or other standards organizations,” added Jeff Hutchins, OIF Board Member and Physical & Link Layer (PLL) Working Group Co-Packaging Vice Chair and Ranovus.

“OIF is always listening to the wants and needs our members bring forward, and this project start proposal authored by several industry leading companies directly addresses a need that exists across many IT applications,” said Nathan Tracy, OIF Co-chair of the Market Awareness and Education committee and TE Connectivity. “This one project has the potential to significantly benefit several critical industry applications.”

Additionally, Yi Tang, Cisco Systems, was recently appointed as PLL Working Group Electrical Vice Chair.

https://www.oiforum.com/

Cisco to acquire Accedian for Service Assurance

Cisco announced plans to acquire Accedian, a privately-held company based in Montreal that offers performance analytics and end user experience solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close during the first quarter of Cisco’s FY24. 

Accedian's cloud-native Skylight service assurance solution provides granular, end-to-end visibility within “the massive multi” – multi-layer, multi-cloud, and multi-vendor networks. Skylight leverages its high-quality performance data, analytics and machine learning to identify, predict and prevent customer-impacting issues. It uses both hardware and software sensors across network traffic from Layer 2 to Layer 7 on physical, virtualized, and cloud infrastructure.

Accedian says its platform enables customers to launch new assured services based on 5G, SD-WAN and edge technologies. 

Accedian and Cisco have partnered on  a joint automation and assurance solution for service provider customers. 

“Accedian was born in the heart of the world’s largest and most complex networks,” said Dion Joannou, CEO of Accedian. “When we were acquired by Bridge Growth Partners, a leading technology investment firm, in 2017 we transformed the company, accelerated its growth, and evolved to a SaaS-first service assurance platform.  Microseconds matter to customers and customer experience, and precise, granular performance visibility is a foundational requirement for closed-loop automation, agile telco cloud environments, and latency-sensitive 5G services. We look forward to bringing our critical capabilities to a wider set of solutions within Cisco’s Networking portfolio and taking the next step in the partnership we have built with Cisco and our joint customers over the last years.”

In a blog post, Cisco's Kevin W writes  "Cisco has a unique opportunity to link that data into Cisco ThousandEyes’ cloud for end-to-end network assurance. We look forward to welcoming the  Accedian team and working to accelerate Cisco’s vision of bringing high-performance assurance to Service Providers. The  Accedian team will join my Data Center and Provider Connectivity organization within Cisco Networking."

https://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco-announces-intent-to-acquire-accedian

Tech Update: Next Gen Data Switches, DPUs, and Network Services

Top considerations for data center switches till now included speeds, feeds, latency, capacity, telemetry, power consumption and management features. The game is changing. 

In this video, Larry Lunetta discuses next gen data center switches that will bring advanced network services capabilities and which will leverage DPU-powered SmartNICs to boost performance.

Filmed at HPE Discover 2023 in Las Vegas.

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Tech Update: Private 5G Opportunities for Service Providers and Enterprises

Following the recent acquisition of Athonet, HPE's Tom Craig discusses the opportunities for communication service providers and enterprises in the private 5G space. 

Filmed at HPE Discover 2023 in Las Vegas.

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Proxxima deploys Padtec’s 400 Gbps transponder in northeast Brazil

Proxxima Telecom, a telecommunications service provider in Paraíba state, is deploying Padtec’s dual 400 Gbps transponder to upgrade its DWDM transport network in the northeast of Brazil. 

Proxxima, which is headquartered at the city of Campina Grande, began its expansion at the end of last year by building its first DWDM network connecting the municipalities of Campina Grande and Caruaru, in the neighboring state of Pernambuco. 

According to Leonardo Gomes, CEO of Proxxima, now the intention is to expand the carrier's operations to other neighboring cities and states. “The goal is to offer high quality services in a wider geographic area. With this investment, Proxxima reinforces its commitment to providing advanced and innovative solutions, which should strengthen and expand its presence in the Northeast region and drive the company's growth,” he says.

For the expansion, the carrier used a credit line from the investment fund in credit rights (receivables) - FIDC, launched by Padtec together with BNDES Participações (BNDESPar) in 2021. This fund uses resources from the Fund for Technological Development of Telecommunications (Fundo para o Desenvolvimento Tecnológico das Telecomunicações or FUNTTEL), from the Brazilian Ministry of Communications. The objective is to facilitate access to capital funds by small and medium-sized Brazilian industries that operate in the telecommunications sector.

Carlos Raimar, CEO and Investor Relations Officer at Padtec, emphasizes that the offer of different facility options reinforces the company's commitment to the growth of its customers. “For some years, Padtec has been committed to making the expansion of providers networks financially viable,” he says. “The credit facilities bring new options of financial resources to be allocated in capacity increase and operations expansion, in addition to improving the capacity and quality of networks, thus allowing Padtec to keep up with demand growth in the time necessary to meet business and customers requirements,” he adds.

