Vasona Raises $14.6 Million for Mobile Edge Platform

Vasona Networks, a start-up based in San Jose, California with R&D in Tel Aviv, secured $14.6 million in series C funding for its platform for mobile network capacity, resource management and edge intelligence.

Key Vasona Networks offerings include the SmartAIR edge application controller and SmartVISION analysis suite. These platforms leverage edge locations between core and radio access networks, which is a key position for precise traffic management and monitoring at scale. SmartAIR assesses each cell’s conditions and acts on congestion in real time, taking into account the cause and the subscriber’s location. SmartVISION gives unprecedented live and historical visibility into networks at the level of individual cell performance.

The company said it is deployed by several tier-one mobile network operators in four of the world’s largest cities, including announced use by Telefónica UK in its London O2 system.

Participants in the funding round include Bessemer Venture Partners, New Venture Partners and NexStar Partners.  This brings total funds raised by the company to $48 million.

“We are working with the world’s top mobile network operators on pressing and emerging needs, including the constant pursuit of better mobile experiences,” says Vasona Networks CEO Biren Sood. “As operators turn their focus to edge-based traffic management for the most value, flexibility and control, our capabilities best meet business and network demands in any market.”

http://www.vasonanetworks.com/

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Coriant Launches Multi-layer Network Optimization and Planning

Coriant introduced a Multi-layer Network Optimization and Migration Planning Service to help network operators optimize multi-layer (Layer 0-3) network resources while reducing the operational cost and complexity associated with service deployment and time-to-revenue.

Key benefits of the vendor-agnostic service include:

• Improve multi-layer network efficiency by optimizing network design based on traffic patterns
• Reclaim network resources through advanced multi-layer network defragmentation capabilities and capacity analysis
• Identify potential network capacity bottlenecks to eliminate service delays and inefficient use of resources
• Simplify operations by dramatically reducing the effort required to plan new services for the short and the long term
• Expedite business case development (including potential space and power savings) for migration from legacy infrastructure to the latest and most suitable technology

“As video and cloud services drive unprecedented data growth and more dynamic traffic workloads, it is increasingly important to ensure that IP and optical transport networking resources are utilized in the most efficient way,” said Tarcisio Ribeiro, Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Services. “This new service leverages Coriant’s expertise in IP and optical networking to facilitate OpEx- and CapEx-optimized planning and implementation as networks evolve to support a new generation of cloud-centric services and applications.”

http://www.coriant.com

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Germany's Energy Grid Deploys Ciena

Open Grid Europe, Germany's leading natural gas transmission network, is working with Ciena, in consultation with Kapsch CarrierCom, to deploy a dedicated communications network backbone.

The programmable network will enable Open Grid Europe’s intelligent coordination of gas transmission and sustainable energy supply. The deployment includes Ciena’s 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and unified management capability.

http://www.ciena.com

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Nokia Offers Passive Optical Alternative to Ethernet

Nokia is launching a Passive Optical LAN (POL) solution that is positioned as an alternative to a copper-based Ethernet LANs for operators, enterprises, governments, healthcare and hospitality providers, and higher education institutions.

Nokia said its POL solution, which leverages existing GPON technology, is less costly and requires, on average, 50 percent less space to deploy and power to run than traditional Ethernet based LANs.

To better serve customers around the world, Nokia is collaborating on the launch with global system integrators, resellers and distributors including IBM and KDDI.

Nokia's POL solution includes:

• 7360 ISAM FX high-capacity fiber platform
• 7368 ISAM ONT fiber termination points
• 5571 POL command center (PCC) intuitive management system

Federico Guillen, president of Nokia's Fixed Networks business group, said: "New solutions for enterprise LAN are needed due to growing capacity needs, management complexity, network maintenance and high upgrade costs.  Passive optical LAN provides a viable, simple and cost-effective alternative, and will accommodate the evolving connectivity needs of organizations today and in the future."

http://www.nokia.com

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ZTE's Revenue Tops RMB100.1 Billion in 2015

ZTE's full operating revenues for 2015 topped RMB100.19 billion (US$15.62 billion), while operating cash flow and cash dividend hit historic highs as sales in 4G products, smart city and emerging ICT technologies pushed operating revenues up 23% compared to 2014.

