Trend Micro to Acquire's HP's Tipping Point Intrusion Prevention Business for $300M

Trend Micro agreed to acquire HP TippingPoint, a leading provider of next-generation intrusion prevention systems (NGIPS) and related network security solutions, for approximately $300 million.

The deal encompasses security technology, intellectual property, industry expertise, as well as a large, loyal enterprise customer base.

Since 2014, Trend Micro and TippingPoint have had a strategic partner relationship. HP and Trend Micro will continue to be strong partners post transaction. The two companies will form a strategic partnership with TippingPoint around re-sale, managed services and OEM activities, as well as security intelligence, app security and data security.

Trend Micro said the acquisition positions it as the go-to enterprise security provider of dynamic threat defense solutions spanning endpoints, network, data center and the cloud. Trend Micro will also combine current and acquired capabilities to create a Network Defense business unit, serving more than 3,500 enterprise customers.

“This acquisition complements Trend Micro’s current threat defense expertise, extending its strength in endpoint, cloud, data center and breach detection to the network,” said Mike Spanbauer, vice president of research, NSS Labs. “By combining two strong brands, this move accelerates Trend Micro’s enterprise position into a non-competing segment, and provides a single, complete threat defense solution for enterprises seeking to make a critical security investment.”

http://www.TrendMicro.com

Read More

Sprint Gains Wi-Fi Calling for iPhones with iOS 9.1

Sprint's iPhone customers will gain access to Apple’s enhanced Wi-Fi calling feature with the newly released iOS 9.1.

The capability, which is supported on iPhone 5c and later, enables users to make and receive calls from multiple devices with a single number.

Other countries/carriers supporting Apple's Wi-Fi calling include: Canada (Bell, Rogers), Hong Kong (EE, Vodafone), UK (EE, Vodafone), Saudi Arabia (Zain), Switzerlan (SALT, Swisscom), US (T-Mobile)

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203032
http://www.sprint.com

Read More

Saudi Telecom Picks Ciena for International Mesh Network

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) has selected Ciena's packet/optical for a resilient, next-generation mesh network designed for maximizing the potential of STC’s existing global submarine and terrestrial investments by enabling flexible, high-capacity wholesale and enterprise Carrier Ethernet and OTN for Internet connectivity, datacenter interconnect and high-bandwidth cloud services.

The deployment will use Ciena’s 5430 Packet-Optical platform, equipped with the WaveLogic 3 Extreme chipset for 15 Terabit (Tbps) of hybrid packet OTN switching, along with the 6500. E-Suite packet switch modules on both the 6500 and 5430 allow STC to maximize the number of high speed Ethernet services carried on the network. Ciena’s GeoMesh submarine solution ensures survivability even in the case of multiple network outages or submarine fiber cuts, with restoration within 50 milliseconds.

“Transforming our network to deliver comprehensive and reliable services demonstrates STC’s dedication to its customers. Being a customer-centric operator, STC offers innovative and high-quality services over its leading state-of-the-art network infrastructure. STC ICT regional leadership is emphasized by the deployment of NGN solutions like Ciena’s packet-optical and GeoMesh solutions. These give STC the scalability and speed of services deployment, in tandem with lowering operating costs and supporting STC’s fierce evolution toward NGN capabilities,” stated Dr. Homoud Al Kussayer, Vice President for Wholesale at STC.

http://www.ciena.com

Read More

Level 3 Offers a Cellular Backup Option for Branch Offices

Level 3 Communications introduced a Secure Access Cellular Service that uses both cellular and security technologies to provide a redundant and scalable option for Internet connectivity in the event that the primary fiber connection to a remote or branch location is lost.

Level 3 Secure Access Cellular uses multi-vendor cellular connectivity to provide customers a back-up network connection. If a disruption occurs, the solution is designed to switch from a dedicated Level 3 MPLS/IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection to cellular backup connectivity through a LTE network. This cellular backup, the Secure Access Site product tunnel (IPsec), runs over a cellular 3G or 4G network instead of a broadband or DSL connection. Level 3 manages the connection with mainstream cellular providers.

