Monday, August 31, 2015

ZTE's Revenue of Profits Rise in First Half of 2015

ZTE reported operating revenue of RMB 45.9 billion for the first six months of 2015, up 22% over the first half of 2014, primarily reflecting growth in operating revenue for 3G system equipment in the domestic market, FDD-LTE system equipment in the domestic and international markets, TD-LTE system equipment in the international market, wireline switch and access systems in the domestic market and optical communication systems in the domestic market.

Operating profit was RMB 76 million for the period compared to a loss of RMB 210 million for the same period last year.

ZTE said China's domestic telecommunications industry is undergoing a stage of transition in both network and business model. During the first half of 2015, domestic carriers’ investment in equipment remained stable given the progress of 4G network deployment and expedited broadband development as a matter of national policy.  During the reporting period, the Group reported operating revenue of RMB 24.361 billion from the domestic market, accounting for 53.08% of the Group’s operating revenue.

http://wwwen.zte.com.cn/en/about/investor_relations/announcement/201508/P020150826636431955004.pdf

Cisco to Optimize for iOS Enterprise Users

Apple and Cisco announced a partnership to optimize Cisco networks for iOS devices and apps, integrating iPhone with Cisco enterprise environments and providing unique collaboration on iPhone and iPad.  Specifically, Cisco will deliver experiences specially optimized for iOS across mobile, cloud, and premises-based collaboration tools such as Cisco Spark, Cisco Telepresence and Cisco WebEx in order to deliver seamless team collaboration and reinvent the meeting experience.

“Ninety-five percent of companies in the Fortune 500 count on Cisco Collaboration and Cisco networks to help their teams be more productive,” said Cisco Executive Chairman John Chambers. “Through this engineering and go-to-market partnership, we’re offering our joint customers the ability to seamlessly extend that awesome Cisco environment to their favorite iOS devices. Together, we’re going to help teams achieve higher levels of productivity and effectiveness.”

http://www.cisco.com
http://www.apple.com

ZTE Signs Partnership Deal with Telefonica

ZTE announced a global partnership with Telefonica.

ZTE supplies a range of solutions to Telefonica, including gigabit passive optical network (GPON) technology, optical mesh network / large-capacity transmission solutions, Voice over Long Term Evolution (VoLTE), microwave transmission, etc..

http://www.zte.com.cn

T-Mobile US Stops Unlimited LTE Tethering

T-Mobile is taking action to stop users who signed up for an unlimited 4G LTE plan for their smartphones and then use it heavily with tethering.  Although T-Mobile says it supports a limited amount of data usage for tethering use, the company says some users have abused the plan by consuming up to 2 TB of data per month.

In online posting, John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, describes these users as "hackers" intent on stealing data from T-Mobile.

http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/issues-insights-blog/stopping-network-abusers.htm

NETGEAR Unveils 28-port 10-Gigabit Switch

NETGEAR unveiled its ProSAFE 28-port 10-Gigabit Smart Managed Switch - the industry's first 28-port (24 copper, 4 SFP+) 10-Gigabit Smart Managed Switch purposely designed for small to mid-sized organizations (SMBs) with 10GBASE-T connectivity and Advanced L2+/Layer 3 Lite features.

Key Features:

  • Advanced VLAN features such as Protocol-based VLAN, MAC-based VLAN and 802.1x Guest VLAN
  • Advanced QoS (Quality of Service) with L2/L3/L4 awareness and 8 priority queues including Q-in-Q
  • Static Routing (both IPv4 and IPv6)
  • Private VLAN
  • Dynamic VLAN assignment
  • IGMP and MLD snooping
  • Advanced Security
  • IPv6 support for management, QoS and ACL
  • Easy-to-use web-based management GUI or PC-based Smart Control Center application for multi-switch deployment


It has an MSRP in the U.S. of $4,624.00, although final pricing for end customers may vary depending on the reseller and bundled offerings.

http://www.netgear.com

Sunday, August 30, 2015

OpenStack is Changing the Face of Service Delivery

OpenStack is fundamentally changing the face of service delivery, say Lew Tucker, Vice President and CTO of Cloud Computing for Cisco.  Network providers, media companies, application developers and SaaS providers are all moving towards an open-source, cloud-model based on OpenStack.