The ZTE Group reported net profit attributable to holders of ordinary shares of the listed company of RMB3.21 billion for 2015, with basic earnings per share amounting to RMB0.78. The Group’s operating cash flow was RMB7.405 billion according to PRC ASBEs, was an all-time record for the Group. While the cash dividend totaled RMB1.038 billion was the highest ever in the history of the Group.

2015 highlights:

In 2015, domestic carriers expanded the scale of construction of planned 4G networks and their ancillary facilities following the issuance of FDD-LTE permits. Carriers were increasingly concerned with and increased their investments in Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Big Data, Smart City and high-end routers, although investments in equipment remained focused on wireless, transmission, access and broadband sectors.

The trend of growing equipment investment in the global telecommunications industry continued in 2015, with enormous opportunities for innovation provided by Industry 4.0, Smart City, informatisation of the medical sector, informatisation of the education sector, mobile e-commerce, agricultural modernisation and other developments.

Domestically, the Group reported operating revenue of RMB53.11 billion, accounting for 53% of the Group’s overall operating revenue. The issuance of FDD-LTE permits, “Internet+” and the rush for optical fibre upgrades drove further growth in investments in 4G equipment and broadband networks. Meanwhile, the Group also vigorously expanded its cloud computing and Big Data services, Smart City and high-end routers.

For the international market, the Group reported operating revenue of RMB47.08 billion, accounting for 47.0% of the Group’s operating revenue. The Group continued to implement its strategy of focusing on populous nations and mainstream carriers and deepen partnerships with mainstream carriers in the global market to help these carriers add value through Internet applications. The Group’s global operator strategy targeting the top 125 carriers generated over 25.2% growth in revenue from the largest providers in Europe and the US. In Europe, significant partnerships and initiatives were forged with Spain’s Telefonica, Hutchison Drei Austria, Telenor in Norway and Dutch carrier VimpelCom.

During the year, the Group reported operating revenue of RMB57.22 billion for carriers’ networks. Operating revenue for government and corporate business amounted to RMB10.50 billion. Operating revenue for the consumer business amounted to RMB32.47 billion.

Carrier networks

For carrier networks and wireless products, the Group persisted in prioritizing and breaking into the high-end markets of Europe and North America with cutting-edge innovations in Massive MIMO, Cloud Radio, QCell, UBR and Magic Radio technologies. The Group also made significant breakthroughs in the research of key 5G technologies and successfully deployed its commercially ready Pre-5G technology. ZTE has successfully partnered with China Mobile, Softbank, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, KT Corporation and U Mobile in 5G and Pre-5G initiatives.

In connection with wireline and optical communications products, the Group sustained stable growth thanks to dedicated efforts in product innovation and solution operations. The growth also stemmed from ongoing improvements in product competitiveness, leadership in terms of new technology categories, optimised global market development and the reinforced strategy of focusing on populous nations and mainstream carriers.

Government and corporate business

In connection with cloud computing and emerging ICT technologies, the Group strengthened its R&D and investment in RCS, Big Video, Cloud Computing, Big Data and Internet of Things as core elements of its M-ICT master strategy. The establishment of data centres in domestic and international markets was expedited and breakthrough achievements were made in the research of cutting-edge developments such as Big Video solutions and smart Q&A systems.

Seizing opportunities afforded by global digitalization, Smart City construction, “Internet+” and autonomous and controllable information security, ZTE achieved rapid growth in sectors such as finance, Internet, new energy, transport and Smart City.

Consumer business

The Group persisted in the shift of focus to consumer products and an Internet-driven mentality. ZTE smartphone shipments totaled over 56 million, growing 16% year on year, with overseas shipments exceeding 70% growth and establishing market leadership in several major countries. In 2015, ZTE sold 15 million smart phones in the US, growing over 30% year and breaking into the top four providers. ZTE ranked number one in the paid market in Australia; third in Russia (10% market share), and top 4-5 in Turkey, Mexico, South Africa.