Level 3 Secure Access Cellular is now available in North America and will be available winter 2015 in Europe and spring 2016 in Latin America.

http://news.level3.com/2015-10-20-Level-3-Launches-Carrier-Neutral-Secure-Cellular-Service

Read More

Oclaro Raises Forecast

Oclaro updated its outlook for the first quarter of fiscal year 2016 saying it now expects to exceed its previously provided financial guidance.  The company's financial guidance was last provided on August 4, 2015.

For the first quarter of fiscal year 2016, Oclaro expects:

• Revenues to be approximately $87.5 million, at the high end of the range previously provided;
• Non-GAAP gross margin to be in a range of 26 to 27%, above the high end of the range previously provided;
• Adjusted EBITDA to be positive $4.0 to $4.5 million, above the high end of the range previously provided; and
• Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments of $107.7 million at September 26, 2015.

"The preliminary results that we are reporting today reflect strong growth in our 100G product portfolio," said Greg Dougherty, Chief Executive Officer, Oclaro. "In addition, we saw higher than expected revenues for our 10G and 40G products, coupled with a much more favorable product mix, resulting in gross margin exceeding our prior guidance."

http://www.oclaro.com

Read More

Mellanox Reports Growing Revenue in Q3

Mellanox Technologies reported Q3 2015 revenues of $171.4 million, up 5.0 percent, compared to $163.1 million in the second quarter of 2015. GAAP net income was $20.0 million, compared to $19.2 million in the second quarter of 2015.

The company said EDR 100 Gbps InfiniBand revenue grew 147 percent quarter-over-quarter.

“We are excited to achieve consecutive record quarterly revenues. Assuming the midpoint of our fourth quarter 2015 guidance, our annual revenues are expected to grow 41 percent year-over year, and gross margins to be above 72.5 percent. We also expect annual operating income to improve substantially from the prior year, to approximately 21 percent of revenue, which is a significant step towards our long-term target profitability,” said Eyal Waldman, president and CEO of Mellanox Technologies. “Today, Mellanox is a diversified company, serving more products, markets, and customers. We are seeing revenues from our 10, 25, 40, 50 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet solutions and traction with large data center customers for these products. We are happy to see our EDR 100 Gigabit InfiniBand revenues growing at a faster pace than FDR did, to approximately 12 percent of InfiniBand revenues. The EZchip acquisition will bring us strategic customers and advanced technologies that will fuel further growth and diversification.”

http://www.mellanox.com

Read More

Brocade Joins Next Gen Mobile Networks Alliance

Brocade has joined the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance, an open forum founded by global network operators dedicated to ensuring that the standards for next-generation mobile broadband infrastructure satisfy end-user demands and expectations.

The NGMN Alliance membership now comprises 28 global mobile network operators, 35 major telecom vendors and 28 universities and international research institutions.

"Brocade believes that New IP networking solutions are intricately linked to delivering the performance and scale necessary to support billions more users and devices," said Kevin Shatzkamer, chief technology officer of mobile networking, Brocade. "We are excited to share our strong domain expertise in SDN and NFV to support the development of 5G requirements and design principles."

http://www.ngmn.org/home.html

Read More

EMC and VMware to Combine Efforts on Virtustream, a Hybrid Cloud Services Provider

EMC and VMware unveiled plans to create a new, enterprise cloud services provider to be called Virtustream. The launch is supported by Michael S. Dell, MSD Partners & Silver Lake, who recently disclosed plans to acquire EMC and VMware.

EMC currently operates a division called Virtustream that provides cloud management software and IaaS. This announcement builds on this initiative by adding in resources from EMC and VMware.

The new Virtustream will offer a range of managed services for on-premises infrastructure and its enterprise-class Infrastructure-as-a-Service platform, enabling customers to move all their applications, including mission-critical applications, to cloud-based IT environments. Virtustream will incorporate the cloud capabilities of EMC Information Infrastructure, VCE, Virtustream and VMware to provide the complete spectrum of on- and off- premises offerings including: VMware vCloud Air, VCE Cloud Managed Services, Virtustream's Infrastructure-as-a-Service, and EMC’s Storage Managed Services and Object Storage Services offerings.

