Microsoft Tracks Nitol Botnet Pre-installed in Factory

A Microsoft investigation found that cybercriminals have infiltrated unsecure supply chains to introduce counterfeit Windows software embedded with malware at factories in China.  Microsoft's Operation b70, which stemmed from the study, tracked retailers who were selling computers loaded with counterfeit versions of Windows software embedded with the the Nitol botnet. 

Microsoft has just won a restraining order in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, granting it permission to take over the hosting of the 3322.org domain, which hosted the Nitol botnet.  Microsoft’s newly created domain name system (DNS) enables it to block operation of the Nitol botnet and nearly 70,000 other malicious subdomains hosted on the 3322.org domain, while allowing all other traffic for the legitimate subdomains to operate without disruption.

The case is documented in a blog posting on the Microsoft site.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/09/13/microsoft-disrupts-the-emerging-nitol-botnet-being-spread-through-an-unsecure-supply-chain.aspx

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Telecom Facilities Destroyed in N. Nigeria

A number of mobile masts and base stations in northern Nigeria were destroyed last week in attacks attributed to Boko Haram, a jihadist militant organization. According to allAfrica.com, companies suffering damage in the attacks included MTN, Glo, Airtel, Etisalat, Multilinks, and telecoms infrastructure provider, Helios Towers.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201209130182.html

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Azteca Comunicaciones Colombia Picks Ericsson for IP

Azteca Comunicaciones Colombia has selected Ericsson's IP network equipement to deliver broadband services to more than 397 municipalities under Colombia's national broadband initiative. The broadband services will be delivered using Wi-Fi and point-to-multipoint wireless access.

The network will include Ericsson's flagship SSR 8000 family of Smart Services Routers, deployed as core routers; SmartEdge Multi-Service Edge Routers; the SPO 1400 family of Packet Optical Transport Platforms (POTPs); and Ericsson Wi-Fi access points, controllers and management.

"This contract is a major endorsement of our 4th generation IP network solution and marks the beginning of a new partnership between Ericsson and Azteca Comunicaciones Colombia. The solution will enable Azteca Comunicaciones Colombia to offer a rich suite of differentiated services and the scalability of the platforms will ensure the ability to meet future traffic and subscriber growth targets," stated Jan Häglund, Head of IP and Broadband, Ericsson.

http://aztecacomunicaciones.com
http://www.ericsson.com

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Brocade's Latest VDX Data Center Ethernet Fabric Scales to 384,000 VMs

Brocade has expanded its set of VDX fabric switches for the data center with a new model designed for enterprises and service providers striving to both simplify and scale-out their data center infrastructure.

The modular Brocade VDX 8770 Switch is built to support the largest data centers with highly virtualized environments. The Ethernet fabric enables faster virtual machine (VM) migrations through zero-touch VM discovery, VM mobility and VM port configuration migration. Using VCS fabrics, Brocade said its customers can manage dozens of switches as a single logical device. New switches will self-provision when they are connected to the fabric.

The Brocade VDX 8770 enables a single VCS fabric to scale up to 8000 switch ports with up to 384,000 VMs attached to the fabric. This is 20 times the scalability of the leading competitor, according to Brocade. The Brocade VDX 8770 also delivers the industry's lowest port-to-port latency at 3.5 microseconds across all 1 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), 10 GbE and 40 GbE ports -- half the latency of the nearest competitor.

The Brocade VDX 8770 is built with a 4 Tbps backplane, enabling the chassis to support future technologies such as dense 100 GbE. Brocade said the VDX 8770 is also engineered for emerging Software-Defined Networking (SDN) architectures, with flexible hardware support for network virtualization through technologies such as VXLAN overlay networking.

The Brocade VDX 8770 is priced at $65,000 ($833/10G port).

http://www.brocade.com

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Brocade Positions MLXe for SuperCore Routing with SDN

Brocade introduced a 24-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) module that enables its MLXe Series routers to scale up to 768 ports of 10 GbE in a single chassis.

Brocade is positioning the MLXe router for large-scale service provider "Supercore" networks and Internet data center cores requiring high port density, scalable MPLS, rich routing and deep buffering capabilities. The platform can be used to create highly scalable BGP-free MPLS "Supercore" networks optimized for high-speed transport and fast convergence. Brocade said that by reducing the number of devices and eliminating IP routing from the core of the network, providers can greatly simplify their architectures and reduce both capital expenditure and operational costs.

The Brocade solution is powered by its fourth generation MaxScale-160 Packet Processors, which pack 1.38 billion transistors using 45nm technology. The router's 10 GbE density can be coupled with Brocade 100 GbE technology to drive next gen core networks.

