Luna acquires Silixa for fiber optic sensing

Luna Innovations announced a $50 million investment by White Hat Capital Partners as well as the acquisition of Silixa, a UK-based supplier of distributed fiber optic sensing solutions. 

Silixa Ltd is a company specializing in fiber optic-powered data services, primarily serving sectors like alternative energy, mining, and others. They provide distributed fiber optic sensing solutions, which are used to measure temperature, strain, and acoustics, even in hostile environments. These solutions are particularly significant for their high fidelity and real-time, high-resolution data collection, enabling a more comprehensive understanding of various environments and assets.

Founded in 2007, Silixa is based in both London, UK, and the US. It was established by Mahmoud Farhadiroushan and Tom Parker. The company is privately held and has been supported by major investors such as Lime Rock Partners, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Equinor Technology Ventures.

Silixa is expected to achieve approximately $30 million in 2023 revenue, representing approximately 15% annual growth on a constant currency basis. The purchase price consists of $21.5 million in upfront cash consideration and up to an additional $16.5 million in earnouts payable in 2025 upon the achievement of certain 2024 financial performance milestones. The transaction was funded with a portion of the proceeds from White Hat Capital Partners’ strategic investment in Luna. Inclusive of modest cost synergies, the acquisition is expected to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings in the first year.

Luna Innovations, which was founded in 1991 and is based in Roanoke, Virginia, is known for its fiber optic sensing products (like ODiSI), fiber optic test and measurement products (including OVA, OBR, and tunable lasers), and terahertz test and measurement devices (such as T-Ray and T-Gauge).

Luna Innovations reported a revenue of $109.5 million in the fiscal year 2022. 

Under the investment deal, White Hat has initially purchased 52,500 shares of Series B convertible preferred stock at a purchase price of $50.0 million, to be used for the Silixa acquisition and other corporate purposes.

Luna said the acquisition advances its position in the fiber optic sensing market, adding capabilities in distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), distributed temperature sensing (DTS) and distributed strain sensing (DSS) that offer enhanced performance for applications in energy, natural environments, mining and defense.

“The addition of Silixa not only elevates the portfolio of solutions we already offer in our key end markets, but also further strengthens our position as an enabler of energy transition by extending our reach into exciting new growth sectors, such as carbon capture and storage, as well as into monitoring processes that will help sustain ecosystems and safeguard fragile environments,” said Scott Graeff, President and Chief Executive Officer of Luna. “Silixa brings important technology capabilities and strong talent that we expect to leverage across our EMEA footprint, which we expect will drive profitable growth across our European enterprise.”

“Today’s announcement is a pivotal milestone in the history of Silixa and a testament to the hard work and dedication of our employees,” said Co-Founders Mahmoud Farhadiroushan and Tom Parker, who are both continuing with Luna. “We’re thrilled to be joining a company that shares our focus on innovation and our passion to provide solutions to some of the world’s most critical challenges,” added Glynn Williams, CEO at Silixa, who will remain as an advisor to Luna through 2024.

https://silixa.com/

https://lunainc.com/

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Cisco to acquire Isovalent for eBPF-based open source security

Cisco agreed to acquire Isovalent, a start-up focused on open source cloud native networking and security. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Isovalent holds leadership positions in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and eBPF Foundation, in addition to upstream software contributions, and has led the development of Cilium, the leading cloud native solution for networking and security. 

eBPF, which stands for extended Berkeley Packet Filter,” provides a lightweight, efficient, and secure framework for running bytecode in the Linux kernel without changing kernel source code or loading kernel modules. Originally designed for network packet filtering, eBPF has evolved to offer more generalized functionality, including:

• Network Functionality: eBPF is widely used for networking tasks, such as filtering, monitoring, and routing of network packets.
• 
  Observability: It allows for detailed monitoring and tracing of system and application behaviors. eBPF can be used to trace kernel and user-space functions, making it a powerful tool for performance analysis and debugging.