Virtustream’s financial results will be consolidated into VMware’s financial statements beginning in Q1 2016. It is expected to generate multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in recurring revenue in 2016, focused on enterprise-centric cloud services, with an outlook to grow to a multi-billion business over the next several years. The company will be led by Rodney Rogers.

VMware will establish a Cloud Provider Software business unit led by Ajay Patel, VMware senior vice president, focused on delivering cloud software and solutions to cloud providers including VMware’s vCloud Air Network, to help them rapidly harness the opportunity of the hybrid cloud. This new unit will incorporate assets and people from the VMware vCloud Air Application Services business, vCloud Director and vCloud Air Network teams, as well as Virtustream’s Software Business including Advisor Planning and Migration tool, xStream cloud management platform and Viewtrust governance, risk and compliance solution.

"Through Virtustream, we are addressing the changes in buying patterns and IT cloud operation models that we are seeing in the market. Our customers consistently tell us that they are focused on their IT transformations and journeys to the hybrid cloud. The EMC Federation is now positioned as a complete provider of hybrid cloud offerings," said Joe Tucci, EMC Corporation Chairman and CEO.

http://www.emc.com
http://www.vmware.com

EMC to Acquire Virtustream for $1.2 Billion - Hybrid Cloud Mgt.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015  #cloud, EMC, Mergers and Acquisitions, Vmware  No comments

EMC Corporation agreed to Virtustream, a start-up headquartered in Washington, D.C. with offices in San Francisco, Atlanta, London and Dubai, for approximately $1.2 billion in cash.

Virtustream offers a consumption-based hybrid cloud software and IaaS platform capable of providing commercial application latency performance guarantees for running mission-critical enterprise class applications on modern multi-tenant cloud architectures.Virtustream’s xStream software features consumption-based billing and embedded µVM (micro-VM) technology for assuring application-level SLAs. The company owns data centers in the U.S. and Europe with service provider partner data centers in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

EMC said the acquisition represents a transformational element of its strategy to help customers move all applications to cloud-based IT environments.  Virtustream will form EMC’s new managed cloud services business.

“This acquisition is great news for our customers, VMware and the EMC Federation of businesses.  With the addition of Virtustream, we will be able to offer customers a comprehensive set of hybrid cloud offerings, including private, managed and public cloud solutions. As we deliver VMware vCloud Air to our customer base to help them continue their journey to the cloud, Virtustream complements and expands our value proposition,” stated Pat Gelsinger, Chief Executive Officer, VMware.

SAP, which has a long-term partnership with Virtustream, stated that it looks forward to continuing the alliance with EMC.

Read More

Brocade Extends Open, Software-Defined Visibility for Mobile Operators

Brocade unveiled its new network visibility solution and partner ecosystem for mobile operators.

The new portfolio, which is based on technology from Brocade's acquisition of Vistapointe, is built on the principles of software-enabled, open, and disaggregated. The idea is to leverage visibility and analytics with an extensible platform with APIs for third party components. Brocade said its scale-out, dynamic architecture supports up to 100 million subscribers per packet core and enables real-time programmability of network packet brokers to optimize traffic sent to probes and analytics applications. Based on packet network visibility and traffic analytics, the platform's SDN programmability can shape network behavior. The use of virtual packet brokers and virtual packet probes delivers flexibility and capacity on demand. Single-pane-of-glass management extends across physical and virtual visibility infrastructures.

The Brocade Network Visibility product family includes:

• Brocade MLXe Packet Brokers and Brocade ICX Packet Brokers: A family of packet brokers to address the wide range of density, performance, and programmability needs of Tier-1 mobile operators
• Brocade Virtual Packet Broker: a full-featured, virtual TAP/packet broker for vEPC environments
• Brocade Session Director: Software-based separation of mobile control flow processing in the visibility network to deliver maximum scalability, real-time programmability of packet brokers, and enhanced network intelligence
• Brocade Packet Probes: Software-based, scalable, wire-speed packet processing engines that decode and reduce mobile bearer and control traffic to extract and deliver essential metadata required by network monitoring and analytics solutions
• Brocade Visibility Manager: A single-pane-of-glass management application for the entire Brocade Network Visibility solution

Brocade is supporting Open APIs to enable third-party components at each layer of the visibility infrastructure.  The company's initial network visibility partners include Viavi, EMC, Guavus, and Avvassi.