Brocade is also working to integrate SDN and OpenFlow in the MLXe to control individual traffic flows up to 100 Gbps.  The company said this will maximize network resource utilization and improve traffic control to deliver differentiated SLAs.

For large data centers operators, the 768-port density achieved with the new 24-port 10 GbE module enables consolidation at the core of the network. The Brocade MLXe router delivers advanced Layer 3 switching capabilities and full-feature support for access control, routing and forwarding with 64-port Link Aggregation (LAG) capacity.  The platform complements Brocade VCS Fabric technology running on the family of Brocade VDX switches in the access and aggregation layers.

Significantly, Brocade is offering support for OpenFlow in Hybrid Mode, enabling the 10 GbE and 100 GbE Brocade MLXe solutions to integrate SDN with existing IP/MPLS networks .Brocade ADX platforms are also optimized for SDN, providing an application services fabric with a unified control plane and an API for resource assignment, enabling customized orchestration and provisioning of both physical and logical resources.

"Network operators are challenged to scale their networks and manage increasing complexity -- with more routers, more subnets and massive dynamic flows," said Ken Cheng, vice president of Service Provider and Application Delivery Products at Brocade. "The Brocade MLXe Core Router with the new 24-port 10 GbE module and industry-leading SDN technology will enable them to significantly scale their core networks to do more while greatly reducing network complexity and cost."

Brocade also released new OS software for its ADX Application Delivery Switches, delivering a new multitenancy capability. This carrier-grade multitenant architecture isolates customers or applications with dedicated hardware allocation of application delivery resources. A Brocade Network Subscription capacity-on-demand subscription model that aligns infrastructure cost to business needs, gives providers a highly elastic infrastructure acquisition and deployment model that matches the way they deliver cloud services.

http://www.brocade.com

• In May 2011, Brocade first introduced its MLXe, featuring a 15.36 Terabits per second (Tbps) fabric for core networks.  The Brocade MLXe router is offered in 4-, 8-, 16- and 32-slot configurations.  Brocade also introduced a Multi-Chassis Trunk (MCT) innovation to simplify data center networks and increase resiliency for customers moving to 10 GbE-enabled servers. In addition, a new Brocade Network Advisor management solution provides visibility for Brocade Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), wireless, Ethernet switching, and MPLS networks.

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Three versions of Apple's iPhone 5 for Supporting Global LTE

Apple is producing three versions of the iPhone 5 to meet spectrum requirements of carriers worldwide. The first round of carriers supporting LTE was also confirmed.

GSM model A1428: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE Band (AWS) and LTE Band 17 (700b MHz). Carriers supporting include AT&T (U.S.), and is Canada, Bell (including Virgin), Rogers (including Fido), Telus (including Koodo).

CDMA model A1429: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE Band 1 (2100 MHz), LTE Band 3 (1800 MHz), LTE Band 5 (850 MHz), LTE Band 13 (700c MHz)and LTE Band 25 (1900 MHz). Carriers supporting include Sprint (U.S.),Verizon (U.S.), and KDDI (Japan).

GSM model A1429: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE Band 1 (2100 MHz), LTE Band 3 (1800 MHz), LTE Band 5 (850 MHz). Carriers supporting include Deutsche Telekom (Germany), Everything Everywhere (UK), Orange (UK), T-Mobile (UK), Optus & Virgin (Australia), Telstra (Australia), Softbank (Japan), SK Telecom (Korea), KT (Korea), SmarTone (Hong Kong), M1 (Singapore), and SingTel (Singapore).

Other radios on-board include 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz and 5GHz) and Bluetooth 4.0.

Apple has not included NFC in the iPhone 5.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/

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NEC Develops Optical Switching Handling 20 Tbps Signals

NEC has published a technical paper on its development of an optical switching device capable of changing between a variety of transmission paths (routes) using silicon photonic technologies (optical circuits using silicon-based semiconductors) with ultra high capacity 20Tbps optical signals. NEC said its prototype device has demonstrated high quality optical switching, without signal deterioration, of optical super channels (20Tbps) and 100 Gbps DP-QPSK.

NEC describes its device as a transponder aggregator (TPA) that supports multiple signal formats and features a color-less, direction-less, contention-less (CDC) Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) capabilities.

"NEC's new developments utilize TPA and produce compact modules featuring silicon integrated optical switches that boast 150 elements on a single chip. This enables the switching of large 48-unit transponders between 8 routes while capitalizing on CDC functions," said Naoki Nishi, General Manager, Green Platform Research Laboratories, NEC Corporation. "We now anticipate the incorporation of this TPA on a single board as well as the reduction of module size and power consumption by roughly 90% when compared to optical switches based on conventional silica optical waveguides. Furthermore, the optimized drive of each switch will enable us to provide high speed, stable signal switching."

