Box Hits Quarterly Sales of $85 Million, up 36% year-over-year

Box reported revenue for its fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 of a record $85.0 million, an increase of 36% from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015. Billings in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 were a record $130.2 million, an increase of 59% from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015. There was a GAAP net loss per share attributable to common stockholders, basic and diluted, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016 was $0.41 on 123.3 million shares outstanding, compared to $2.64 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 on 20.0 million shares outstanding.

“Fiscal 2016 was a momentous year for Box with record revenue of more than $300 million. With new products like Box Platform, Governance, and KeySafe, and major customer wins in the fourth quarter with AIG, Genentech, Bain Capital, The Home Depot and Unilever, among others, we continue to be the platform of choice as enterprises move their content to the cloud,” said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box. “We achieved higher operating leverage driven by our strong business model and execution, and we remain focused on expanding our customer base, increasing our scale and driving further operational efficiencies.”

“In the fourth quarter, we delivered strong year-over-year revenue growth of 36% and billings growth of 59%,” said Dylan Smith, Box co-founder and CFO. “These top-line results, coupled with our positive cash flow from operations, reflect our progress towards achieving positive free cash flow in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017. With strong strategic partnerships, expanding cross-selling opportunities, and a large market opportunity still ahead of us, we are well-positioned for both continued growth and future profitability.”

http://www.box.com

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Telstra Launches NFV/SDN Services based on Cisco

Telstra launched its first SDN services for Australian customers.  The deployment is the result of a recent partnership with Cisco focused on network transformation via NFV and SDN.

The first product, Internet Virtual Private Network (Internet VPN), available later this month, will enable businesses to connect multiple sites and mobile workers to office networks, with secure, encrypted links over the public Internet, with just a few clicks in Telstra’s online portal.

The second product, available today in beta is Cloud Gateway Protection, a virtual security appliance that can be deployed and configured within minutes in the cloud to protect internet access, cloud services and Next IP networks from malicious attacks and unauthorised access.

The third SDN product, available later this year, is Data Centre Interconnect, an extension of Telstra’s global data centre interconnect SDN product, PEN . By adding Australian PoPs, the extended solution will enable businesses to instantly set up point-to-point links between domestic and global data centres, configure them on-the-fly and choose from a variety of pay-as-you-go, flexible contract terms, all from the same portal.

Philip Jones, Telstra Executive Director of Global Products and Solutions said, “Just as cloud computing redefined the user compute experience – with simple, dynamic configuration and provisioning – SDN and NFV technologies are redefining the user experience on the network. By allowing us to overcome the constraints of traditional network infrastructure, the software driven customer experiences dramatically increases our agility by enabling us to quickly create new solutions, and puts the control of those solutions into the hands of our customers.”

Kelly Ahuja, Cisco’s Senior Vice President of Service Provider Business, Products, and Solutions, said: “This is yet another example of Cisco’s commitment to redefining the networks of the future. Software and virtualisation are set to transform the network and customer experience for thousands of businesses everywhere. By combining Cisco’s agile and flexible software platform with Telstra’s customer focused and customer friendly range of products, we send a powerful message to the industry and a provide a clear example of how to develop and design the network services of tomorrow.”

http://www.cisco.com
http://www.telstraglobal.com/insights/news/newsitem/telstra-and-cisco-redefine-customer-experience-with-software-defined-networking

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IBM Opens First Cloud Data Center in South Africa

IBM is opening a Cloud Data Center in Johannesburg, South Africa in collaboration with Gijima and Vodacom. The facility will provide a portfolio of cloud services, including running and managing SAP applications and workloads in the cloud.

IBM’s growing cloud footprint now includes 46 cloud data centers across six continents.

“We’re working to drive cloud adoption that best leverages a customer’s existing IT investments,” said Hamilton Ratshefola, IBM Country General Manager in South Africa. “Our new Cloud Data Center gives customers a local onramp to IBM Cloud services including moving mission critical SAP workloads to the cloud with ease. It also gives customers the added flexibility of keeping data within country which is a key differentiator for IBM.”

“The increase of enterprise cloud computing on the continent is being driven by large enterprise and multinational organisations expanding their presence and IT requirements across Africa,” said Vuyani Jarana, Chief Officer of Vodacom Business. “CIO’s are looking to gain efficiencies and cut cost by moving more of their IT infrastructure, applications and processes into the Cloud. Vodacom’s extensive Fixed and Mobile network infrastructure, Pan African and global footprint and its investment in data center infrastructure provides the ideal platform and environment to deliver cloud services to large and multinational enterprises.“

http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing

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Cisco Acquires Synata for Collaboration Search Tools

Cisco has acquired Synata, a start-up based in San Francisco that developed search tools that work within Cisco Spark, the company's business collaboration service.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

Synata’s technology allows users to search both on-premise and cloud-based applications simultaneously from one platform.