“Through the Brocade Network Visibility product family, Brocade is now empowering mobile network operators to optimize their visibility and analytics environments in ways they were unable to before,” said Jason Nolet, senior vice president, Switching, Routing, and Analytics Products Group, Brocade. “The network visibility approach we deliver alleviates the challenges of operating a diverse visibility environment, and brings a software-enabled infrastructure and open architecture to the forefront of mobile operator visibility networks.”

http://www.brocade.com/en/products-services/network-visibility-analytics.html

Brocade Acquires Vistapointe for Mobile Traffic Visibility/Analytics

Monday, September 15, 2014  

Brocade has acquired Vistapointe, a start-up based in San Ramon, California with operations in Ireland and Bangalore, India, for its cloud-based and real-time network intelligence solutions for mobile operators. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Vistapointe specializes in data extraction, analysis and insight generation technologies that enable mobile operators gain visibility into their mobile networks. Vistapointe’s product portfolio leverages Network Functions Virtualization (NFV architecture), enabling it to run in the cloud. The Vistapointe solution enables Mobile and Het-Net operators to monetize the explosion of data traffic, save and optimize their cost-structure through better visibility and reduce subscriber churn through better QoE. The solution passively taps into the data, session and signaling layers of 3G, 4G LTE and Wi-Fi networks non-intrusively, while complying with 3GPP, IETF & IEEE standard protocols.

Brocade said the acquisition helps it to address the emerging opportunities and requirements of mobile network operators, providing them with enhanced network visibility and analytics of subscriber data traffic.   These capabilities will be essential for MNOs rolling out 4G/LTE technology across the billions of mobile devices deployed worldwide, led primarily by data networking requirements. This also establishes a firm technology foundation for MNOs as they begin the migration path to 5G technology in the coming years. The expected revenue for data traffic over mobile handsets will exceed $358 billion (USD) by 2018, representing the single largest source of revenue for MNOs over the next six years, according to industry research firm Analysys Mason.

In addition to enhancing the Brocade NFV technology portfolio, the Vistapointe acquisition directly complements the existing Brocade MLX-based IP telemetry solution to provide MNOs with an end-to-end network intelligence solution, from the network packet broker to analytics applications. With this transaction, the Vistapointe technologies are being incorporated into a new Network Visibility and Analytics group reporting into Jason Nolet, Vice President of the Switching, Routing, and Analytics products group, Brocade.

As part of the transaction, Vistapointe CEO, Ravi Medikonda, has joined Brocade as Vice President of the Network Visibility and Analytics product group. Furthermore, Brocade has hired the Vistapointe development team, and they will report into Medikonda as part of the new business unit.

http://newsroom.brocade.com

• Vistapointe was headed by Ravi Medikonda (CEO), who previously held leadership roles at Juniper Networks in its Product Management & Marketing groups. Before Juniper, he was Director of Product Management at Tellabs/Vivace Business Unit with P&L responsibility for the IP/MPLS products and successfully led Tellabs into the 3G/Wireless RAN backhaul market.

Brocade Intros SDN Flow Optimizer App

Monday, June 15, 2015  

Brocade introduced a new FLOW OPTIMIZER application and new SDN capabilities for its MLX SERIES routers.

The Brocade Flow Optimizer is designed to adapt the network based on anomalous traffic patterns and behaviors. The goal is to enable service providers and enterprises to gain proactive insight into their network traffic, mitigate network attacks, and eliminate network congestion, in order to improve the end user experience.

The SDN application supports an OpenDaylight-based controller that provides real-time policy-based management for network traffic flows through Brocade MLXe routers.  The Brocade Flow Optimizer allows network managers to mitigate network flood attacks, throttle bandwidth intensive workloads, reprioritize rogue traffic, and redirect suspicious activity for further analysis. The Brocade Flow Optimizer SDN application is generally available. Price is based on a perpetual software license, depending on the network capacity supported. Capacity for up to 20 GB of traffic management is priced at $4,995 and capacity for up to 200 GB of traffic management is priced at $12,995.