Padtec also offers the market financing options through Finep (the Brazilian federal government's technology and innovation investment arm), FIDC established with the Sifra group, vendor financing with local private banks and forfait operations for international sales.


CableLabs and TIP validate OpenWiFi

 

CableLabs and Telecom Infra Project (TIP) announced the successful validation of new interoperable hardware and software for OpenWiFi, version 2.9, and the commissioning of a refreshed OpenWiFi Community Lab to serve as a testing ground and demonstration stage for global cable operators. This new initiative is part of CableLabs’ ongoing collaboration with the Telecom Infra Project. 

 OpenWiFi is a community-developed open-source platform designed to lower the cost of developing and operating Wi-Fi networks. It includes a cloud controller SDK and an enterprise-grade access point (AP) firmware, and is designed and validated to work seamlessly together. Interoperable companies participating in the trial and OpenWiFi Lab include hardware manufacturers ActionTec, EdgeCore, HFCL, Indio Networks and Lindsay Broadband, and software cloud controllers companies HFCL, NetExperience, Wavespot, and Indio Networks. 

This new version of OpenWiFi is built on the uCentral communication layer and supports Multi Pre-Shared Key allowing devices to log in based on MAC address. It also supports a captive portal to require user interaction before they are granted Wi-Fi access. For advanced connectivity, OpenWiFi supports OpenRoaming, from the Wireless Broadband Alliance, a roaming federation service enabling an automatic and secure Wi-Fi experience globally.  

“CableLabs has supported OpenWiFi since the launch and we believe in the power of open and disaggregated Wi-Fi solutions,” said Josh Redmore, principal architect, wireless access technologies for CableLabs. “This new version of OpenWiFi leverages open-source software and hardware to greatly reduce the barrier to entry of deploying managed Wi-Fi.”  

“By having OpenWiFi work seamlessly with OpenRoaming out of the box, it creates strategic business opportunities in verticals including retail, hospitality, education, and multi dwelling units,” said Tiago Rodriques, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance. “It’s a smart move by the community developing and building the OpenWiFi solution to include OpenRoaming capabilities.”

  • Launched in 2021, TIP OpenWiFi has announced commercial deployments in the United States with Boingo Wireless, in India with Spectra, in Pakistan with Multinet, in Kenya with ThinkWiFi and Mawingu, and a trial with the City of Dublin and Virgin Media that complies with the European Commission’s WIFI4EU initiative, the benchmark for public Wi-Fi deployments in Europe. Use cases include MDU, Hospitality and Smart Cities, with others on the horizon.


Napatech and Jabil offer optimized server for low-latency Fintech

Napatech and Jabil have developed a server platform for high-bandwidth, low-latency, financial technology (Fintech) applications.

Jabil’s new J322-S server offers pre-validated network adapter configurations that include the Napatech NT100 and NT200 SmartNICs, which perform low-latency lossless networking at 100Gbps and 200Gbps respectively. The SmartNICs also enable complete replay of transaction data with nanosecond precision, for use in analytics, testing and simulation.

“Jabil’s J322-S 2U rackmount server based on the high-performance 4th Gen Intel Xeon Dual Socket processor is optimized to meet the demanding needs of our Fintech customers,” said Ed Bailey, vice president of technology, Jabil Cloud and Enterprise Communications. “Storage needs are addressed by offering NVMe, SAS and SATA drives for hot- pluggable hybrid storage, while the available programmable Napatech SmartNICs deliver the high-performance, low-latency networking features that are required for Fintech applications. We are pleased to team with Napatech on these platforms and look forward to future collaboration as our customers’ needs and opportunities evolve.”

“As Fintech applications become higher-performance and more complex, standard Network Interface Cards (NICs) are unable to handle the increased line speed while delivering data without packet loss,” said Charlie Ashton, senior director of business development at Napatech. “Napatech’s programmable SmartNICs, however, support line speeds up to 200Gbps with zero packet loss under all conditions, while also including large on-board buffers that absorb microbursts and ensure peak network performance at all times. “

https://www.napatech.com

Broadcom ships 2nd gen Wi-Fi 7 chips

Broadcom is sampling its second generation of wireless connectivity chipset solutions for the Wi-Fi 7 ecosystem, spanning Wi-Fi routers, residential gateways, enterprise access points, and client devices. 

The first chip, the BCM6765, is a highly-optimized residential access point chip that supports 320 MHz 2-stream Wi-Fi operation. This new platform system-on-chip (SoC) allows the productization of Wi-Fi 7 mass-market access points and smart repeater solutions which span the spectrum of cost, form factor, and performance. 

