Cavium's ARM-based ThunderX2 Powers Microsoft's Project Olympus Server

At the Open Compute Summit in Santa Clara, California, Cavium announced that its ThunderX2 ARMv8-A Data Center processor is being tested by Microsoft for running a variety of workloads on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

The ThunderX2 product family is Cavium's second generation 64-bit ARMv8-A server processor SoCs for Data Center, Cloud and High Performance Computing applications. The family integrates fully out-of-order high performance custom cores supporting single and dual socket configurations. ThunderX2 is optimized to drive high computational performance delivering outstanding memory bandwidth and memory capacity.

Cavium said its hardware platform is fully compliant with Microsoft's Project Olympus which is one of the most modular and flexible cloud hardware designs in the data center industry. The platform integrates two ThunderX2 processors in a dual socket configuration. ThunderX2 SoC integrates a large number of fully out-of-order custom ARMv8-A cores with rich IO connectivity for accommodating a variety of peripherals for Azure, delivering excellent throughput and latency for cloud applications. The platform has been designed in collaboration with a leading server ODM supplier for Microsoft.

"Cavium is excited to work with Microsoft on ThunderX2," said Gopal Hegde, VP/GM, Data Center Processor Group at Cavium. "ARM-based servers have come a long way with first generation ThunderX-based server platforms being deployed at multiple data centers, which enabled a critical mass of ecosystem partners for ARM. We see the second generation products helping to drive a tipping point for ARM server deployment across a mainstream set of volume applications. Microsoft's support will help accelerate commercial deployment of ARMv8 server platforms for Data Centers and Cloud."

http://www.cavium.com

Read More

Mellanox Enables IPCIe Gen-4 OpenPOWER-Based Rackspace OCP Server

Mellanox Technologies is supplying its ConnectX-5 Open Compute Project (OCP) Ethernet adapter to enable the world’s first PCIe Gen-4 OpenPOWER/OCP-based Zaius, the open server platform from Google and Rackspace.

Mellanox’s ConnectX-5 supports both InfiniBand and Ethernet at 10/25/50/100 Gbps. It is also the first adapter to support PCIe Express Gen 4.0 for full 200Gb/s data throughput to servers and storage platforms.

Mellanox said its ConnectX-5 also supports Multi-Host technology, which disaggregates the network and enables building new scale-out heterogeneous compute and storage racks with direct connectivity from multiple processors to shared network controller. Mellanox Multi-Host technology is available today in the Mellanox portfolio of ConnectX-4 Lx, ConnectX-4, and ConnectX-5 adapters at speeds of 50 and 100Gb/s.

“We anticipate that Zaius and our Barreleye G2 server solution will bring new levels of performance and efficiency to our portfolio,” said Aaron Sullivan, Distinguished Engineer, Rackspace. “This platform combines IBM’s Power9 processor with PCI Express Gen4, and Mellanox ConnectX-5 network adapters. Leveraging these technologies, it is now possible to deliver hundreds of gigabits of bandwidth from a single network adapter.”

“IBM, the OpenPOWER Foundation and its members are fostering an open ecosystem for innovation to unleash the power of cognitive and AI computing platforms,” said Ken King, IBM general manager of OpenPOWER. “The combination of the POWER processor and Mellanox ConnectX-5 technology, using novel interfaces like CAPI and OpenCAPI, will dramatically increase system throughput for the next generation of advanced analytics, AI and cognitive applications.”

“Mellanox has been committed to OCP’s vision from its inception and we are excited to bring continued innovation to this growing community,” said Kevin Deierling, vice president marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Through collaboration between IBM and Rackspace, we continue to push the boundaries of innovation, enable open platforms and unlock performance of compute and storage infrastructure.”

http://www.mellanox.com

Read More

Radisys Announces DCEngine Release 1.0 Management Software

Radisys announced its DCEngine Management Software Release 1.0 for optimizing resources for hyperscale data centers,

The software is now available and shipping integrated with Radisys’ DCEngine product line, which is an open hardware platform based on the Open Compute Project (OCP) CG-OpenRack-19 specification. The specification is a scalable carrier-grade rack level system that integrates high performance compute, storage and networking in a standard 19 inch rack. Future DCEngine Management Software releases will extend these capabilities with a focus on facilitating the deployment and integration of the DCEngine hyperscale data center solution into existing SDN-enabled ecosystems.