In connection with handset terminals, the Group continued to take its global strategic setup to further depths with a strong focus on major nations, refined products, channel enhancement, branding, product quality control and team building, while paying close attention to customer experience and vigorously driving transformation.

http://www.zte.com.cn

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NVIDIA Unveils GPU Accelerators for Deep Learning AI

NVIDIA unveiled its most advanced accelerator to date -- the Tesla P100 -- based on Pascal architecture and composed of an array of Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs), Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), and memory controllers. The Tesla P100, which is implemented in 16nm FinFET on a massive 610mm²die, enables a new class of servers that can deliver the performance of hundreds of CPU server nodes.

NVIDIA said its accelerator brings five breakthroughs:

• NVIDIA Pascal architecture for exponential performance leap -- a Pascal-based Tesla P100 solution delivers over a 12x increase in neural network training performance compared with a previous-generation NVIDIA Maxwell-based solution.
• NVIDIA NVLink for maximum application scalability -- The NVIDIA NVLink high-speed GPU interconnect scales applications across multiple GPUs, delivering a 5x acceleration in bandwidth compared to today's best-in-class solution. Up to eight Tesla P100 GPUs can be interconnected with NVLink to maximize application performance in a single node, and IBM has implemented NVLink on its POWER8 CPUs for fast CPU-to-GPU communication.
• 16nm FinFET for unprecedented energy efficiency -- with 15.3 billion transistors built on 16 nanometer FinFET fabrication technology, the Pascal GPU is the world's largest FinFET chip ever built.
• CoWoS with HBM2 for big data workloads -- the Pascal architecture unifies processor and data into a single package to deliver unprecedented compute efficiency. An innovative approach to memory design, Chip on Wafer on Substrate (CoWoS) with HBM2, provides a 3x boost in memory bandwidth performance, or 720GB/sec, compared to the Maxwell architecture.
• New AI algorithms for peak performance -- new half-precision instructions deliver more than 21 teraflops of peak performance for deep learning.

At its GPU Technology conference in San Jose, Nvidia also unveiled its DGX-1 Deep Learning supercomputer. It is a turnkey system that integrates eight Tesla P100 GPU accelerators, delivering the equivalent throughput of 250 x86 servers.

"Artificial intelligence is the most far-reaching technological advancement in our lifetime," said Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO and co-founder of NVIDIA. "It changes every industry, every company, everything. It will open up markets to benefit everyone. Data scientists and AI researchers today spend far too much time on home-brewed high performance computing solutions. The DGX-1 is easy to deploy and was created for one purpose: to unlock the powers of superhuman capabilities and apply them to problems that were once unsolvable."

"NVIDIA GPU is accelerating progress in AI. As neural nets become larger and larger, we not only need faster GPUs with larger and faster memory, but also much faster GPU-to-GPU communication, as well as hardware that can take advantage of reduced-precision arithmetic. This is precisely what Pascal delivers," said Yann LeCun, director of AI Research at Facebook.

http://nvidianews.nvidia.com

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Ericsson to Acquire NodePrime for Hyperscale Data Center Automation

Ericsson agreed to acquire NodePrime, a start-up offering a hyperscale data center management platform. The company is based in San Francisco.  Financial terms were not disclosed.

NodePrime's mission is to enable companies to centrally view, diagnose and control their IT infrastructure in minutes using tools similar to those used by Google and Facebook. The idea is to fix the current siloed approach to machine data collection and automation, by allowing systems administrators to rapidly reduce the amount of time spent provisioning and managing the lifecycle of data centers. It provides a full stack of data, tools and APIs across disparate platform and hardware vendors.

NodePrime is integrated into the Ericsson Hyperscale Datacenter System 8000. The software enables discovery, analysis and automated configuration of existing and new datacenter hardware platforms. This allows datacenters to become hyperscale and adopt distributed infrastructure.