Cilium provides IT and platform engineering teams with networking capabilities and visibility into the behavior and communication of cloud native applications, enabling seamless policy definition of software-defined networks. Isovalent has also recently introduced:

• Cilium Mesh:  allows for the easy connection of Kubernetes clusters with existing infrastructure across hybrid clouds,
• Tetragon: an eBPF-based open source security solution that provides visibility to and enforces runtime behavior within an application and on the network.  
• Isovalent Enterprise: an enterprise distribution of Cilium and Tetragon

Cisco said the acquisition will bolster its secure networking capabilities across public clouds, building on its Cisco Security Cloud vision for an AI-driven, cloud delivered, integrated security platform. The Cisco Security Cloud enables customers to abstract security controls from multicloud infrastructure to provide advanced protection against emerging threats across any cloud, application or workload.

“Together with Isovalent, Cisco will build on the open source power of Cilium to create a truly unique multicloud security and networking capability to help customers simplify and accelerate their digital transformation journeys,” said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. "Imagine in today's distributed environment - of applications, virtual machines, containers and cloud assets - having security controls with total visibility, without hindering networking and application performance. The combination of Cisco and Isovalent will make this a reality.”

“Cisco is committed to nurturing, investing in, and contributing to the eBPF and Cilium open source communities,” said Stephen Augustus, Head of Open Source at Cisco. “Isovalent’s team will join Cisco's deep bench of open source governance and technical leadership to solve complex cloud native, security, and networking challenges. Their knowledge will accelerate innovation across the business and help further strengthen the Cisco Security Cloud platform to meet the growing demands of our customers.”

• Isovalent, which is based in Cupertino, California, was founded in 2017 by Dan Wendlandt and Thomas Graf. In terms of funding, Isovalent has successfully raised a total of $69 million over two rounds of funding. The latest funding round was a Series B, which took place on September 7, 2022. The company has attracted a notable group of investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Mango Capital, Mirae Asset Capital, Thomvest Ventures, M12, Grafana Labs, Google, Cisco, and SV Angel.

https://isovalent.com/

https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/a/y2023/m12/cisco-to-acquire-isovalent-to-define-the-future-of-multicloud-networking-and-security.html

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Equinix allocates $4.9B in green bonds to support 172 projects

Equinix completed the allocation of $4.9 billion in investment-grade green bonds, marking a significant step towards its science-based target of achieving climate neutrality by 2030 and enhancing operational eco-efficiency. Since 2020, the company has issued six bond offerings, with full allocation achieved by June 2023. These bonds have financed 172 green building projects at 105 sites, 33 energy efficiency projects, and two Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) projects over the past five years. The PPAs contribute to 225 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, expected to reduce or avoid 383,300 metric tons of CO2e annually, which is equivalent to the emissions from over 85,296 gasoline-powered vehicles driven for a year.

The cited a number of examples of its green projects, including:

• Equinix's Co-Innovation Facility (CIF) in Ashburn, VA, which provides a platform for trialing and showcasing advanced power, cooling and control methodologies—such as fuel cells and liquid cooling—for use in its future data centers. The facility, located in Equinix's DC15 International Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center, allows the company to work with key innovative suppliers to develop prototype approaches, such as direct-to-chip liquid cooling. Last week the company announced plans to expand support for advanced liquid cooling technologies—such as direct-to-chip—to more than 100 of its IBX data centers in more than 45 metros around the world.
• Equinix's MU4 IBX data center, located in Aschheim, Germany, is designed for optimal efficiency and includes technologies for hybrid cooling and an Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) system for efficient storage and recovery of thermal energy. The building also has a green façade and partially planted roof aimed at enhancing biodiversity while acting as additional natural insulation and cooling. Equinix is also exploring options to share the site's waste heat with external consumers.
• Entering PPAs with developers to help build new renewable energy resources on the grids where Equinix operates, can enable the company to grow its business responsibly. This includes projects like the Rush Springs wind farm, a 125-megawatt wind farm in Grady and Stephens Counties, OK, where Equinix made a 15-year commitment. The projects are expected to deliver average annual avoidance of more than 218,600 metric tons of CO2e relative to the energy grid in the region.
• The redesign of the chilled water production system at LD5, located in Slough near London. The new system enables the site to harness low outside temperatures during colder months and lowers energy consumption. This project has the potential to result in an average annual avoidance of more than 2,600 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e) due to reduced electricity demand.