Highlights of DCEngine Management Software Release 1.0

• Intel Rack Scale Design APIs to enable dynamic composition of resources based on workload specific demands
• Modules for leading data center orchestration frameworks, such as Ansible, to make firmware updates easy and convenient
• Redfish Interface 1.0 protocol support

“CSPs are evolving their virtualization strategies and deploying data center infrastructure to support high availability applications such as virtualized network functions and real-time data analytics,” said Bryan Sadowski, vice president, FlowEngine and DCEngine, Radisys. “Our new management software for DCEngine delivers essential hardware resource management capabilities that are increasingly needed in this new ecosystem. We’ve reduced the operational pain points for rack scale deployments and operations by building a suite of tools that enable automated and convenient configuration as well as resource management to meet CSPs’ evolving requirements.”

http://www.radisys.com

Read More

Fujitsu Labs Unveils Tech for Multi-location Virtual Networks

Fujitsu Laboratories and Fujitsu Laboratories of America have announced the development of technology designed to simplify the delivery and operation of virtual network infrastructures that span multiple clouds and corporate networks.

The company noted that using conventional technology it is possible to build virtual network infrastructure within an individual cloud or corporate location utilising software defined networking (SDN) technology. However, virtual network infrastructure spanning multiple clouds and locations can require a different set-up for each cloud and location and manual configuration to connect each element of the IT infrastructure.

To address this issue, Fujitsu has developed software technology that abstracts the structural elements of networks in the IT infrastructure and which can support design, build, management and operation across multiple IT infrastructures. The company claims the technology can enable virtual network infrastructure to be built in one-tenth the time required with conventional technology for a virtual network infrastructure encompassing one cloud and a location with a few dozen devices.

The now solution developed by Fujitsu Labs and Fujitsu Labs of America functions by abstracting the structural elements of IT infrastructure to enable automated design and deployment of IT infrastructure that extends across multiple locations, while managing and operating the system as a single network infrastructure.

The new technology features elements as follows:

1. IT infrastructure abstraction via modelling of structural elements of IT infrastructure using logical software components to enable key features such as element configuration and operational status monitoring, allowing users to automatically build and operate virtual network infrastructures across multiple instances of IT infrastructure.

2. Virtual network function automatic supplemental technology to support the conversion from a logical to a virtual network infrastructure through deriving the designer's plans from the connection status of the logical network, automatically supplementing network functions by checking the connections between objects at different levels, such as IT infrastructure, subnets and nodes located at each end of a connection.

Fujitsu Labs stated that using the technology it is possible, for example, for a single engineer to design and configure a virtual infrastructure across one cloud and a location with a dozens of devices within one day. In addition, when migrating enterprise systems to the cloud it is possible to rapidly implement a project by performing operations on the logical network, or when setting up a network at multiple locations, by designing one logical network and then implementing a virtual network at each location.

Fujitsu Labs plan to continue development of additional functions for lifecycle management in logical networks using the technology, with the aim that Fujitsu will be able to provide sales as a network management function for enterprise users of cloud services after fiscal 2017.

http://www.fujitsu.com/global/about/resources/news/press-releases/2017/0307-01.html

Read More

Avaya to Sell Networking Business to Extreme for $100m

Avaya, which on January 19th filed voluntary petitions under chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, has announced it that has entered into an asset purchase agreement under which Extreme Networks will serve as the primary bidder in a section 363 sale under the bankruptcy code to acquire Avaya's networking business for approximately $100 million, subject to adjustments.

The sale process will be administered by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and governed by the U.S. bankruptcy code. Other interested parties will have the opportunity to submit bids prior to a deadline set by the bankruptcy court. If other qualified bids are submitted, an auction process will be conducted, with the agreement with Extreme set as the floor value for the auction.

Approval of a final sale to either Extreme or a rival bidder is expected to take place shortly after completion of an auction, and the transaction is expected to close by June 30, 2017, the end of Avaya's fiscal third quarter 2017, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

On February 8th, Avaya reported first quarter results for the period ended December 31,2016 including revenue of $875 million, compared with $958 million a year earlier, with a net loss of $102 million, versus a net loss of $27 million in the 2016 first quarter. First quarter product revenue was $401 million, compared with $464 million a year earlier.