Cisco said the Synata search technology works within Spark’s end-to-end encryption in the cloud. Cisco plans to integrate the technology into its Spark platform.

https://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco-spark-collaboration-news

Cisco to Acquire Leaba Semiconductor for $320M

Wednesday, March 02, 2016  Cisco, Israel, Mergers and Acquisitions, Silicon  No comments

Cisco agreed to acquire Leaba Semiconductor, a venture-backed fabless semiconductor company, for $320 million in cash and assumed equity awards, plus additional retention based incentives. Leaba, which is based in Israel, specializes in networking semiconductors.  The company is in stealth mode and has not announced any products. The Leaba team will report into Cisco’s Core Hardware Group, led by Senior Vice President, Ravi Cherukuri. https://blogs.cisco.com/news/networking-semiconductors-news http://www.leabasemiconductor.com/ Leaba...

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Cisco to Acquire CliQr for Cloud Orchestration

Tuesday, March 01, 2016  #cloud, #SDN, Cisco, Mergers and Acquisitions  No comments

Cisco agreed to acquire CliQr Technologies, a start-up offering an application-defined cloud orchestration platform to model, deploy and manage applications across bare metal, virtualized and container environments. Cisco will pay $260 million in cash and assumed equity awards, plus retention based incentives. The CliQr platform provides a broad variety of application profile templates and an integrated service library to make it easier to model...

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Cisco to Acquire Jasper for IoT Service Platform - $1.4 Billion

Wednesday, February 03, 2016  #IoT, Cisco, Jasper, Silicon Valley  No comments

Cisco agreed to acquire Jasper Technologies, which offers a cloud-based IoT service platform, for $1.4 billion in cash and assumed equity awards, plus additional retention based incentives. Jasper, which is based in Santa Clara, California, enables the connectivity and management of any device -- from cars to jet engines to implanted pacemakers -- over the cellular networks of service providers.  The company said its Software as a Service (SaaS)...

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Ericsson Debuts 240 Gbps Broadband Network Gateway Router

Ericsson introduced a 240 Gbps 1RU router which supports distributed Broadband Network Gateway (BNG), distributed cloud gateway, distributed provider edge and hyper-scale Open Flow switch with integrated inline high touch applications.

The Ericsson Router 8801 uses an in-house smart network processor SNP 4000 for enabling application-aware and subscriber-aware personalized services.

"Exponential traffic and the growth of over-the-top applications are forcing service providers to scale their network. Router 8801 is cost optimized for disaggregated deployment scenarios which makes it attractive for next generation distributed cloud architecture. With this deployment, network operators will get a solution to efficiently meet rapidly increasing demand for advanced services by supporting today's network requirements and also future growth in terms of speed, devices and applications," stated Arne Sjule, Head of Product Area IP routing, Ericsson.

http://www.ericsson.com

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Hutchison First to Deploy Infinera for Mobile Fronthaul Across Hong Kong

Hutchison Global Communications Limited (HGC) has deployed the Infinera TM-Series Mobile Fronthaul Solution across its extensive optical network in Hong Kong.

Infinera's TM-Series Mobile Fronthaul Solution boasts low latency, superior synchronization, low power consumption and high density. It will allow HGC to provide mobile operators with high capacity active mobile fronthaul services within the Hong Kong region.

The Infinera TM-Series Mobile Fronthaul Solution supports all of the Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) and Open Base Station Architecture Initiative (OBSAI) rates, with HGC’s initial services in Hong Kong ranging from 2.5 Gbps to 10 Gbps. HGC’s deployment of the transponder-based active option of the Infinera Mobile Fronthaul Solution provides mobile fronthaul services featuring high bandwidth and low latency with superior synchronization performance. With these services, HGC’s customers can reduce their operating expenses while improving RAN performance.

“We considered the mobile fronthaul solutions in the market and concluded that the Infinera TM-Series solution best enables HGC to deliver massive bandwidth with low latency, while being adaptive to the evolution of mobile technology,” said Byron Chiang, Chief Technology Officer of HGC. “The Infinera team was highly responsive, able to deliver quickly and implement services required by us.”