"Equinix considers green bonds a valuable tool to raise capital and finance large projects that can increase the sustainability of our business. Our green bonds demonstrate Equinix's continued commitment to design, build and deliver the most reliable, secure and sustainable data center and digital infrastructure possible in order to benefit our customers, the communities in which we operate, our investors, and the planet," said Katrina Rymill, SVP Corporate Finance & Sustainability, Equinix. "Through the allocation of our green bonds, we continue to be able to directly align our financing needs with our sustainability strategy."

https://www.equinix.com/newsroom/press-releases/2023/12/equinix-fully-allocates-4-9-billion-of-green-bond-proceeds

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KT deploys 600G transmission route with Ciena

KT completed the construction of South Korea's first nationwide 600G transmission network.

The transmission network, operational since September 2023, spans over 1,000 km and is capable of transmitting 600G per wavelength in long-distance segments, connecting major cities nationwide from Seoul to Busan, Gwangju, and even Jeju Island.

The deployment uses Ciena’s 6500 flexible grid Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) with WaveLogic 5 Extreme (WL5e) coherent optics, and Ciena's Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) domain controller.

Henry Kim, Regional Managing Director of Ciena North Asia, stated: “As pioneers in coherent optical technology, Ciena has been supplying optical transmission equipment capable of delivering 100G and 400G services to domestic telecom operators. The 600G transmission network introduced by KT is expected to provide a groundbreaking, cost-effective solution for transmitting high-capacity traffic throughout South Korea. This, in turn, is anticipated to enhance dedicated circuit services significantly.”

https://www.ciena.com/about/newsroom/press-releases/ciena-and-kt-build-first-nationwide-600g-transmission-route-in-south-korea

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EIB awards €300m loan to iliad for 5G rollouts in France

The European Investment Bank issued a €300m loan to iliad SA to expand its 5G network rollout in France. This is iliad SA’s seventh loan from EIB, bringing its total amount of EIB financing granted since 2009 to more than €1.7 billion.

The iliad Group is now Europe’s sixth-largest mobile operator with some 38 million mobile subscribers. the Group’s 5G coverage rate in France is now over 94.4% of the population, and it has almost 15 million mobile subscribers across the country, of which 11 million are on the 4G/5G Free Mobile Plan.

“This financing transaction – the seventh loan granted to iliad SA by the EIB since 2009 – reaffirms the strength of the long-standing relations that unite our two groups, not only in France, but also in Poland via our subsidiary Play since the beginning of 2022. We’re delighted to be furthering our partnership with the EIB, which will enable us to pursue our ambitious objectives of rolling out and densifying our mobile networks in France so we can provide the best connectivity to our subscribers,” said Thomas Reynaud, CEO of the iliad Group.

https://www.iliad.fr/en/investisseurs/groupe/communiques-de-presse-financiers/all/all

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NTT partners with TEPCO Power Grid for Tokyo data centers

NTT Global Data Centers Japan (NTT GDCJ), a subsidiary of NTT DATA Group Corporation, and TEPCO Power Grid will establish a new company to jointly develop and operate data centers in the Inzai-Shiroi area, of Greater Tokyo, Japan. The forthcoming enterprise, set to be launched in the spring of 2024, anticipates making its initial capacity available in the latter half of the 2026 fiscal year.

The inaugural endeavor of this collaboration involves purchasing land in the Inzai-Shiroi zone, a key location for substantial data centers in the Asia-Pacific area. The initial objective is to construct data centers in Inzai-Shiroi, aiming for a total IT capacity of 50MW. 

NTT Global Data Centers is investing 1.5 trillion yen (approx. US$12 billion) over the next five years to expand and upgrade its data center business globally.

TEPCO Group said it is aiming to improve the efficiency and sustainability of power generation/transmission by fostering the development of data centers and other facilities with local communities, making the most of its expertise in construction and operation of power facilities and utilizing its existing assets including land, in accordance with its fourth comprehensive special business plan.

https://www.nttdata.com/global/en/news/press-release/2023/december/ntt-global-data-centers-japan-and-tepco-power-grid-to-establish-a-new-company

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AWS launches Canada West (Calgary) Region

Amazon Web Services (AWS) activated its second AWS infrastructure Region in Canada—the AWS Canada West (Calgary) Region. 

With this launch, AWS has 105 Availability Zones across 33 geographic regions, with announced plans to launch 12 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.