NEC is presenting its research at this week's Photonics in Switching 2012 (PS 2012) conference in Corsica, France, and at ECOC 2012 in Amsterdam, Holland.

http://www.nec.co.jp

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GigOptix Shows 100G/200G DP-16QAM System

GigOptix is showing a 100G/200G DP-16QAM System at this week's European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communications (ECOC) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The GigOptix GX62472 is a Surface Mounted Technology (SMT) Mach Zehnder Modulator (MZM) quad linear driver designed with integrated GPPO outputs for 100G, 200G and 400G DWDM metro and long-haul optical transmitters. The company said its devices is capable of data rates up to 32Gbaud for use in 200G/400G Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) systems.

http://www.gigoptix.com

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Broadcom Debuts Gigabit PHY with AutoGrEEEn Efficiency

Broadcom introduced Gigabit single physical layer transceiver (PHY) family featuring new AutoGrEEEn Plus technology, which reduces operating power as much as 95 percent when there is no active data connection and the device is communicating with an Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) link partner.  With integrated SyncE+, the BCM54210E 10/100/1000BASE-T PHY family delivers timing synchronization capabilities at the physical layer.

http://www.broadcom.com

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Alcatel-Lucent Wins Biggest Share of China Telecom's OTN Project

Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell has been selected as the top provider of converged optical transport network (OTN) and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology, winning 70 percent market share in the 10G sector in China Telecom’s most recent central bidding process, its largest such tender to date. Under the contract, Alcatel-Lucent will increase the capacity of China Telecom’s optical transport network, expanding it to reach all of China’s major cities.

Alcatel-Lucent will supply China Telecom with its 100G-ready converged OTN/WDM technology employed in the 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) and the Photonic Service Engine (PSE) chip. With the 1830 PSS, China Telecom will be able to support a mixture of 10G, 40G and 100G channels on the same fiber pair. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The network supports the national "Broadband China" program, which aims to deliver high-speed broadband connections to more than 250 million urban and rural homes by 2015.

http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

• In June 2012, Alcatel-Lucent confirmed that China Telecom will deploy its IP/MPLS solution to enable high-bandwidth video and data broadband services under the "Broadband China" project. The project will leverage the Alcatel-Lucent IP/MPLS 7750 Service Router (SR) portfolio, including the 7750 SR-12 and 7750 SR-7, as the Broadband Network Gateway to deliver high-performance service and subscriber management capabilities. In conjunction with the 7750 SR, the Alcatel-Lucent 7705 Service Aggregation Routers (SAR) (including the 7705 SAR-M, 7705 SAR-8, and 7705 SAR-18) will deliver an optimized IP/MPLS mobile backhaul, leveraging common SR-OS software, to address China Telecom’s 2G, 3G, and future LTE mobile broadband needs.

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GSA: 96 Operators Have Launched LTE

A total of 96 operators have launched commercial LTE services in 46 countries, according to an updated count from the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA). The figure reaffirms LTE as the fastest developing mobile system technology ever.

Some additional stats:

• 292 operators have made firm commitments to deploy commercial LTE networks in 93 countries.
• 11 commercial LTE TDD systems have launched in Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, Oman, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and the UK.
• 68 operators have launched commercial LTE services in the past 12 months.
• GSA forecasts there will be 152 commercial LTE networks operating in 65 countries by December 31, 2012.
• LTE in 1800 MHz spectrum is now launched on one third of all commercial LTE networks.

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Broadcom Debuts Octal 10GbE/Dual 40GbE PHY for Data Centers

Broadcom introduced a low power octal 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), dual 40GbE physical layer transceiver (PHY) for data center switches. It includes PHY features such as line and system high-speed equalization to drive SFP+, QSFP+, or KR interfaces, PRBS pattern generators and checkers, loopback functionality, and on-chip AC coupling capacitors to satisfy requirements for higher density switch and server configurations.

Broadcom said the device lowers system costs by integrating optical module control functionality that typically reside in field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The device operates at 300mW per full duplex10GbE port -- the lowest in the industry.

http://www.broadcom.com

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Oclaro's 2nd Gen 100G Transceivers are 50% Smaller

Oclaro announced sampling of its second-generation 100G CFP (Centum Gbit/s form-factor pluggable) transceiver and first-generation CFP2 100G transceiver for 10km transmission over standard single-mode fiber.

The new transceivers are designed for 100G core, metro, access, enterprise and datacenter networks. Oclaro said its latest devices achieve new benchmarks for higher densities, lower power consumption and smaller size.