Ericsson said that by acquiring Nodeprime's competence, it will reduce sourcing risk and secure control of roadmap direction and acceleration.

James Malachowski, co-founder and CEO of NodePrime said: "Our vision from the start was to transform the infrastructure into a single entity where it's entirely possible to grasp the management of hyperscale data center infrastructure through the collection of trillions of associated metrics inside one view.

Anders Lindblad, Vice President, Head of Business Unit Cloud & IP said: "We at Ericsson continue to accelerate the creation of the software defined datacenter market, to benefit our customers. NodePrime has unique talent and was a clear choice to bring inside Ericsson. We believe in innovation coming from the Silicon Valley area and will continue to increase our presence and distribution of such innovation"

In October 2015, NodePrime announced $7 million in seed funding. Investors included Menlo Ventures, NEA, Formation 8, Ericsson, Initialized Capital, Crosslink Capital and TEEC Angel Fund. NodePrime said SAP, Ericsson and GoDaddy were already using its platform.

http://www.nodeprime.com/
http://www.ericsson.com

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ZTE Appoints Chairman and CEO, Shakes Up Board

Mr. Zhao Xianming was elected as the Chairman of ZTE and Mr. Zhang Jianheng and Mr. Luan Jubao were elected as the Vice Chairmen. The company also announced the appointment of Mr. Zhu Wuxiang, Mr. Luan Jubao, Mr. Shi Lirong, Mr. Wang Yawen, Mr. Richard Xike Zhang, Mr. Lü Hongbing and Mr. Bingsheng Teng as members of the Board's Nomination Committee.

Mr. Zhao Xianming was also appointed the President of ZTE. Mr. Wei Zaisheng, Mr. Fan Qingfeng, Mr. Zeng Xuezhong Mr. Xu Huijun, Mr. Pang Shengqing, Mr. Zhang Zhenhui and Mr. Chen Jianzhou were appointed Executive Vice Presidents of the company. Mr. Wei Zaisheng was appointed Chief Financial Officer and Ms. Cao Wei was appointed Secretary to the Board of Directors.

http://www.zte.com.cn/

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Dell Expands Hyper-Converged Appliances with VCE VxRail

Dell expanded its portfolio of hyper-converged infrastructure products, combining storage, compute and networking functions into a single solution or appliance, typically for virtualized environments. New additions include VCE VxRail appliances and VxRack systems, Dell XC Series hyper-converged appliances, and VMware Virtual SAN Ready Nodes based on Dell PowerEdge servers.

"Dell’s hyper-converged infrastructure approach is consistent with our overall philosophy, which focuses on enabling customer outcomes versus pushing a one-size-fits-all agenda," said Marius Haas, chief commercial officer and president, Enterprise Solutions, Dell.

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/press-releases/2016-04-05-dell-delivers-industrys-broadest-hci-portfolio

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Palo Alto Networks Adds Cloud Security Features

The latest version of Palo Alto Networks' PAN-OS adds important breach prevention capabilities of the platform and addresses the security needs of businesses working with cloud-based environments and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

Specifically, PAN-OS 7.1, extends the breach prevention capabilities of the security platform to all major clouds and provides visibility, control, and threat prevention designed to protect customer data regardless of where it resides. Additionally, among the new features are certificate and two-factor authentication advancements that help protect user credentials or neutralize them if they are stolen.

Some key features:

• Secure Any Cloud – By adding Microsoft Azure and Hyper-V support for the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and by enhancing VM-Series auto-scaling support in AWS, organizations can achieve a scalable security architecture that enables consistent prevention measures to be deployed from the network, to the public and private cloud, and to the remote user. 
• Embrace SaaS – With the release of PAN-OS 7.1 and the newest update to Aperture, Palo Alto Networks adds to its extensive SaaS application capabilities to safely enable Office 365 deployments. 
• Accelerate Preventative Action With Threat Intelligence – With new capabilities supported in the WildFire threat prevention and AutoFocus threat intelligence services, and PAN-OS, organizations can discover zero-day malware targeting the Mac OS X platform and prevent attacks with the global WildFire feed, now published every five minutes. PAN-OS 7.1 now fully supports Mac OS X signatures and the ability to send Mac OS X files to the cloud. AutoFocus now can add context to every attack and make threat intelligence actionable across the organization.
• Prevent Breaches With Secure User Credentials – By streamlining the user experience associated with two-factor authentication in GlobalProtect mobile security, organizations can neutralize stolen user credentials. Additionally, enhancements to WildFire and PAN-DB help prevent identity theft from happening in the first place by stopping known and unknown attacks and preventing phishing attempts.