The AWS Canada West (Calgary) Region consists of three Availability Zones and joins the existing AWS Canada (Central) Region, which opened in December 2016. 

AWS also released a new economic impact study highlighting that the company is planning to invest an estimated $17.9 billion (approximately CA $24.8 billion) in Canada through 2037 via the new AWS Canada West (Calgary) Region and the existing AWS Canada (Central) Region in Quebec. 

The company also noted the following investments in Canada:

• AWS has launched eight total Amazon CloudFront (CDN) locations in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. 
• AWS has announced AWS Local Zones in Toronto and Vancouver. AWS Local Zones are a type of AWS infrastructure deployment that places compute, storage, database, and other select services closer to customers for applications that require single-digit millisecond latency to end users.

“With the launch of the AWS Canada West (Calgary) Region, customers and partners across Canada now have additional infrastructure to deploy applications with greater resilience, availability, and lower latency, while enabling more customers to innovate with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence to help fuel economic development across the country,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. “AWS is committed to helping organizations of all sizes and across all industries increase agility and drive innovation. We are proud to deepen our investment by driving local job creation, building cloud skills, and creating opportunities for growth and collaboration with our local customers and AWS Partners.”

https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure

• AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. Availability Zones are located far enough from each other to support customers’ business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance.

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Dell'Oro: AI boosts the server semiconductor and component market

Accelerators, mainly used for AI applications, drove the server semiconductor and component market to 29 percent year-over-year in 3Q 2023, according to a new report from Dell'Oro Group. The report observes that the accelerator market is on track to surpass the CPU market in revenues by nearly two-fold in 2023.

"The server and storage system component market is poised for an 11 percent growth for full-year 2023, primarily propelled by accelerators. Excluding accelerators, a 27 percent decline in revenue is forecasted, attributed to reduced demand resulting from inventory adjustments by system vendors and hyperscale cloud service providers for general-purpose computing," stated Baron Fung, Senior Research Director at Dell’Oro Group. "Looking ahead to 2024, we anticipate strong double-digit growth in accelerator revenue. Moreover, our forecasts indicate a comprehensive recovery in the market across various categories, including CPU, memory, storage drives, and network interface cards (NICs), as vendors increase their inventories in anticipation of healthier server demand. Alongside the unit growth of these component categories, we expect pricing to improve in tandem with higher demand and the transition to the next-generation server platforms," explained Fung.

Additional highlights from the 3Q 2023 Data Center IT Semiconductors and Components Quarterly Report:

• NVIDIA led in server and storage system component revenues in 3Q 2023, driven by GPU accelerators, followed by Intel and Samsung. Accelerator revenues are on track to surpass CPU revenues for the first time in 2023, reflecting a shift towards accelerated computing.
• NIC shipments declined briefly in 1H 2023 but returned to growth in 3Q 2023, driven by increased adoption of higher-speed ports and Smart NICs, especially for accelerated computing.
• GPU revenue is forecasted to achieve a 70 percent growth in 2024. Although NVIDIA currently dominates this market, potential challenges arise from new competitive offerings by AMD and Intel, coupled with the emergence of custom accelerators by the hyperscale cloud service providers.

 https://www.delloro.com/news/ai-boosts-the-server-semiconductor-and-component-market-to-29-percent-growth-in-3q-2023/

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stc expands global ambitions with acquisition of CMC Networks

center3, a wholly owned subsidiary of the stc Group, agreed to acquire CMC Networks, a global service provider across Africa and the Middle East, from the Carlyle Sub-Saharan Africa Fund. Financial terms were not disclosed.

CMC Networks boasts a pan-African Layer 2/Layer 3 MPLS network, with significant presence across Africa and the Middle East. It operates more than 110 service locations, servicing 51 out of 54 countries in Africa and 12 countries in the Middle East. The company also has regional hubs in key interconnected locations across Europe, the Americas, and the Asia-Pacific, enhancing its global reach. 