Brocade also announced the Brocade NetIron OS 5.9 software, building on the continued advancement of SDN capabilities in the Brocade MLXe routers. This latest OS release leverages the company's VersaScale programmable forwarding architecture.

http://www.brocade.com

Read More

Dell Debuts Edge Gateway for IoT

Dell launched a new Edge Gateway 5000 Series designed for IoT aggregation for the building and factory automation sectors.

The Dell Edge Gateway sits at the edge of the network (near the devices and sensors) with local analytics and other middleware to receive, aggregate, analyze and relay data, then minimizes expensive bandwidth by relaying only meaningful data to the cloud or datacenter.

The unit can be mounted on the wall and can operate in locations with extreme temperatures like boiler rooms and deserts. It can bridge both legacy serial connections (RS-422/485, CAN bus) and modern wireless networks (Wi-Fi, 802.15.4 mesh).  Operating system options include Ubuntu Snappy, Wind River Linux, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.

http://www.dell.com

Read More

Dell Adds Big Data Analytics Capabilities

Dell announced a series of new big data and analytics solutions and services including solutions for industry verticals, such as banking, healthcare and insurance.

The rollout includes Statistica 13, the latest release of the company’s popular advanced analytics software platform, helps simplify and improve the process by which organizations deploy predictive models directly to data sources inside the firewall, in the cloud, and in partner ecosystems.

Enhancements and new capabilities in Statistica 13 include:

• A revamped and modernized GUI for greater ease-of-use and visual appeal
• Deeper integration with the recently added Statistica Interactive Visualization and Dashboard engine for more effective communication to data consumers
• Tighter integration with open source R for easier sharing and control of R scripts
• A new stepwise model tool that progressively recommends optimum models for users
• New Native Distributed Analytics (NDA) capabilities that allow users to run analytics directly in the database where data lives and work more efficiently with large and growing data sets.

http://www.dell.com

Read More

SAP Sees Traction for S/4HANA, its Cloud Business Suite

SAP has exceeded 1,300 customers for its Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (SAP S/4HANA), which launched in February 2015.

SAP S/4HANA is the company's next-generation business suite for the digital economy.

"Exceeding 1,300 customers in only eight months validates that SAP S/4HANA is SAP's biggest innovation since SAP R/3. Customers and partners have clearly understood the benefit of our new suite to reimagine business in today's world," said Robert Enslin, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and president of Global Customer Operations, SAP. "The digital transformation is now a reality across all industries and requires organizations to rethink business models, processes and IT landscapes by putting simplicity at the heart of everything they do. This is the value SAP S/4HANA as our digital core brings to help customers disrupt their industry and win in the digital economy."

http://www.sap.com

Read More

Nokia Demos 5G with du

Nokia Networks and du, a leading mobile operator in the Middle East, are demonstrating 5G at this week's GITEX event in Dubai.

The 5G system being demonstrated by du and Nokia Networks uses very high bandwidth, smart antennas, and next generation multi-carrier modulation to achieve ultra low latency and impressive peak data rates of 10 Gbps. This 5G radio proof-of-concept was developed in cooperation with National Instruments (NI).

http://networks.nokia.com/

Read More

COMPTEL Changes Name to INCOMPAS

COMPTEL, the competitive networks association, is changing its name to INCOMPAS. The change, which was announced at this week's ComptelPlus conference in San Francisco, is meant to reflect the organization's growth and commitment to defending competition policy across a wide spectrum of evolving technology platforms.

“The name INCOMPAS illustrates our commitment to innovation, competition and the future. We have a rich history, successfully leading efforts to open markets to new networks, new technology and new ideas,” said INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering. “Moving forward, we wanted a name that reflected both our values and our growing membership. This change will create expansion opportunities for our membership, our trade shows and our advocacy efforts. We are INCOMPAS, we are the future of competition.”