This short video also hits on Cisco's role in OpenStack and how Comcast is moving ahead with its OpenStack designs.

https://youtu.be/v6yzWkAC2l8


Hortonworks to Acquire Onyara for Apache NiFi Expertise

Hortonworks agreed to acquire Onyara, Inc., the creator of and key contributor to Apache NiFi, a top-level open source project. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Hortonworks,  which offers enterprise Apache Hadoop solutions, said the deal will help its customers to automate and secure data flows and to collect, conduct and curate real-time business insights and actions derived from data in motion. As a result of the acquisition, Hortonworks is introducing Hortonworks DataFlow powered by Apache NiFi which is complementary to its Open Enterprise Hadoop platform, Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP).

Apache NiFi was made available through the NSA Technology Transfer Program in the fall of 2014. Over the past eight years, Onyara’s engineers were the key contributors to the U.S. government software project that evolved into Apache NiFi. In July 2015, NiFi became a Top-Level Project, signifying that its community and technology have been successfully governed under the Apache Software Foundation.

“Hortonworks is focused on doing everything possible to enable our customers to transform their business through data-driven insights and actions,” said Rob Bearden, chief executive officer at Hortonworks. “Onyara’s impressive work on security and simplicity in NiFi, combined with their commitment to open source makes for a perfect addition to our technology team.”

http://nifi.apache.org
http://www.onyara.com/

SSL Ships "Sky Muster" Satellite for Australia's Broadband Network

Space Systems/Loral (SSL) shipped "Sky Muster", a high performance, Ka-band satellite designed and built for Australia's new nbn broadband network.

Originally called NBN Co 1A, the satellite now awaiting launch, was renamed "Sky Muster" by the six-year-old winner of a country-wide contest. The young girl, who depends on satellite internet for her education, selected the name for its reference to the gathering of cattle, which captures how the satellite will help 'round-up' and connect Australians.

The satellite has now arrived at the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, where it will be launched aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle by Arianespace.  SSL is also building a second satellite for the nbn network. The two satellites will work in conjunction with one another to provide expanded and advanced service coverage to some of the most remote places in Australia, as well as its coastal islands and external territories including Norfolk Island, Cocos Island, Christmas Island, and Macquarie Island in the Antarctic.

"The satellite for Australia's broadband network is a very advanced broadband satellite that will cover the entire Australian continent including its offshore islands," said John Celli, president of SSL. "It is gratifying to know that the work we do in Palo Alto will help connect underserved people to the rich resources available through the Internet."

http://www.nbn.com.au
http://www.sslmda.com

Thoma Bravo to Acquire Majority Stake in DigiCert

Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, agreed to acquire a majority interest in DigiCert from TA Associates, another private equity firm currently holding the majority share. Financial terms were not disclosed.

DigiCert is a global SSL Certificate Authority (CA) and the leading provider of trusted certificate management solutions.  The company provides its digital certificates to over 115,000 customers in more than 180 countries, and is one of the few CAs dedicated solely to advancing PKI-based solutions for enterprises and networked devices.  DigiCert is based in Lehi, Utah.

“DigiCert represents an outstanding investment opportunity to back a market leader with a tremendous management team in a sector we know well,” said Seth Boro, managing partner at Thoma Bravo. “SSL and certificate management technology play a critical part in securing the digital economy, and DigiCert has been a market leader in the space, known for its consistent innovation and first-rate customer service.”

http://digicert.com

Thoma Bravo Completes Acquisition of Riverbed

Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity investment firm, and Teachers’ Private Capital, the private investor department of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, completed their previously announced acquisition of Riverbed Technology. The acquisition is valued at approximately $3.5 billion, with Riverbed stockholders receiving $21.00 per share in cash.

“With this acquisition now complete, our team can begin to move forward with the strategic initiatives that will take us to the next stage of growth,” said Jerry M. Kennelly, chairman and CEO of Riverbed. “As a private company, Riverbed is better positioned to pursue our long term goals, and has greater flexibility to develop best-of breed technologies that deliver superior application performance for our customers. This flexibility, alongside Thoma Bravo’s deep experience growing companies in the application performance space, makes us very excited about the future.”

http://www.riverbed.com

NVIDIA's GRID 2.0 Virtual Desktop Doubles Density to 128 Users per Server

NVIDIA introduced its GRID 2.0 virtual desktop solution featuring greater density and performance along with support from major server vendors, including Cisco, Dell, HP and Lenovo. NVIDIA has worked closely with Citrix and VMware to bring a rich graphics experience to end-users on the industry's leading virtualization platforms.