Fahad AlHajeri, CEO at center3, said: "This acquisition is a landmark moment for center3. CMC's enviable global footprint, high value customer base and portfolio of capabilities is very complementary to center3's digital infrastructure and connectivity assets. This acquisition exemplifies our strategic commitment to enter key markets with significant growth potential. Our previous investment in 2Africa Cable, coupled with this acquisition, underscores our conviction in Africa's essential role in center3's future growth. We are excited about the possibilities that CMC Networks will bring including its wealth of knowledge, capability in the African region and promising growth in the Middle East."

https://center3.com

• In October 2022, Saudi Arabia’s stc Group launched Center3 Company, a new company that will be the owner of the digital infrastructure assets owned by stc Group, including data centers, submarine cables, international points of presence, and internet exchange points. Center3 Company aims to be the digital regional center for the Middle East and North Africa, operating a group of carrier-neutral data centers and a provider of international communication for the telecommunications sector through a submarine fiber-optic network. It aims to develop digital businesses and enhance investment opportunities in international communication services and data centers by providing the latest communication, hosting technologies and raising the capacity of data centers to meet the needs of the Asian, European, and African markets, and the rest of the world.
• Earlier this year, center3 completed a 9.6MW expansion of its hyperscaler-grade data center Khurais in Riyadh. The state-of-the-art facility is built to meet global hyperscalers requirements. This expansion follows center3’s plan to build new data centers across Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam, and other strategic locations in the Kingdom to address its customers’ requirements for high availability, disaster recovery, and scalability. The new facilities will feature operational standards that support service-level agreements and key performance indicators aligned with best-in-class international standards.

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Nokia divests Device Management and Service Management unit

Lumine Group Inc. will buy Nokia’s Device Management (DM) and Service Management Platform (SMP) businesses FOR EUR 185 million, which includes a contingent consideration of up to EUR 35 million based on the performance of the business during the first year following close. 

Nokia Device Management software capabilities help communication service providers remotely manage home broadband access devices, as well as IoT sensors and devices from a variety of different vendors; while the company’s Service Management Platform improves customer care service, with coverage spanning more than 150 deployments worldwide and more than 1 billion devices under management.

Lumine Group acquires, manages, and builds industry-specific software, focused in the telecom and media space. The company intends to operate the acquired business as a standalone entity called "Motive". Approximately 500 Nokia Device Management and Service Management Platform employees are expected to transfer to Lumine Group as part of the deal.

Nokia says the divestiture reflects its strategy to focus resources on its core business. 

Raghav Sahgal, President of Cloud and Network Services, at Nokia said: “Nokia is pleased to enter this agreement with Lumine as another sign of progress in our strategy to focus investment in those areas most important to our business. Lumine Group has the telecom industry expertise as well as the strategic focus and resourcing to drive the Device Management and Service Management Platform businesses forward to a stronger future.”

David Sharpley, Group President at Lumine Group said: “We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Device Management and Service Management Platform customers and employees to Lumine. Consistent with our autonomous operating model, we will be reviving the heritage Motive brand for this new stand-alone Lumine company and we look forward to partnering with Nokia to ensure operational continuity with all customers.”

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2023/12/20/nokia-announces-deal-to-sell-device-management-and-service-management-platform-businesses-to-lumine-group/

• Earlier this year, Nokia announced plans to sell its VitalQIP products to Cygna Labs Corp and to make Red Hat the primary infrastructure platform for Nokia Core Network applications.

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Arelion activates new PoP at LightEdge in San Diego

Arelion announced a new Point-of-Presence (PoP) in San Diego at the Lightwave Data Center (LWDC) operated by LightEdge Solutions, a provider of secure cloud and colocation services. LightEdge Solutions’ Lightave carrier-neutral data center site is strategically located in the Kearny Mesa area of San Diego, offering colocation, cloud services and direct connectivity to AWS and Microsoft Azure. The PoP provides enhanced access to Arelion’s number one ranked Internet backbone, AS1299, as well as Arelion’s portfolio of connectivity services, including high-speed IP Transit, Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), Cloud Connect, Global 40G Ethernet Virtual Circuit (VC), IPX and DDoS Mitigation services for service providers, content providers and enterprises. 

This will be Arelion’s second fully diverse PoP in the emerging tech hub, providing wholesale and enterprise customers with high-speed connectivity to the carrier’s global IP backbone and access to its ecosystem of cloud and content services.