“We applaud HGC’s deployment of the TM-Series for mobile fronthaul, leading what we expect to be global adoption of this technology,” said Andrew Bond-Webster, vice president, regional sales APAC. “With this deployment HGC has transformed its mobile transport architecture and positioned themselves and their customers to effectively manage the tremendous growth of mobile data that should continue for the next several years.”

http://www.infinera.com

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Gogo Signs Major Capacity Deal Across Intelsat Globalized Network

Gogo signed a long-term agreement with Intelsat for pole-to-pole and gate-to-gate coverage from the 10 Tbps shared Intelsat EpicNG/OneWeb network.

Specifically, Gogo’s next generation in-flight connectivity technology will be powered by an innovative high performance shared network featuring reliable, multi-layered Ku-band capacity on the Intelsat EpicNG high throughput geosynchronous (GEO) satellites combined with OneWeb’s planned low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. Beginning in 2016, Gogo will expand its use of the Intelsat Globalized Network by purchasing additional capacity on Intelsat’s Ku-band infrastructure, a contiguous, resilient network within Intelsat’s 50 satellite system which covers 99 percent of the world’s populated regions.

Gogo’s Intelsat network infrastructure will initially include use of traditional wide beam services and the next generation high throughput satellite (HTS) Intelsat EpicNG platform, which is expected to enter service in 2016. Coverage will include HTS for the North Atlantic, Europe, Middle East, Asia and the Pacific Ocean provided by Intelsat 32e, Intelsat 33e and Horizons 3e. In 2019, Gogo’s 2KU system will begin to access the world’s first GEO/LEO shared network, an evolving service architecture that will incorporate the best features of Intelsat GEO and OneWeb LEO HTS capacity as the complete Intelsat EpicNG and OneWeb systems deploy. When the network is fully deployed, Gogo’s 2Ku systems will be able to dynamically route traffic across the fully global 10 Tbps shared network based on coverage, latency, throughput and other performance criteria.

“Gogo’s open strategy gives us the ability to look to the entire satellite market for innovation, and Intelsat’s EpicNG satellites combined with OneWeb’s LEO constellation offers numerous advantages for aviation,” said Gogo’s president and chief executive officer, Michael Small. “Gogo continues to invest in open platforms that leverage the best connectivity technologies for aviation, because single technology, closed systems will not survive the test of time.”

http://www.intelsat.com/global-network/satellites/epicng/

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Entel Chile Brings LTE to Rapa Nui with O3b Satellite

Entel Chile has enabled 3G, LTE and broadband Internet services on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) using satellite backhaul from O3B Networks.

Easter Island, which has a population of less than 6,000, is the most remote part of the Entel networ, lying almost 3,700km from mainland Chile in the Polynesian Triangle.  The island is visited by more than 80,000 tourists per year.

O3b satellites orbit much closer to Earth than conventional geostationary satellites. The O3bTrunk service employed by Entel delivers latency equivalent to long haul fiber, with round-trip times of less than 150 milliseconds. This allows access to improved quality voice, streaming HD video, social media, online gaming, enterprise software applications and overall performance for the end-user on par with connections in Santiago or other mainland cities.

“We are excited to see that O3bTrunk is now live on Easter Island, a place right in the middle of the Pacific, which makes it very difficult to reach by terrestrial networks” said Omar Trujillo, VP Americas for O3b. “We are pleased to be enabling broadband, and a true 4G experience to the island’s residents, thanks to our low latency. We look forward to continuing our work with Entel to provide flexible, reliable and scalable solutions to difficult to reach areas in Chile, Peru and beyond.”

http://www.o3bnetworks.com/

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Seagate Demos 10 GB/s SSD -- Fastest to Date

Seagate Technology unveiled a production-ready unit of the fastest single solid-state drive (SSD) demonstrated to date, with throughput performance of 10 gigabytes per second (GB/s).

The early unit meets Open Compute Project (OCP) specifications, making it ideal for hyperscale data centers looking to adopt the fastest flash technology with the latest and most sustainable standards.

The 10GB/s unit, which is expected to be released this summer, is more than 4GB/s faster than the previous fastest-industry SSD on the market.

“Your data is only as good as how easily you can access it and put it to use,” said Brett Pemble, Seagate’s general manager and vice president of SSD Products. “Seagate is committed to providing the full spectrum of technologies to help meet the diverse needs of organizations so they can unlock this value. Whether for consumer cloud or business applications, this SSD will help improve on demands for fast access to information, where split seconds drive incremental value gains.”

http://www.seagate.com

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IDT Comments on U.S. Department of Commerce Ruling on ZTE

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) said the U.S. Department of Commerce ruling on ZTE is expected to have minimal impact on its financial performance.