The second-generation CFP delivers a 30-percent reduction in power consumption versus existing Oclaro CFP solutions and provides interoperability with Oclaro's earlier CFP products. It is fully compliant with IEEE 100G Ethernet 802.3ba 100GBASE-LR4 and ITU-T G.959.1 4I1-9D1F standards and benefits from a CMOS gearbox IC that reduces power consumption and lowers cost relative to first-generation CFP designs. While first generation CFP delivered 24W, the second-generation CFP delivers 16W.

The new CFP2 (which is a new form factor recently specified by the CFP MSA) delivers a 50-percent reduction in size over all existing CFP solutions on the market and is the industry-first CFP2 solution to be interoperable with a first-generation CFP product. This increases system front panel port density from 4 ports to 8 ports. The smaller size of the CFP2 transceiver is achieved by reducing the number of electrical lanes from 10 to 4 by applying a 25Gbps electrical interface per channel instead of 10Gbps and hence removing the GearBox from the module.

"Today's announcement is another milestone in the advancement of 100G networks, where Oclaro continues to lead the market with the broadest set of components, modules and subsystems that offer the price, performance and power consumption that customers need for high-volume 100G deployment," said Tadayuki Kanno, Chief Operating Officer, Oclaro Japan Inc., GM, Modules & Devices Business Unit, Oclaro.

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Huawei Bets Big in the UK

In a meeting with UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Lord Green, Minister of State for Business, Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, committed to investing US$1 billion (GBP650 million) and to spend another US$1 billion (GBP650 million) in procurement in the UK over the next five years.

Huawei currently employs over 800 people in the UK and has today committed to increasing its workforce to over 1,500 by 2017. As part of this commitment, Huawei will invest in a number of global centres of technical and financial excellence in the UK. The company is already working wtih all the major telecommunication operators and broadband service providers in the UK.

Prime Minister David Cameron said: "The investment announced by Huawei today demonstrates once again that the UK is open for business. I welcome this and I want to see more companies invest in the UK as we work to achieve sustainable and balanced growth within our economy. The British Government values the important relationship with China, both countries have much to offer each other and the business environment we are creating in the UK allows us to maximise this potential."

Ren Zhengfei, Huawei Founder and Chief Executive Officer, said: "The UK is one of the most important European markets in which Huawei has invested. Over the past eleven years we have found its Government to be transparent, efficient and practical. The UK is an open market, which welcomes overseas investment, I am therefore very pleased today, to be announcing the US$2 billion investment and procurement plan, promoting the development of openness and free trade."

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Verizon Launches Mobile Security App for Android

Verizon Wireless is releasing a mobile security app for Android smartphones running Android 2.1 or higher that combines the security capabilities of Asurion and McAfee.  Three versions will be offered:

• Verizon Mobile Security Basic – provides antivirus protection, powered by McAfee, to detect viruses and malware, and McAfee SiteAdvisor to identify and warn customers of suspicious websites.  There is no charge to download Verizon Mobile Security Basic, but a Verizon Wireless data plan is required and data usage will apply.
• Verizon Mobile Security Premium – includes the security features of Verizon Mobile Security Basic, as well as McAfee App Alert, which delivers information about which apps have the ability to access, store or transmit data to or from the device.  Available for $1.99/month per line, Verizon Mobile Security Premium also provides recovery features that allow customers to remotely locate, alarm, lock or wipe data from a lost or misplaced device using their My Verizon accounts.
• Verizon Mobile Security Premium with Total Equipment Coverage – Customers with Total Equipment Coverage can add Verizon Mobile Security Premium for $1/month per line.  Total Equipment Coverage combines the benefits of Asurion's Wireless Protection Plan for lost, stolen, and damaged devices, and Verizon Wireless' Extended Warranty for mechanical or electrical defects after the manufacturer's warranty expires.

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Intel Demos SeaCliff Trail - an SDN-enabled Ethernet Switch

Intel is showing a new Ethernet switching chip designed for software defined networking.  At this week's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, the company is showing  a top of rack switch reference design code named Seacliff Trail.  Intel notes that one of the promises of SDN is that network orchestration can be achieved without vendor lock-in, allowing data center operators to pick the best networking equipment for each part of the network.