https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/

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NEC Begins Work on South Atlantic Cable System

NEC is beginning construction of the South Atlantic Cable System (SACS), the first subsea fiber optic cable system ever to connect Africa and South America in the southern hemisphere.

SACS will span 6,200 km across the South Atlantic, connecting Luanda, Angola and Fortaleza, Brazil. From Fortaleza, SACS can be connected to another cable system which stretches to Miami Florida. The system will have an initial design capacity of 40 Tpbs (100Gbps x 100 wavelengths x 4 fiber pairs). It will also employ an SDN control plane. Commissioning is expected in the middle of 2018.

SACS is expected to cost $160 million and will be partially co-funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) with the support of Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) through the Banco de Desenvolvimento de Angola (BDA).

"Our main objective is to improve the quality of communications between Africa and the Americas, creating a totally new route in the south hemisphere, providing term and peak capacity product offerings and support for the region's expanding data requirements of today and for tomorrow," says Antonio Nunes, CEO of Angola Cables. "SACS will be constructed using state-of-the-art technology, with 100G-coherent design for low latency, reliable delivery for even the most demanding bandwidth needs and direct data centre to data centre connectivity across the Atlantic."

http://www.angolacables.co.ao
http://www.nec.co.jp

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Intel Reorganizes its Reporting Structure

Beginning with its upcoming quarterly financial statement, Intel will report its results in the following operating segments:

• Client Computing Group (CCG)
• Data Center Group (DCG) - includes platforms designed for enterprise, cloud, communications infrastructure, and technical computing segments.
• Internet of Things Group (IOTG)
• Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG)
• Intel Security Group (ISecG)
• Programmable Solutions Group (PSG) - (the newly acquired Altera)
• All other
• New Technology Group (NTG)

http://www.intel.com

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Ethernet Alliance's 2016 Ethernet Roadmap

Scott Kipp, President of the Ethernet Alliance, gives an overview of the 2016 Ethernet Roadmap, including a look at new speeds under development, the different types of copper and optical modules, and the new Flex Ethernet.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/jyXnbQbuPXA

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Mellanox Introduces InfiniBand Router

Mellanox Technologies introduced a new line of InfiniBand router systems based on its Switch-IB switch ASIC and aimed at next generation mega data centers.

The new EDR 100Gb/s InfiniBand Routers offers 36 EDR 100Gb/s ports, which can be split among six different subnets.

Mellanox said its new InfiniBand Router brings increases resiliency by segregating the data center’s network into several subnets; with each subnet running its own subnet-manager (SM) thereby effectively isolating each subnet, and thus providing better availability and stability. For example, the storage subnets may use a Fat-Tree topology while the compute subnets may use 3D-torus, DragonFly+, Fat-Tree or other topologies that best fit the local application. The SB7780 can also help split the cluster in order to segregate between applications that run best on localized resources and between applications that require a full fabric. The design also enables scaling the fabric up to a virtually unlimited number of nodes.

"The SB7780 InfiniBand Router adds another layer to Mellanox's solutions that pave the road to Exascale solutions," said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing at Mellanox. "This new InfiniBand Router gives us the ability to scale up to a virtually unlimited number of nodes and yet sustain the data processing demands of machine learning, IoT, HPC and cloud applications. Mellanox's EDR 100Gb/s InfiniBand solutions, together with the SB7780 router, represent the only scalable solution currently available on the market that support these needs."

http://www.mellanox.com/

Mellanox Intros 100Gbps InfiniBand Switch

Thursday, November 12, 2015  Infiniband, Mellanox  No comments

Mellanox Technologies introduced its next generation InfiniBand switch for High-Performance Computing, Web 2.0, database and cloud data centers.