IDT confirmed that ZTE is one of its customers and that ZTE-related revenue has historically ranged between approximately $3 million and $4 million per quarter.

http://www.idt.com

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Cisco Bets $500 Million on “Deutschland Digital” Initiative

Cisco announced an investment of $500 million in Germany over the next three years under a program called “Deutschland Digital” that focuses on innovation, security and education. Planned investments foresee funds for specific digitization projects, research projects, an expansion of the Cisco Networking Academy, and direct investments in venture funds, as well as to human resources and infrastructure spending. Cisco will expand its investment in start-ups and venture funds in Germany with priority areas such as security, cloud, and Internet of Things (IoT). The company also seeks to partner with the public sector and contribute to large-scale transformation projects such as smart cities and regions as well as healthcare and utility networks.

"Digitization goes beyond connectivity. It gives you the ability to secure data, act on data and deliver value based on data,” says Oliver Tuszik, general manager Cisco Germany. "Digitization benefits countries, cities, companies and every one of us. It creates competitiveness, improved public services and better quality of life, particularly amongst the demographic changes over the next years. We would like to make our contribution to this transformation, in addition to our ongoing investments."

Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco, commented: “Germany has long been known for its focus on innovation, and digitization opens up unprecedented opportunities for the country. With our increased investments in education, innovation and security, we can help create a digital Germany that can bring even greater value to the country and its citizens. Cisco is honored to partner with Germany on ‘Deutschland Digital.’”

http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1752243

• In Europe, Cisco previously announced investment plans for digitization acceleration in the U.K., France and Italy. “We all understand there is enormous potential in Germany through digitization”, says Tuszik. “Now, we need to accelerate and make it a success. This is where we want to make a contribution through our investment.”

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U.S. Dept. of Commerce Ruling Hits ZTE and Suppliers

The U.S. Department of Commerce has added ZTE to the list of entities involved in "activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States."

The Export Administration Regulations (EAR) listing, which limits the availability of most license exceptions on U.S. technology sales to ZTE, was driven by a finding that ZTE willingly resold restricted U.S. technology products to Iran during the period of economic sanctions,

The move could block U.S. semiconductor companies from selling to ZTE, potentially impacting a wide range of networking gear and mobile devices.

ZTE said it is working expeditiously towards resolution of this issue and that it is fully committed to compliance with the laws and regulations of the jurisdictions in which it operates.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-05104.pdf

FBI Opens Criminal Investigation into ZTE Shipments to Iran

Saturday, July 14, 2012  China, Legal, ZTE  No comments

The FBI has opened a criminal investigation into whether ZTE shipped U.S.-made networking components and surveillance equipment to Iran.  According to various news sources, including Reuters, The Washington Post and The Smoking Gun, various documents have emerged, including a shipping manifest, related to a $130 million sales contract between ZTE and the Telecommunications Company of Iran.  Equipment reportedly includes systems from Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Juniper, Microsoft, Oracle and Symantec.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/fbi-probes-zte-iran-deal-645912
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

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Mellanox Sets Out an Open Composable Network Framework

Mellanox Technologies unveiled its next-generation Open Composable Networks (OCN) platform aimed at helping enterprises and service providers to unlock performance and unleash innovation with predictable application performance and the efficiency of Web-Scale IT.

Mellanox said its OCN framework leverages the network disaggregation model pioneered by the hyperscale cloud operators, where functional independent modules are combined with open, clearly-defined abstraction interfaces.

Some highlights:

• The Mellanox end-to-end 25/50/100 Gb/s Ethernet portfolio includes Spectrum switches, ConnectX adapters, and LinkX cables.
• Mellanox has been a key contributor to the development open networking initiatives including OCP ONIE and SAI, and Linux switchdev, where Spectrum is the first switch supported upstream in Linux
• The Mellanox NEO management package enables network automation and software defined intelligence. Through integration with other cloud management platforms and Software Defined Networking (SDN) controllers, NEO helps to enhance network operational efficiency, and make network infrastructure easy to deploy, manage, and scale.

At this week's Open Compute Project Summit in San Jose, Mellanox will be showcasing OCN with a live demo of end-to-end 10/25, 50, 100 Gb/s network composed of LinkX cables, the new ConnectX-4 Lx based OCP adapter cards, and the flagship Spectrum Ethernet switches capable of running multiple network operating systems (NOS) and applications, including Cumulus Linux, OpenSwitch, Metaswitch IP Routing, and Mellanox MLNX-OS, running on open software interfaces such as OCP Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI) and Linux Switchdev.

In addition, Mellanox has added Cumulus Linux support for its Spectrum line of 10/25, 40/50, and 100 Gb/s Ethernet switches.

http://www.mellanox.com

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AT&T Introduces UC Collaboration Service

AT&T introduced a hosted voice and collaboration service aimed at improving employee productivity.