In addition to competitive broadband providers, INCOMPAS now counts video providers, social media leaders, content providers, wireless companies, Internet companies, international leaders, start-ups and venture capitalists among its growing membership base. During the past 18 months, under Pickering’s leadership, INCOMPAS has added members including Google, Netflix Inc., Amazon, Twitter, AngelList, Level 3, XO Communications, Rocket Fiber and TMobile.

http://www.incompas.org/

Read More

CenturyLink Hits its Stride with NFV/SDN

CenturyLink is on track virtualize 40 percent of its global IP core network locations by end of 2015 with plans to have full global virtualization coverage in its IP core network and data centers by 2018.

The company said it has already built its NFV platform in 36 network and data center locations in seven countries, with plans to expand into a total of 44 locations by the end of the year.

CenturyLink also was one of the first providers to use NFV technology to virtualize security features such as firewalls and a content delivery network (CDN) to distribute video through its Prism® TV service, providing quicker delivery of these services. In the coming months, CenturyLink will begin deploying a range of virtualized data and voice infrastructure services, including virtualized Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) routers and Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) to enable dynamic delivery of scalable services for customers.

"CenturyLink is taking its network assets and combining them with our expanded NFV platform and cloud services to create a customizable and dynamic applications marketplace infrastructure that will give businesses near real-time provisioning and more control over their service experience," said Aamir Hussain, CenturyLink executive vice president and chief technology officer. "The customer experience is a top priority for CenturyLink. Integrating virtualized services into our network and developing an interactive marketplace and portal for our customers allows us to be more responsive to market opportunities and meet changing customer demands. We are pleased that our efforts position CenturyLink as an industry leader in virtualization."

CenturyLink began implementing network virtualization and automation in 2013 when it partnered with five vendors to develop an open environment through common API structures, creating interoperability and enhancing the creation of applications. In February 2014, CenturyLink announced its agreement with Ericsson to deliver a next-generation Operations Support Systems (OSS) and Business Support Systems (BSS) solution through a single, reliable transport infrastructure which can rapidly fulfill customer demands and create the support needed for implementing NFV and SDN services.

In addition to Ciena, CenturyLink is working with several vendors, including Arista Networks, Nuage Networks, Red Hat and Supermicro to implement virtualization functions in its network and to deliver NFV-based versions of the vendors' current product lines.

http://news.centurylink.com/news/centurylink-announces-virtualization-plans-as-it-continues-integrating-its-network-into-the-cloud

CenturyLink Readies NFV-Enhanced Service Launch with Cyan

Thursday, March 12, 2015  #Cyan, #NFV, #SDN, CenturyLink  No comments

CenturyLink is preparing to launch NFV-enhanced services to enterprise and small and midsized business (SMB) customers based on Cyan’s Blue Planet NFV Orchestrator.

Specifically, CenturyLink will use Cyan’s Blue Planet orchestration for their Programmable Services Backbone (PSB), its platform that for next-generation virtualized services to its customers.  Blue Planet NFV Orchestrator bridges multiple technologies to instantiate virtual network functions (VNF) from multiple vendors. Blue Planet will add these virtual network functions to CenturyLink’s network for quickly providing software-enabled services and ubiquitous service coverage to CenturyLink’s broad set of customers.

Cyan said its Blue Planet software can instantiate and control virtual functions, coordinate with physical and virtual network resources, and interconnect virtual functions (i.e., vFirewall, vDPI, vEncryption, vRouter, vDNS, etc.) to achieve service chaining. The programmability of the Blue Planet NFV Orchestrator allows carriers like CenturyLink to onboard and define new services through a flexible template-based architecture. The open architecture of Blue Planet’s NFV Orchestrator enables rich, multi-vendor environments within the NFV Infrastructure (NFVI), including support for different cloud management software and physical servers.

“CenturyLink has taken a leadership position in driving the changes required to build a more service- centric network that derives maximum value from network assets while addressing evolving customer requirements,” said Aamir Hussain, CTO, CenturyLink. “The Programmable Services Backbone delivers an open, software-enabled architecture based on Cyan’s NFV orchestration technology that will allow us to rapidly deploy new services to enterprise and SMB customers across our footprint.”