The second chip, the BCM47722, is an enterprise access point chip that also supports 320 MHz 2-stream operation along with dual IoT radios that support simultaneous operation for Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Zigbee, Thread, and Matter protocols. This SoC addresses the growing needs of Internet of things (IoT) applications in the enterprise Wi-Fi market. 

The third chip, the BCM4390, is a low-power Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 combo chip designed for use in mobile devices such as handsets and tablets. It supports 160 MHz 2-stream Wi-Fi operation, dual Bluetooth, and Zigbee, Thread, and Matter protocols to service a broad set of mobile markets.

Broadcom Wi-Fi 7 ecosystem includes

  • support for 3-link MLO, which reduces latency by 50% compared to typical 2-link implementations. 
  • supports for its proprietary SpeedBooster feature, which allows 160 MHz devices, such as mobile devices based on the BCM4390, to use the full 320 MHz access point capacity, thereby doubling Wi-Fi connection speed. 
  • Automatic Frequency Coordination (AFC) for optimal spectrum allocation to enable high-power access points and extend 6-GHz transmit range in both indoor and outdoor environments. 
  • support the latest Bluetooth 5.4 standard 
  • forward-compatibility with the draft Bluetooth Channel Sounding specification for location services, which brings a wide range of new features both to mobile handsets, such as secure vehicle keyless entry, and enterprise access points, including support for asset tracking and electronic shelf labels. 

“High-speed, low-latency wireless connectivity is essential for our homes and offices alike. We launched a complete Wi-Fi 7 ecosystem for mobile handsets and residential and enterprise networks last year to power the next generation of digital experiences,” said Vijay Nagarajan, vice president of marketing for the Wireless Communications and Connectivity Division at Broadcom. “With these three new products, Broadcom enables its customers to build a diverse set of best-in-class Wi-Fi 7 products across a wide range of markets.”

Rivada Space Networks and Artel collaborate on satellite links

Rivada Space Networks (RSN) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Artel to bring a new level of high security and low latency satellite communications to the government market through low earth orbit (LEO) constellations.

Rivada's OuterNET constellation will offer customers high-speed, highly secure global communications

Artel is a carrier-agnostic integrator that provides secure network communication services to U.S. government agencies.

Rivada's upcoming LEO constellation will offer access to a secure satellite network with pole-to-pole reach, promising end-to-end latencies similar to or better than terrestrial fiber. The RSN satellite architecture combines inter-satellite laser links with advanced onboard data routers to create an optical mesh network in space. 

Artel is already using first generation LEO constellations to deliver secure communications for government communications.  

"We are committed to delivering state-of-the-art technology solutions to the US Government", said Ed Spitler, Head of Satcoms Programs at Artel. "The Rivada constellation brings a new level of security, performance and global reach that will enable our customers to not only expand their current networks but also address new market opportunities.  We are excited to partner with RSN to provide the next generation of secure connectivity."

Declan Ganley, CEO, Rivada Space Networks, said: "Rivada has a long history of providing mission critical communications, including deploying an emergency network for first responders in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Now with the advanced capabilities of our LEO satellite constellation, where data travels through space alone, we are building something unique, which we call the 'OuterNET.' This new, real private network will provide ultra secure, highly reliable low latency communications anywhere on the globe. And with our manufacturing and launch-services agreements in place, we are moving ahead at full speed to provide our partners with our ground-breaking constellation."

https://rivadaspace.com

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

HPE preprovisions GreenLake private cloud resources at Equinix

Hewlett Packard Enterprise will pre-provision HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Enterprise and HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition at strategic Equinix data centers around the world, giving customers rapid access to a broad range of private cloud offerings. The first Equinix locations supporting this offering are Frankfurt, London, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto and Washington, D.C.. 

The company also announced HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Business Edition, which allows customers to spin up virtual machines (VMs) across hybrid clouds on demand and self-manage their private cloud from VMs to infrastructure with AIOps-driven simplicity. 

“Enabling HPE GreenLake at Equinix's state-of-the-art IBX data centers across strategic global locations is the next evolution in accelerating customer hybrid cloud adoption,” said Vishal Lall, senior vice president and general manager, HPE GreenLake Cloud Services Solutions. “This partnership brings the best of the cloud experience like scalability and rapid provisioning, plus optimized performance, open choice, and low and predictable total cost of ownership—closer to our customers' centers of data and empowers them to speed transformation while optimizing costs."