The Mellanox Switch-IB 2 is capable of 100 Gbps per port speeds and is the world's first smart network switch that offloads MPI operations from the CPU to the network to deliver 10X performance improvements. It integrates 144 SerDes which can operate at 1Gbps to 25Gbps speeds per lane and delivers 7.02 billion messages-per-second, 90ns switch latency and low power consumption, making Switch-IB 2 the best solution for high-performance computing, cloud, Web 2.0, database and storage centers.

Mellanox said a major innovation is that the switch can manage collective communications (MPI and SHMEM) using embedded hardware, decreading the amount of data traversing the network, reducing application latency with additional benefit of freeing up CPU resources for computation rather than using them to process communication.

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GigOptix Acquires Magnum Semi - Changes Name to GigPeak

GigOptix agreed to acquire Magnum Semiconductor for approximately $55 million.

Magnum, which is based in Milpitas, California, aupplies ICs, SoCs, software, and IP for the professional video broadcast and IoT camera markets. The privately-held company claims approximately $19 million in revenue in FY 2015.

GigOptix also announced that it is changing its name to GigPeak, Inc., and that it will continue to trade on the NYSE MKT exchange under the symbol “GIG.”

The company said its corporate rebranding reflects its broadening scope, uniting GigOptix’s high-speed enterprise networking connectivity portfolio with Magnum’s expertise in video broadcasting, compression, and analytics.

“We have a long and proven track record of acquiring and integrating cutting edge technology companies in the most financially prudent manner. The acquisition of Magnum Semiconductor, our eighth acquisition since inception, is another important step in realizing our initial 2007 roadmap vision and strategic plan to expand GigOptix through inorganic and organic growth. With the addition of Magnum Semiconductor, we have taken a meaningful step in expanding our product portfolio to further enhance our mission of enabling high-speed and high-quality information streaming end-to-end over the network, from the core to the consumer,” said Dr. Avi Katz, GigOptix’s Founder, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer.

http://www.gigoptix.com/

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Brocade to Acquire Ruckus Wireless for $1.5 Billion

Brocade agreed to acquire Ruckus Wireless in a deal valued at approximately $1.5 billion, consisting of $6.45 in cash and 0.75 shares of Brocade common stock for each share of Ruckus common stock.

Ruckus' wireless products add to Brocade's enterprise portfolio and will also significantly strengthen Brocade's strategic presence in the broader service provider space. Ruckus has over $370 million in annual revenue and over 1,000 employees worldwide. Ruckus Wireless' current CEO, Selina Lo, will continue to lead this division, reporting to Brocade CEO, Lloyd Carney.  Ruckus is based in Sunnyvale, California, not far from the Brocade headquarters.

"This strategic combination will position us to expand our addressable market and technology leadership with Ruckus' fast-growing wireless LAN products, and supports our vision to deliver market-leading New IP solutions that enable the network to become a platform for innovation," said Lloyd Carney.

"The combination of our two companies will create an exciting new thought leader in networking and significant opportunities for our stakeholders to participate in the combined company's future growth potential," said Selina Lo. "We operate in adjacent segments of the larger networking market with a number of common customers for our complementary products, and have a successful track record of working together."

An investor presentation is on the Brocade website.

http://newsroom.brocade.com/

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Samsung: First 10-Nanometer Class DRAM Enters Production

Samsung Electronics announced the start of mass production of the industry’s first 10-nanometer (nm) class, 8-gigabit (Gb) DDR4 (double-data-rate-4) DRAM chips and the modules derived from them. The milestone is expected to accelerate the industry-wide shift to advanced DDR4 products.

The production of Samsung's 10nm-class DRAM uses ArF (argon fluoride) immersion lithography, free from the use of EUV (extreme ultra violet) equipment.