“CenturyLink is leading the network transformation movement that is so critical to the future of our industry,” said Mike Hatfield, president, Cyan. “We’re proud that Cyan’s Blue Planet is playing a critical role in how they deploy multi-vendor VNFs as services to end customers. Together, CenturyLink and Cyan are unifying the data center, virtual resources, WAN, and managed services to create a new way of doing business for network operators.”

http://www.centurylink.com
http://www.cyaninc.com/company/news-room/press-releases/2015/centurylink-to-offer-nfv-enhanced-services-to-enterprise-and-smb-customers-with-cyans-blue-planet-#.VQGtyPm-2-1

• In June 2014, CenturyLink sponsored an ETSI NFV ISG-approved proof of concept (PoC) solution based on RAD’s dedicated customer-edge D-NFV equipment running Fortinet’s Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) and Certes Networks’ virtual encryption/decryption engine as Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) with Cyan’s Blue Planet system orchestrating the entire ecosystem. The companies said their D-NFV allows the placement of VNFs where they will be both most effective and least expensive, including at the customer edge.  Cyan's Blue Planet can orchestrate both NFV and multi-vendor Ethernet services.

Read More

Windstream Sells its Data Centers to TierPoint for $575 Million

Windstream will sell its data center business to TierPoint, a leading national provider of cloud, colocation and managed services, in an all cash transaction for $575 million.

As part of the transaction, Windstream will establish an ongoing reciprocal strategic partnership with TierPoint, allowing both companies to sell their respective products and services to each other’s prospective customers through referrals.  This structure will allow Windstream to focus capital on its core telecom offerings while continuing to offer traditional data center services to enterprise customers across a broader data center footprint.

"Data center services will remain an integral component of our enterprise service offering." said Tony Thomas, president and CEO. “We expect the divested data center business to continue its significant growth under the leadership of TierPoint, and we look forward to partnering closely with them to provide advanced data center services to our enterprise customers.”

“This is a great strategic fit for TierPoint and our customers,” said Jerry Kent, Chairman and CEO for TierPoint. “Windstream Hosted Solutions and its employees have earned a reputation for providing excellent customer service and innovative enterprise-class solutions.  We value these team members as a key asset in the acquisition and their expertise adds to our strength and focus on providing a superior level of customer care. We’re also very pleased to enter into a long-term strategic partnership with Windstream, allowing both companies to leverage the expertise and respective strengths of our organizations.”

http://news.windstream.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1672
http://www.tierpoint.com/

Read More

Microsemi Announces Bid to Acquire PMC-Sierra

Microsemi announced an offer to acquire PMC-Sierra for $11.50 per PMC share, representing a premium of approximately 50 percent to the closing price on Oct. 5, 2015, the last trading day prior to the announcement of PMC's proposed acquisition with Skyworks Solutions.  The offer price is based on the closing stock price of Microsemi on Oct. 16, 2015.

Microsemi said its offer is better than that of Skyworks because its cash and stock proposal would provide PMC shareholders with a substantial premium and immediate cash value, as well as the opportunity to participate in the significant upside potential of a global analog and mixed-signal leader with a highly diversified platform for growth and profitability.

Under the terms of Microsemi's proposal, PMC shareholders will receive $8.75 in cash and 0.0736 of a share of Microsemi common stock for each share of PMC common stock held at the close of the transaction. The implied total transaction value is approximately $2.4 billion and the implied enterprise value is $2.2 billion, net of PMC's net cash balance as of June 27, 2015.

"Based on extensive discussions with PMC over the past 18 months and comprehensive analysis, we believe this transaction offers compelling strategic and financial benefits for the shareholders of both Microsemi and PMC," said James J. Peterson, Microsemi's chairman and CEO. "This acquisition will provide Microsemi with a leading position in high performance and scalable storage solutions targeted for data center and cloud applications, while also adding a complementary portfolio of high-value communications products. Microsemi has a strong track record of integrating acquisitions and driving profitability, and we will benefit from increased scale, industry-leading margins, diversified market exposure, consolidated infrastructure and substantial cost savings in a combination with PMC."

http://www.microsemi.com/

Read More

ZTE Signs IP/WDM Global Framework Agreement with Telenor

ZTE announced a Global Framework Agreement (GFA) with Telenor, the international mobile communication company, based in Norway.