Highlights include:


  • Doubled user density: NVIDIA GRID 2.0 doubles user density over the previous version, introduced last year, allowing up 128 users per server. This enables enterprises to scale more cost effectively, expanding service to more employees at a lower cost per user.
  • Doubled application performance: Using the latest version of NVIDIA’s award-winning Maxwell GPU architecture, NVIDIA GRID 2.0 delivers twice the application performance as before — exceeding the performance of many native clients.
  • Blade server support: Enterprises can now run GRID-enabled virtual desktops on blade servers — not simply rack servers — from Cisco, Dell, HP and others.
  • Linux support: No longer limited to the Windows operating system, NVIDIA GRID 2.0 now enables enterprises in industries that depend on Linux applications and workflows to take advantage of graphics-accelerated virtualization.


http://www.nvidia.com

AirVM Raises $8.0 for Cloud Enablement for VMware

AirVM, a start-up based in Ottawa, announced  $8.0 million in Series A funding for its cloud-enablement software.

AirVM's AirSembly software is a cloud management platform purpose-built for VMware to make it easier for service providers to sell, provision, manage, and bill for cloud services.

The funding was led by RHO Canada Ventures, joined by Build Ventures, and current investor Wesley Clover.

“AirVM has grown tremendously in 2015, and as we continue to add new partners, this Series A financing ensures ongoing innovation and growth to meet the demands of the cloud industry,” said Joshua Vautour, CEO and founder of AirVM. “We will continue to build on our momentum as the leading VMware cloud management platform company and expand into new markets.”

http://www.airvm.com

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Cisco: 44% of Organizations Planning Private Clouds

The cloud is moving into a second wave of adoption, according to a new study released by Cisco, as companies begin looking to cloud as a platform to fuel innovation, growth and disruption.

The Cisco-sponsored InfoBrief "Don't Get Left Behind: The Business Benefits of Achieving Greater Cloud Adoption" was developed by International Data Corporation (IDC) and is based on primary market research conducted with executives responsible for IT decisions in 3,400 organizations across 17 countries that are successfully implementing private, public and hybrid clouds in their IT environments.

The study finds that 53 percent of companies expect cloud to drive increased revenue over the next two years. Unfortunately, this will be challenging for many companies as only 1 percent of organizations have optimized cloud strategies in place while 32 percent have no cloud strategy at all.

Mature cloud adoption varies by country, with the United States and Latin America among the countries with the greatest percentage of organizations with repeatable, managed or optimized cloud strategies, and Japan with the fewest among the countries studied. The study notes the percentage of organizations with mature cloud adoption in each country:

  • 34 percent USA
  • 29 percent Latin America Region
  • 27 percent UK
  • 22 percent France
  • 21 percent Germany
  • 19 percent Australia 
  • 19 percent Canada 
  • 18 percent Korea
  • 17 percent The Netherlands
  • 9 percent Japan


By industry, manufacturing has the largest percentage of companies in one of the top three adoption categories at 33 percent, followed by IT (30 percent), finance (29 percent), and healthcare (28 percent). The lowest adoption levels by industry were found to be government/education and professional services (at 22 percent each) and retail/wholesale (at 20 percent). By industry, professional services, technology, and transportation, communications, and utilities expected the greatest impact on key performance indicators (KPIs) across the board.

More info is posted.

http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1714059

InfiniBand Trade Association Tests RDMA over Converged Ethernet

The InfiniBand Trade Association (IBTA) has conducted the first Plugfest for RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) solutions. ifteen member companies participated, bringing their RoCE adapters, cables and switches for testing to the event.

A new RoCE Interoperability List has been posted on the IBTA website.