 

“Arelion’s new PoP at LightEdge’s Lightwave data center in San Diego extends our network to provide wholesale and enterprise customers with direct connectivity to our ecosystem of cloud and content services, allowing them to support end users in San Diego, Tijuana, Mexicali and surrounding regions,” said Art Kazmierczak, Arelion Director Strategic Sales & Network Development. “LightEdge’s facility provides the added power, security and scale our customers require, helping us deliver business-critical applications to meet the needs of these emerging technology markets.” 

 “We're thrilled about adding Arelion as a customer, a pivotal step in delivering advanced connectivity solutions. This strengthens our commitment to advanced, secure services, offering clients expanded connectivity options for improved user experiences. Together, Arelion and LightEdge are well-equipped to meet the evolving needs of our customers in emerging technology markets,” said Rob Carter, LightEdge Solutions Chief Growth Officer.

 

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Extreme Networks names Monica Kumar as CMO

Extreme Networks named Monica Kumar as its new Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). 

Prior to Extreme, Kumar served as CMO at Hitachi Vantara, where she  drove a product simplification strategy that brought the company’s portfolio of data storage products together into one easy-to-consume, scalable, and resilient platform. Previously, she served as SVP of Marketing and Cloud go-to-market at Nutanix and spent more than 20 years at Oracle in a variety of marketing roles. 

At both Nutanix and Oracle, Kumar was instrumental in evolving both organizations from traditional hardware companies to thriving software subscription businesses. Kumar is an active board member for UPWARD Women and City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley, and a founding member of Neythri Futures Fund, a historic first fund with a mission to increase the diversity quotient in the venture capital ecosystem.

Monica Kumar, CMO at Extreme, said, “Extreme has made its mark in the industry by reducing complexity and creating an innovative, flexible, and simple approach for customers to deploy and manage their networks through the cloud. I’m thrilled to join at a time where we have a significant opportunity to further elevate our story, our brand and market leadership position – and it starts with customer-centricity and a vibrant partner ecosystem. I am looking forward to making an impact as part of Extreme’s incredible customer, partner, and people-centric leadership team.”

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Lightmatter pulls in additional $155M for photonic interconnects / processors

Lightmatter, a start-up based in Boston that is developing photonic interconnect and compute products, annouced $155 million in a Series C-2 funding round. The company has raised over $420 million to date and is now valued at over $1.2 billion. The latest funding round was led by GV (Google Ventures) and Viking Global Investors, with participation from others. 

Lightmatter said its full stack of photonics-enabled hardware and software solutions will reduce power consumption and increase performance.

“Lightmatter is positioned to be a key driver in powering the next generation of computing systems that will further enable AI innovation. Through photonic technologies, Lightmatter is ensuring the steady progress in computing performance continues, despite growing power consumption challenges and slowing progress with transistor scaling,” said Lightmatter co-founder and CEO, Nick Harris. “We are thankful for the support of our investors, each of whom share our vision of Lightmatter playing an integral role in the future of computing. By increasing speed, lowering cost, and reducing environmental impact, our technologies can continue to push the limits of what’s possible, fueling greater AI adoption and innovation.”

Some additional notes:

• Since May 2023, Lightmatter has grown its headcount more than 50% to meet client demand and product milestones. 
• Lightmatter plans to open a Toronto office in 2024. 
• Danner Stodolsky has been appointed Vice President of Data Center Architecture.  Danner was previously Senior Vice President of Cloud at SambaNova and a Vice President of Engineering at Google.
• Colin Sturt has been appointed General Counsel. He brings over 20 years of semiconductor industry experience to Lightmatter and was most recently Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Dialog Semiconductor.

https://lightmatter.co/

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OpenZR+ MSA tests multi-vendor interoperability

 The OpenZR+ Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) Group announced the results of two successful interoperability test events at LightRiver and featuring coherent optical transceivers from Cisco, Coherent, Fujitsu, Juniper Networks, and Lumentum operating on Cisco and Juniper routers. 

The testing demonstrated compatibility to the OpenZR+ specification and interoperability between optical transceiver modules from different vendors in two different routers by transporting 400 Gbps traffic over various optical links. 

Highlights: 

• Phase 1 (August 2023): Verification that optical transceiver QSFP-DD-DCO modules comply to the OpenZR+ multi-source agreement in router platforms through the OIF CMIS compliant interface in loopback mode. Also verify that optical transceiver QSFP-DD-DCO modules from different vendors interoperate over a Single-Span link with 75 km of fiber.
• Phase 2 (September 2023): Multi-vendor Interoperability and performance testing over multi-span optical line system (OLS).