“Samsung’s 10nm-class DRAM will enable the highest level of investment efficiency in IT systems, thereby becoming a new growth engine for the global memory industry,” said Young-Hyun Jun, President of Memory Business, Samsung Electronics. “In the near future, we will also launch next-generation, 10nm-class mobile DRAM products with high densities to help mobile manufacturers develop even more innovative products that add to the convenience of mobile device users.”

The new DRAM supports a data transfer rate of 3,200 Mbps, which is more than 30 percent faster than the 2,400Mbps rate of 20nm DDR4 DRAM. Also, new modules produced from the 10nm-class DRAM chips consume 10 to 20 percent less power, compared to their 20nm-process-based equivalents, which will improve the design efficiency of next-generation, high-performance computing (HPC) systems and other large enterprise networks, as well as being used for the PC and mainstream server markets.

http://www.samsung.com

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HPE Sells its Stake in Mphasis - IT Services Arm in Bangalore

Hewlett Packard Enterprise will sell its equity stake in Mphasis Limited, an IT services provider in Bangalore, to private equity funds managed by The Blackstone Group, for US$825 million.  Specifically, Blackstone will purchase at least 84% of HPE's stake in Mphasis for INR 430 per share. Blackstone will purchase the maximum amount of the remaining 16% stake that is permitted by Indian securities laws and subject to the outcome of a mandatory tender offer between signing and closing.

"While our financial relationship is changing, the business and commercial relationship with Mphasis remains an important part of our service delivery strategy," said Mike Nefkens, EVP and GM of HPE Enterprise Services. "We remain committed to our strategic partnership with Mphasis and to providing our customers with the high level of service and support they expect from HPE."

In fiscal year 2015, HPE recognized approximately $650 million of revenue and $110 million of operating profit from Mphasis.

http://www8.hp.com/

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Malaysia's PCS Deploys Infinera Mobile Fronthaul

Kaula Lumpur-based Platinum Core Solutions (PCS) has deployed the Infinera Mobile Fronthaul Solution to provide a mobile wholesale service from the central office all the way to a shared cell tower in Malaysia.

Specifically, PCS deployed Infinera’s Mobile Fronthaul Solution in its network to support mobile operator customers as they migrate to the C-RAN architecture. The mobile fronthaul network is part of a wider wholesale offering that spans from the central office locations of PCS’ customers to a new shared tower facility.

Infinera said its Mobile Fronthaul Solution enables PCS to deliver an economically advantageous mobile network that supports multiple mobile operators using the same infrastructure. The Infinera Mobile Fronthaul Solution is designed to support all Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) and Open Base Station Architecture Initiative (OBSAI) rates, ranging from 614 megabits per second to 12 gigabits per second. By deploying the passive option of the Infinera Mobile Fronthaul Solution, PCS benefits from a highly flexible infrastructure across its network that is capable of supporting the company’s mobile operator customers as their capacity demands grow.

“PCS’ deployment of the Infinera Mobile Fronthaul Solution is the first in Malaysia, leading what we expect to be global adoption of this commercially deployable fiber-deep WDM technology,” said Andrew Bond-Webster, vice president of APAC Sales at Infinera. “With this deployment, PCS enables mobile operators to roll out advanced C-RAN architectures to support the massive growth of mobile data that is expected to continue for the next several years.”

http://www.infinera.com

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Affirmed Releases Service Automation Platform

Affirmed Networks introduced its Affirmed Service Automation Platform (ASAP) for legacy and virtualized networks of mobile operators.

Affirmed Networks said its solution provides broad service automation across a wide range of standard network element interfaces, enabling non-programmers to quickly create service templates or recipes from existing methods of procedure (MOPs) and execute those recipes across the entire network.

"Today, NFV is being deployed globally as a result of the transformational benefits it can provide in terms of both cost savings and revenue-creation," said Angela Whiteford, Affirmed Networks' Vice President, Product Management and Marketing.  "Automation is the missing link that enables rapid service creation in legacy and virtualized environments and allows operators to create new services that were not possible before in their current environment."

http://www.affirmednetworks.com/

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