AT&T Collaborate provides a full array of cloud-based voice features and collaboration tools, such as instant messaging and presence, audio, video and web conferencing, and content sharing. The service offers more than 30 calling features, plus a mobile client for use on your smartphone or tablet. Service options include:

• AT&T Collaborate-Enhanced Voice – Includes additional voice features for employees with more advanced requirements such as selective call acceptance, alternate numbers, instant group calls and more.
• AT&T Collaborate-Unified Communications – Includes instant messaging, employee presence, desktop sharing and conferencing features.
• AT&T Collaborate-Contact Center – Includes basic agent and supervisor call center features as well as web client services.

"With AT&T Collaborate, you're able to design a collaboration solution that best fits your business needs – whether you need basic voice capabilities or a full unified communications experience," said Rick Hubbard, senior vice president, Networking Product Management, AT&T Business Solutions. "The solution provides a flexible way for you to connect your employees while helping control costs and complexity."

http://www.att.com/collaborate

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PLUMgrid Partners with Edgecore on OpenStack Cloud

Taiwan-based Edgecore Networks will resell PLUMgrid’s full SDN portfolio of solutions including its Open Networking Suite (ONS) for OpenStack, CloudApex SDN visualization and monitoring platform.

“Partnering with Edgecore brings their extensive networking and integrated solutions experience to our joint clients in Asia,” said PLUMgrid CEO Larry Lang. “Combining their expertise and knowledge of regional markets with our integrated ONS platform and SDN solutions dramatically advances OpenStack networking and delivers significant value to our enterprise and service provider clients.”

http://www.plumgrid.com/press-releases/2016/03/plumgrid-and-edgecore-networks-partner-to-deliver-openstack-cloud-solutions/

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Video: Apps, Virtualization, Security and the Cloud

Art Gilliland, CEO of Skyport Systems, discusses Application, Virtualization, Security and the Cloud at RSA 2016.

When you think about isolating applications or workloads, you want to be able to put security around them. Virtualization gives you a compartment to do that. But companies really need to think about how to manage those environments. Skyport addresses this challenge by bringing the new security perimeter all the way down to the application.

YouTube:  https://youtu.be/ULB7pmxJkRU

 

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Video: Defending the Whole: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS

Mark Nunnikhoven, VP of Cloud Research at Trend Micro, reflects on the Cloud Security Alliance Summit at #RSA2016.  Enterprises are using a lot of cloud services, each of which may have its own security implementation.  Taken together, implementing a consistent security stance becomes a challenge, which the industry is starting to address.  The roadmap is bright.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/uEKIG_CE77g

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Video: Malware Attack Fan-out via Cloud Storage Converge! Network Digest Converge! Network Digest

Cloud storage services are popular but they are becoming a vector for the rapid spread of malware.  Krishna Narayanaswamy, Founder and Chief Scientist at Netskope, describes how malware is the start of a sophisticated attack cycle.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/Cy5Z9AbuHwI

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Video: As Perimeter Defenses Fail, Harden the Interior

Almost all cyber intrusions involve a failure of perimeter defenses, says Leo Taddeo, Chief Security Officer at Cryptzone.  It's time to harden the interior of the corporate network.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/hCMYkMXVqyQ

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Hughes to Provide Satellite Backhaul for Entel Bolivia

Entel Bolivia has selected Hughes Network Systems' JUPITER System to extend cellular and Internet access in remote areas. Entel serves more than 4.5 million users in Bolivia.

Under the deal, Hughes will provide a JUPITER System gateway and approximately 550 terminals to power Entel's delivery of Internet access service in remote areas and for satellite backhaul of 3G and 4G LTE cellular base stations. The services will operate in the Ku-band satellite spectrum over the Túpac Katari 1 satellite.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

The Hughes JUPITER System features a flexible and robust gateway architecture with lights-out operation, enhanced IPoS air interface for bandwidth efficiency, and high-throughput terminals, enabling operators to achieve the highest possible capacity and efficiency for any satellite broadband implementation. The underlying technology is the powerful JUPITER System on a Chip (SoC), a custom–designed microprocessor employing a multi-core architecture and enabling 100 Mbps of throughput on every terminal in the JUPITER family.

"We are proud to have been chosen by Entel Bolivia for this very important initiative to close the digital divide in Bolivia," said Hugo Frega, senior sales director of the Central America and Latin America (CALA) region for Hughes. "Satellite is the ideal technology for extending connectivity to remote areas beyond the reach of traditional terrestrial options, and our JUPITER System is the proven market leader in supplying high-availability and high-performance networks to support cellular and Internet access worldwide."

http://www.hughes.com

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