“The inclusion of RoCE interoperability testing as part of IBTA’s rigorous Plugfest events is a boon to the industry as we see RoCE gaining traction in enterprise-level data centers,” said Rupert Dance, chair of IBTA’s Compliance and Interoperability Workgroup. “System integrators want to be able to select products that meet their needs from a robust ecosystem, and interoperability testing helps provide assurance that those products will work together. The publication of the RoCE Interoperability List provides a critical resource in the advancement of this ecosystem.”

http://www.infinibandta.org
http://www.RoCEInitiative.org

Autodesk to Acquire SeeControl for IoT

Autodesk agreed to acquire SeeControl, a San Francisco-based developer of an enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) cloud service platform. The SeeControl service helps manufacturers and systems integrators connect, analyze, control, and manage remote products, things, and assets and create new service revenue opportunities. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“A new future of making things is emerging, where any built object, product or environment can be embedded with sensors that can feed information back into the design process. The acquisition of SeeControl is the first step on Autodesk’s ongoing efforts to develop new technologies and solutions that will help our customers leverage the Internet of Things, starting by enabling them to capture, analyze, and utilize data from their products. We welcome the SeeControl team and ecosystem to Autodesk,” said Amar Hanspal, Autodesk Senior Vice President for Information Modeling and Platform Products.

http://www.autodesk.com

Dell'Oro: Shipments Begin for Multi-Gigabit Ethernet Switches

Multi-Gigabit Ethernet Switches began shipping in 2Q15, a significant milestone for stepping up the speed of LAN connections at the enterprise edge, according to a new report by Dell'Oro Group, which is now tracking this market.

The top ten vendors tracked in the Enterprise Edge Report include: Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Avaya, Brocade, Cisco Systems, Dell, Extreme Networks, Hewlett-Packard (including Aruba Networks), Huawei Technologies, Juniper Networks, and Ruckus Wireless.  

"HP and Cisco both shipped Multi-Gigabit Ethernet switches in the second quarter 2015.  HP began shipping Multi-Gigabit enabled ports on its 5400 in April and Cisco on its Catalyst 3000 in June.  This is an exciting change for the Ethernet industry because 2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps switches will enable significant speed increases in the campus, or 'enterprise edge' environment with little additional cabling infrastructure upgrades," said Chris DePuy, Vice President of Enterprise Edge research at Dell'Oro Group.  "We expect that as 802.11ac Wave 2 Access Points incorporate Multi-Gigabit capabilities, this will drive demand for a switch upgrade cycle."

http://www.delloro.com

Facebook Serves 1 Billion Users on Monday

Facebook passed a significant milestone on Monday when one billion people connected to the service is a single day.

Mark Zuckerberg notes that this means one in seven people on the planet connected to Facebook on Monday.

https://www.facebook.com/zuck?fref=ts

ECI Supplies SDN App to Swedish Govt Agency

Trafikverket, the Swedish Transport Agenby, has selected ECI's LightAPPS SDN applications to automate and optimize its network operations. The deployment includes two SDN apps: LightINSIGHT and LightTIME.

LightINSIGHT offers in-depth insights into network resources and their utilization. The APP provides a 360 degree view of the network inventory, utilization trends, network health, as well as the status of new service penetration. LightINSIGHT's management dashboard significantly improves visibility of network resources and customer SLAs by tracking KPIs.

LightTIME enables customers to schedule services in advance. Via an intuitive GUI, service providers are able to book network resources in advance and know that the allocation will commence as planned. LightTIME also intelligently reduces network bottlenecks and shortens new service introduction.

Trafikverket is the government agency responsible for the long-term planning of the transport system in the country. Trafikverket is also in charge of the state road network and national railway network.

"Trafikverket had very clear goals in mind when selecting LightAPPS. In order to optimize our current network resources, we

http://www.ecitele.com

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Vertical Systems: Ethernet Port Growth Unprecedented in U.S.

AT&T, Level 3, Verizon, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, XO and Cox (rank order) are top of the class in Vertical Systems Group's U.S. Carrier Ethernet LEADERBOARD results for mid-2015. Port shares were calculated using the base of enterprise installations of Ethernet services, plus input from surveys of Ethernet providers. The LEADERBOARD threshold is four percent (4%) or more of billable port installations.

"U.S. Ethernet port growth was unprecedented in the first half of 2015 and easily surpassed previous estimates. This market seems to be defying the law of large numbers, as there are few indications of the typical slowing growth patterns that we look for when services reach this size and maturity," said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. "Primary drivers for growth are massive migration from TDM to Ethernet services, robust demand for higher speed Ethernet private lines and rising requirements for connectivity to public and private Clouds."  

Other providers selling Ethernet services in the U.S. are segmented into tiers as measured by port share. The Challenge Tier includes providers with between 1% and 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market. The following six companies attained a position in the mid-2015 Challenge Tier (in alphabetical order): Bright House, Charter, Cogent, Lightpath, Windstream and Zayo.