Specifically. Telenor has selected several of ZTE’s new products, including ZTE IP products for IP CORE, Metro-E and IPRAN scenarios. Specifically this includes the IP CORE product, IT platform ZXR10 T800, Metro-E IPRAN aggregation products ZXR10, M6000-S and ZXCTN 9000-E based on 400G platform. Additionally the access product ZXCTN 6100 series is included, alongside the large-capacity, super-high port density MPLS switch ZXR10 5900E and ZXR10 8900E - used to cover 11 models from access, aggregation, core, to security gateway broadband user access. These products meet the demands faced by Telenor and other operators around the world during branch application scenarios. ZTE’s wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) products, such as the ZXONE 9700, meet Core, Metro, and Access demands.

“With the existing equipment and service agreement, Telenor’s market approach and technology are completely integrated with ZTE’s technical strength in bearer network product research and development. We’ll continue to focus on the customer’s mobile broadband development demands to provide better service for Telenor’s global consumers,” said Mr. Xu Ming, General Manager of ZTE Bearer Network Product Line.

http://www.zte.com.cn

Read More

Broadcom Adds Noise Cancellation to DSL Gateways

Broadcom is adding a Reference Noise Cancellation (RNC) technology to its BCM63138 family of devices . Broadcom is the first to offer telecom carriers the benefits of RNC to enhance the performance of DSL customer premise equipment (CPE) without the need to replace or upgrade installed ADSL or VDSL2 infrastructure equipment. For more news, visit Broadcom's Newsroom.

Broadcom's RNC implementation on its BCM63138 family of high-performance DSL SoCs for home gateways works with existing DSL infrastructure equipment, including single-line or bonded ADSL and VDSL. It also complements existing DSL performance techniques such as G.inp, and G.vector, and coexists independent of any other equipment in the network. By filtering out received noise on the subscriber line at the CPE in the residence, this advancement in DSL technology enables carriers to improve the quality of the received signal and deliver higher performing broadband to subscribers.

"Today's announcement builds on Broadcom's unmatched DSL portfolio, enabling operators to deliver high-bandwidth broadband services to meet growing consumer demand," said Greg Fischer, Broadcom Senior Vice President and General Manager, Broadband Carrier Access. "With the addition of RNC technology to Broadcom's BCM63138 SoC family, operators can deploy CPE that provide DSL subscribers with an unmatched performance improvement with no investment or change to existing installed infrastructure equipment."

http://www.broadcom.com

Read More

Marvell Announces 1000BASE-T1 Automotive Ethernet PHY Transceiver

Marvell introduced an 1000BASE-T1 automotive Ethernet physical layer (PHY) transceiver compliant with the draft IEEE 802.3bp 1000BASE-T1 standard.

The 1000BASE-T1 standard allows high speed and bi-directional data traffic over light weight, low cost, single pair cable harnesses.

Key features of Marvell's 88Q2112:

• Compliant to the draft IEEE 802.3bp standard for 1000Mbps operation over a single unshielded twisted pair copper cable
• Designed for the rigorous EMI requirements of an automotive system
• Enables transport of in-vehicle uncompressed 720p30 camera video and support for multiple HD video streams, including 4K resolution
• Single pair Ethernet allows selection of light-weight low cost cable harness

"As cars are being designed and manufactured with more sophisticated Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), automotive manufacturers and engineers are looking for solutions to meet the growing in-vehicle connectivity bandwidth demands. Marvell was instrumental in the development of the IEEE 802.3bp standard; therefore, I am thrilled that Marvell is the first silicon provider to offer a 1000Mbps automotive Ethernet transceiver," said Philip Poulidis, Vice President and General Manager, Automotive, Wireless and Internet of Things Business Units at Marvell. "

Sampling begins in November 2015.

http://www.marvell.com/solutions/automotive/

Read More