The OpenZR+ MSA Group also published a whitepaper that notes:

• 400G OpenZR+ optical transceiver modules from multiple vendors operated in different routers
• All 400G OpenZR+ optical transceiver modules transported traffic with no post-FEC bit errors at receiver OSNR of 24 dB or less
• 400G OpenZR+ optical transceiver modules from five different vendors interoperated with each other
• 400G traffic was transported over a typical DCI use case with 75 km of fiber and a typical metro use case with multi-spans over 430 km of fiber.

"The results of this multi-vendor interoperability testing validate the readiness of network operators to take advantage of 400G pluggables in order to cost-effectively scale their networks to meet growing bandwidth demands," said Tom Williams, Co-chair of the OpenZR+ MSA Group.

"Not only does interoperability enable a more robust supply chain in the industry by allowing network operators to mix and match equipment and services from different providers, but it can also accelerate the adoption of new technology," said Atul Srivastava, Co-chair of the OpenZR+ MSA Group.

The whitepaper can be downloaded from the OpenZR+ MSA Group website.

http://openzrplus.org

• in September 2023, the OpenZR+ Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) Group published the OpenZR+ Rev 3.0 specification which defines a higher performing 400G 8QAM mode as well as a higher transmit power mode.The new specification is designed to further expand the application space for a coherent solution in small form factor pluggable modules, such as form factors defined by the QSFP-DD MSA and OSFP MSA.

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Data Center Architecture Spanning Edge to Cloud with AI & 5G

Check out AI and Cloud Data Center Networking videos here: https://ngi.fyi/aidcnet23yt

AI is making a transformative impact on data center architecture. Yet developers know that applications must flow seamlessly from core to edge. How can these forces be resolved? Sanjay Kumar, VP of Products and Marketing from Arrcus, explains:

• How Arrcus' solutions optimize and maximize the utilization of GPUs in data centers, minimizing latency and loss in running AI/ML workloads. They offer two architectures: traditional IP CLOS leaf and spine, and a distributed architecture for massive scale,
• The role of FlexMCN, a network fabric overlay, in stitching together workloads from the edge through the core and into multicloud or public cloud environments. This robust, secure, and flexible solution allows network operators to run workloads wherever they reside and deliver applications wherever they're required.
• The introduction of an innovative technology, SRv6 mobile user plane, developed in collaboration with SoftBank Mobile. This technology simplifies the delivery of network slicing, lowers the total cost of ownership, and helps network operators monetize their infrastructure.

https://youtu.be/54gH9vaYhsU

Additionally, Arrcus' ArcIQ solution provides end-to-end network visibility, streaming real-time telemetry from the underlying infrastructure to give operators a comprehensive view of their network.

Join Sanjay as he takes you through Arrcus' vision for a distributed AI and 5G world, and how their solutions are helping network operators deliver on this vision.

Want to be involved our video series? Contact info@nextgeninfra.io

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Arrcus joins the Ultra Ethernet Consortium

Arrcus has joined the Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC), a Linux Foundation initiative dedicated to developing next-generation Ethernet technologies for AI and HPC applications.

The UEC is a collaborative effort among industry leaders to address the growing demands of AI and HPC workloads on data center networks. These workloads require high performance, low latency, and scalable interconnects to efficiently move massive datasets and rapidly process complex algorithms.

Arrcus said it is joining the UEC to contribute its expertise in advanced networking technologies, including its Leaf-Spine Fabric Architecture and its support for high-speed Ethernet interfaces, such as 400GE and 800GE. The company is also committed to working with other UEC members to develop and standardize new Ethernet technologies that meet the specific needs of AI and HPC applications.

“We are thrilled to join the UEC and contribute to the development of next-generation Ethernet technologies for AI and HPC,” said Shekar Ayyar, chairman and CEO at Arrcus. “The UEC’s mission to create an open, interoperable, and high-performance Ethernet ecosystem aligns perfectly with our own goals at Arrcus, and we are confident that our participation will help to accelerate innovation in this critical area.”