Pending mergers could shake up the Ethernet marketplace by the end of 2015. In April 2015, Comcast ended its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable in the face of strong consumer opposition and regulatory hurdles. In May, Charter announced a merger that includes both Time Warner Cable and Bright House. Currently pending regulatory approval, this deal has the potential to change the U.S. Ethernet competitive landscape as significantly as Level 3's acquisition of tw telecom in 2014. Both Charter and Bright House are Challenge Tier companies. Time Warner Cable is ranked fifth on the Mid-2015 U.S. Carrier Ethernet LEADERBOARD.

The Market Player tier includes all providers with port share below 1%. Companies in the Market Player tier include the following providers (in alphabetical order): Alpheus Communications, American Telesis, Birch Communications, BT Global Services, Cincinnati Bell, Consolidated Communications, Earthlink Business, Expedient, FairPoint, FiberLight, Fibertech (acquired by Lightower, August 2015), Frontier, Global Capacity, Global Cloud Xchange, GTT, Hawaiian Telecom, Integra, Lightower, LS Networks, Lumos Networks, Masergy, MegaPath, NTT America, Orange Business, RCN Business, Sprint, SuddenLink, Tata, TDS Telecom, TelePacific, Telstra, US Signal, WOW!Business and other companies selling retail Ethernet services in the U.S. market."

Detailed Ethernet share results for the U.S. market plus in-depth share analysis are available now exclusively through Vertical Systems Group's ENS (Emerging Networks Service) Research Programs.

http://verticalsystems.com

NTT Comm Launches Direct Connect to Azure and AWS

NTT Communications launched a Multi-Cloud Connect feature for its Arcstar Universal One services, enabling enterprises to access third party public cloud services through its high-performance MPLS network for enhanced security and improved connectivity.

Multi-Cloud Connect will initially offer direct access to Microsoft Azure and AWS cloud platforms in Tokyo on August 26th, 2015, followed by London later this year.  The service is provided via a security-enhanced, private Layer 3 connection, not via the internet. NTT Comm is planning to expand the service globally.


Multi-Cloud Connect for Amazon is offered over dedicated 50Mbps, 100Mbps, 200Mbps, 300Mbps, 400Mbps, and 500Mbps, as well as best-effort 100Mbps and 1G connections.  Multi-Cloud Connect for Microsoft Azure is offered over dedicated 10Mbps, 50Mbps, 100Mbps, 500Mbps, and 1Gbps connections.

http://www.ntt.com/universalone_e/data/features.html

Ciena Boosts its 5430 Packet-Optical Platform to 15 Tbps

Ciena announced several new hardware and software capabilities for its 5430 Packet-Optical Platform designed to improve service velocity for high-bandwidth, on-demand applications and to enhance service economics,

Ciena's newly upgraded 5430 provides up to 15 Terabits (Tbps) of capacity to service provider, submarine and cable networks.

The upgrades, which are powered by Ciena’s next-generation family of silicon chips, provide up to five times more port density, four times switching capacity and 60 percent reduction of power consumption per switched Gb/s than the current platform – all in the same footprint and with in-service upgrades to mitigate service interruption. Each port can be individually programmable to operate in QPSK or 16QAM modulation, enabling providers to maximize capacity for any reach with a single card. In addition, a new set of packet networking features has been introduced on the 5430 to offer rich Metro-Ethernet-Forum(MEF) based services for consistent service delivery, faster turn-up and provisioning, and seamless evolution from circuit to packet.

Utilizing Ciena’s field-proven OneConnect Intelligent Control plane, the 5430 also provides greater network agility and automation by offering intelligent software to optimize operations and reduce costs, accelerate service turn-up and set the foundation of a more dynamic network infrastructure.

Ciena confirmed that the enhanced platform is currently being deployed by a number of leading service providers globally, including SK Telecom, Korea’s largest telecommunications company, to support mobile and next generation business and consumer broadband offerings.

“To succeed in today’s on-demand world, providers need networks that are agile, scalable and highly-resilient not only in the core, where traffic is concentrated, but at submarine landing stations and wireless aggregation points as well. Our next-generation family of silicon chips powers the 5430 platform to deliver the highest protocol agnostic switching capacity on the market, ensuring a path for growth without adding operational complexity or service disruption,” stated
Francois Locoh-Donou, Senior Vice President, Global Products Group, Ciena

http://www.ciena.com