Announced in June 2022, HPE GreenLake for Private Cloud Enterprise is API-enabled and is an automated, flexible, scalable, and enterprise-grade private cloud. It’s designed with modular infrastructure and software and supports the deployment of bare metal, virtual machines, and container workloads in a self-service mode. 

https://www.hpe.com/us/en/newsroom/press-release/2023/06/hewlett-packard-enterprise-extends-private-cloud-portfolio-at-equinix-data-centers-to-give-customers-more-choice-and-fast-access-to-hybrid-cloud.html

HPE enters the AI cloud market

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced its entrance into the AI cloud market. HPE GreenLake will now offer large language models on a cloud subscription basis.

Unlike general-purpose cloud offerings that run multiple workloads in parallel, HPE GreenLake for LLMs runs on an AI-native architecture uniquely designed to run a single large-scale AI training and simulation workload, and at full computing capacity. The offering will support AI and HPC jobs on hundreds or thousands of CPUs or GPUs at once.

The service allows enterprises to privately train, tune, and deploy large-scale AI using HPE's supercomputing platform and AI software.

“We have reached a generational market shift in AI that will be as transformational as the web, mobile, and cloud,” said Antonio Neri, president and CEO, at HPE. “HPE is making AI, once the domain of well-funded government labs and the global cloud giants, accessible to all by delivering a range of AI applications, starting with large language models, that run on HPE’s proven, sustainable supercomputers. Now, organizations can embrace AI to drive innovation, disrupt markets, and achieve breakthroughs with an on-demand cloud service that trains, tunes, and deploys models, at scale and responsibly.”

HPE GreenLake for LLMs is the first in a series of industry and domain-specific AI applications that HPE plans to launch in the future. These applications will include support for climate modeling, healthcare and life sciences, financial services, manufacturing, and transportation. 


Cambium adds Gigabit FTTx Combo PON product line

Cambium Networks entered the fiber access business with the introduction of an FTTx Combo PON platform supporting both Gigabit Passive Optical (GPON) and 10 Gigabit Symmetric XGS-PON technology over the same fiber.

The solution includes Optical Line Terminals (OLT) with 8- and 16-port options as well as indoor Optical Network Terminals (ONT) and unique PoE powered outdoor ONTs.

Cambium's cnMaestro X provides single pane of glass management for both wireless and now fiber broadband technologies. 

"Cambium Networks has re-imagined networking to make it easier for WISPs to incorporate carrier-grade, multi-gigabit symmetrical fiber technology," said Cambium Networks President and CEO Atul Bhatnagar. "Our Combo PON solution offers a simple way for our customers to continue to invest in their infrastructure while future-proofing their network – all while keeping costs down. Now operators can manage fiber, fixed wireless access (FWA) and indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi from a single pane of glass to deliver exceptional digital experiences. That's a significant and welcome change."

"Our unique ONE Network approach demystifies and simplifies the management, statistics, troubleshooting and Quality of Experience (QoE) associated with broadband networks," said Sakid Ahmed, VP & General Manager, Fiber Business, Cambium Networks. "Now, with fiber technology in our portfolio, network operators can simplify operations with a securely converged network, increase operational efficiency by using intelligent automation across all processes, and deliver consistently predictable user experiences with application optimization."

FTTx Combo PON is expected to ship in late Q2 of 2023.

https://www.cambiumnetworks.com/

Dell'Oro: Campus switching market takes off thanks to backlog

Worldwide Campus Switch sales were up 40 percent in 1Q2023, the highest growth level recorded in this market in over two decades. This remarkable level of growth was fueled by enormous backlog releases and higher prices. Arista, Cisco, HPE Aruba, and Juniper all recorded sales growth of well in excess of 45 percent.

“Lead times improved considerably, now ranging from three to six months, a notable improvement compared to the previous two quarters, and substantial reduction from nine to twelve months experienced about a year ago,” said Sameh Boujelbene, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “This is because some of the constrained commodity components have become available, as evidenced by the higher inventory levels of unfinished goods reported by many vendors. In addition, as newer backlogs began to be released, the market started to see positive impacts of list price increases implemented by most vendors about a year ago.

“What was additionally noteworthy is that the strong growth was widespread among the majority of vendors, with Cisco achieving the highest share gain of four points during the quarter. Nonetheless, the company’s market share over the trailing four quarters has remained steady. This could indicate that the share gain in 1Q 2023 might be primarily attributed to the timing of shipments rather than competitive displacements,” added Boujelbene.

Additional highlights from the 1Q 2023 Ethernet Switch – Campus Report:

  • Market growth was broad-based across all regions, including China which witnessed a brief decline in 4Q 2022.
  • 5/5.0 Gbps port shipments more than doubled, reflecting significant improvement in supply, especially on Cisco’s Catalyst 9300.

https://www.delloro.com/news/enormous-campus-switch-backlog-release-propels-unprecedented-market-growth/