Arrcus also brings its recently announced ACE-AI solution for distributed AI workloads. This networking solution based on ArcOS, delivers a modern, unified network fabric for optimizing distributed GPU and other compute resources with maximum performance for AI/ML workloads, and positions Arrcus as a significant contributor to the consortium's mission. This solution encompasses next-generation datacenter networking architectures, as well as innovations in hybrid/multi-cloud connectivity and 5G transport to seamless connect GPU resources where ever they may reside.

https://arrcus.com/news/arrcus-joins-the-ultra-ethernet-consortium/

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Comcast confirms massive breach impacting nearly 36m customers

Comcast confirmed a data security breaching involving nearly 36 million of its Xfinity broadband customers across the U.S.

Comcast blamed the cyber intrusion on a zero-day vulnerability in Citrix software. Comcast claims to have patched the software promptly after Citrix issued in mitigation

guidance on October 23, 2023, however, it discovered unauthorized access to its systems between October 16 and October 19, 2023.

It is believed that compromised data included usernames, hashed passwords, contact information, last four digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and/or secret questions and answers.

Comcast's statement is posted here:

https://assets.xfinity.com/assets/dotcom/learn/Notice%20To%20Customers%20of%20Data%20Security%20Incident.pdf

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Canada's Western James Bay Telecom Network selects Infinera

Western James Bay Telecom Network (WJBTN) selected Infinera to expand connectivity services to rural communities in northern Ontario, Canada. 

The deployment will use the Infinera XTM Series to deliver flexible, reliable, and cost-effective high-bandwidth solutions to its residential, business, and government customers. FONEX Data Systems is Infinera's integration partner.

WJBTN has been bringing telecommunications services to rural communities in Canada from Moosonee along the western James Bay coast through Fort Albany, Kashechewan, and Attawapiskat since 2010. With the selection of Infinera, WJBTN will be able to cost-effectively deliver critical next-generation high-capacity network services to support the region’s economic development and access to education and telehealth.

“FONEX’s unwavering support, coupled with Infinera’s excellent XTM solution, has greatly improved our network design, enabling us to substantially boost bandwidth, expand our service network footprint, and significantly enhance service quality and bandwidth speeds for our valued customers,“ said David Coté, General Manager, Western James Bay Telecom Network.

“We are pleased to support Western James Bay Telecom Network’s upgrade, helping them expand their broadband networking infrastructure with Infinera’s leading technology to deliver robust connectivity services to rural Ontario communities,” said Nick Walden, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Infinera.

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University of Stuttgart picks HPE for supercomputers

The High-Performance Computing Center of the University of Stuttgart selected Hewlett Packard Enterprise to build two new supercomputers. The total combined cost of the project is €115 million and funding will be provided through the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS), the alliance of Germany's three national supercomputing centers. Half of this funding will be provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), and the second half by the State of Baden-Württemberg's Ministry of Science, Research, and Arts.

In the first stage, a transitional supercomputer, called Hunter, will begin operation in 2025. This will be followed in 2027 with the installation of Herder, an exascale system that will provide a significant expansion of Germany’s high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities. 

Hunter will raise HLRS’s peak performance to 39 petaFLOPS (39*1015 floating point operations per second), an increase from the 26 petaFLOPS possible with its current supercomputer, Hawk. It will use the AMD Instinct MI300A accelerated processing unit (APU), which combines CPU and GPU processors and high-bandwidth memory into a single package.

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8327500062634719808/7942586984531530769

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AI's impact on data center traffic and ZR/ZR+ optics

 How is AI impacting data center traffic and what effect will this have on inter data center links? Josef Berger, AVP Marketing from Marvell explains:

• The increasing demand for data center interconnect bandwidth due to upgrades in GPU clusters and the construction of new data centers. This demand is driving the need for ZR connectivity.
• The benefits and growing demand for their 400 ZR and upcoming 800 gig ZR and ZR plus products. These products offer more modes, longer reaches, and larger network coverage with low-cost and low-power plugables.
• The company's ongoing engagement with customers and end users who are excited about the additional capabilities of these products. They are currently ramping up 400 ZR and are looking forward to making more announcements around the 800 gig ZR product line.

https://youtu.be/ExCE24gyf98

Have a tech update that you want to brief us on? Contact info@nextgeninfra.io!

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