Intel also announced that the next update to its Xeon processor E5 family, formerly codenamed "Ivy Bridge-EP," will be based on its 22nm manufacturing process that includes the world’s first production 3-D Tri-Gate transistors, and is expected to be in production in 2013.  In addition, the Intel Xeon processor E7 family, formerly codenamed "Ivy Bridge-EX," is expected to be in production in 2013.  It also uses the 22nm technology.  The additional benefits expected with this processor family include increased performance, new advanced reliability features as well as enhanced hardware-based security features such as Intel Secure Key and Intel OS Guard.

http://www.intel.com

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Wind River Develops M2M SDK based on Linux

Wind River, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel, introduced a software development environment for M2M applications, based on its embedded Linux operating system and middleware.

The software includes validated and supported middleware stack, including virtual machine, OMA DM, OSGi, TR-069, and home automation. Connectivity options include 3G, Bluetooth, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, and Z-Wave across PAN, LAN and WAN networks.

“With the skyrocketing growth of smart connected devices, an interconnected world is becoming a reality. Applications based on systems behavior have become pervasive, and this is the crux of M2M technology,” said Santhosh Nair, general manager of intelligent systems group at Wind River. “Connectivity, security, optimization, and adherence to industry standards are required in order to successfully develop smart connected devices and services, and this is precisely the value that Wind River brings to the table. This platform maximizes the value of M2M technology by building on an integrated foundation of software, middleware, and board support packages with cutting edge tools and development environments.”

http://www.windriver.com

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GTS Central Europe Activate Ethernet-over-Copper with Overture

GTS CE has launched Carrier Ethernet services to both retail and wholesale customers across Central and Eastern Europe using Overture Networks' Carrier Ethernet over Copper (EoC) platforms.  GTS’ services were launched simultaneously in five countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Poland.  Overture’s platforms have been deployed at approximately 130 Central Offices (COs) in Central and Eastern Europe for service delivery in the first mile to some 40,000 retail customers.

Beginning with its Tier 1 customers, GTS rolled out services ranging up to 10GbE concurrently throughout its expanding network footprint. The company also supplies wholesale customers with Ethernet services via External Network-Network interfaces (ENNIs) and interconnections with operators in Frankfort and Vienna, with termination points in key metropolitan areas.

Overture said its platforms were chosen for therir ability to deliver high-capacity Ethernet over unbundled copper loops and for ease-of-provisioning.

“At GTS, service delivery to our customer must be seamless in every aspect; they want to know that their service will work the same no matter location or connection type. Configuring our network for uniform service delivery in multiple markets, across an array of access technologies required finding a partner able to provide the best solution at the right cost,” said Ignacio Irurita, CTO, GTS. “The decision to go with Overture has been a very good one; the quality of the product in the field has been excellent – it’s very reliable. We’re provisioning faster, which translates into our being able to present new service offerings more quickly. As a result, our customer numbers are growing significantly day by day.”

GTS Central Europe owns and operates an extensive fiber optic and data center network throughout the region. In the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, the company combines its regional footprint with deep local networks to deliver a broad range of services.

http://www.overturenetworks.com
http://www.gtsce.com

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EMC Enables VSPEX Private Cloud for Microsoft Windows Sever 2012

EMC announced broad technology support for Microsoft's new Server 2012 and its private cloud environments.

EMC said it has tested its broad portfolio of storage platforms, automated management, data protection and security software with Windows Server 2012 to help customers deploy Windows Server 2012 with flexibility and choice across their Microsoft on EMC environments.

The goal is to enable customers to leverage Windows Server 2012 functionality with EMC technology to deploy cloud infrastructures for transactional and Big Data application workloads, optimize management efficiency and ensure the highest levels of quality of service.

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Palo Alto Networks Posts Sales of $75.6 Million

Palo Alto Networks recorded fiscal fourth quarter revenue of $75.6 million, compared with $40.2 million in the same period last year. GAAP net loss for the fiscal fourth quarter was $4.6 million, or $0.18 per basic and diluted share, compared with a net loss of $6.0 million, or $0.40 per basic and diluted share, in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2011.


For fiscal 2012, total revenue grew 115 percent to $255.1 million, compared with $118.6 million in fiscal 2011. GAAP net income was $0.7 million, or $0.00 per diluted share, in fiscal 2012, compared with a net loss of $12.5 million, or $0.88 per diluted share, in fiscal 2011.  Non-GAAP net income for fiscal 2012 was $14.7 million, or $0.14 per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $7.8 million, or $0.55 per basic and diluted share, in fiscal 2011.


"The fourth quarter was a strong finish to a great year for Palo Alto Networks," said Mark McLaughlin, president and chief executive officer of Palo Alto Networks.  "In our first quarter as a public company, we achieved record revenue and grew our customer base to over 9,000 customers.  For the year, we grew revenue 115 percent, clearly outpacing the market and demonstrating the power of our technology."

http://www.paloaltonetworks.com

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