Extreme reported second quarter results for the period ended December 31, 2016 on February 1st including revenue of $148 million, compared with $139 million a year earlier, with a net income of $12.7 million, compared with net income of $9.0 million for the second quarter of 2016.

Avaya announced on January 19th that it was filing under chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, stating that its foreign affiliates were not included in the filing and would continue normal operations.

The company noted it had obtained a committed $725 million debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing facility underwritten by Citibank. Subject to court approval, the DIP financing, combined with cash from operations, was expected to provide sufficient liquidity during the chapter 11 cases to support continuing business operations.

Regarding the transaction, Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO of Avaya, said, "After extensive evaluation, I believe that a sale of the Networking business is the best path forward for all stakeholders… it provides a clear path for networking customers and partners and enables the company to focus on its core… Unified Communications and Contact Center solutions".

http://www.avaya.com
http://investor.extremenetworks.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1016337

Read More

VimpelCom Russia selects Nokia to Manage Fixed, Mobile, Transport Networks

Nokia and Russian communications and technology company VimpelCom, which services over 58 million mobile and 2.2 million fixed broadband customers through the Beeline brand, have signed a five-year agreement under which Nokia will become the main provider of managed services for operator's fixed, mobile and transport network operations.

Having previously been responsible  for managing services on VimpelCom's network in central Russia, under the new agreement Nokia will extend its responsibility to managing VimpelCom's 2G, 3G and 4G mobile networks that are based on a range of equipment from different vendors. Specifically, field maintenance work will be carried out by Nokia for VimpelCom in the Southern, North Caucasian and Central regions of Russia, including in Moscow.

By consolidating and transforming its network operations, VimpelCom is aiming to benefit from more efficient networks and more streamlined operations, faster time to market and lower operating costs. VimpelCom also expects to enhance service quality for its more than 58 million mobile and over 2 million fixed broadband customers in Russia.

Under the agreement, Nokia will also provide network planning and optimisation services, network implementation, project management and network support via its global delivery hub located in Voronezh in the south west of Russia.

VimpelCom/Beeline in Russia is a part of Amsterdam-based telecom group VEON, the company having announced it was changing its name from VimpelCom to VEON on February 27, 2017. VEON serves over 235 million customers worldwide in countries and regions including Russia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Algeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

http://www.nokia.

Read More

Turkcell Partners with iBasis to Launch new IPX PoP in Istanbul

iBasis, a KPN company that provides international voice and value-added services for mobile operators, and mobile and fixed telecommunications operator Turkcell of Turkey announced a collaboration to establish an IPX point of presence (PoP) in Istanbul.

The new IPX PoP marks a further step in Turkcell's initiative to provide multiple services including 2G/3G and LTE signalling and roaming to customers and is intended to support growth in LTE services throughout the region. The PoP also expands the reach of the iBasis global IPX network, which currently encompasses more than 450 LTE destinations worldwide.

iBasis noted that through this collaboration, mobile operators in Eurasia and the Middle East have access to a single point of contact for global IPX reach with secure, end-to-end quality of service, enabling the provision of roaming for a range of LTE services to subscribers.

By enabling roaming services from Istanbul in Turkey, the new iBasis PoP is designed to support growth of the mobile ecosystem and expand the market for LTE services throughout Eurasia and the Middle East. iBasis stated that the geographical redundancy, diversity of transmission routes and high availability of the Turkcell network will help ensure secure and reliable services.

iBasis is a major IPX provider for carriers, mobile operators, OTTs and IoT service providers. The company offers voice services including HD voice, VoLTE and anti-fraud services. The iBasis IPX is a single multi-service IP interconnect service that allows interconnection for operators worldwide. iBasis' InVision analytics enables operators to monitor and manage the quality of roaming traffic globally.

Regarding the agreement, Emre Erdem, carrier relations and wholesale director, Turkcell, said, "With the target of transforming the Silk Road into the Fiber Road, Turkcell cooperates with international operators and continues to take steps to advance the evolution of Istanbul into the newest Internet base due to it geo-strategic location… it provides a bridge between East and West, which supplies a continuous connection… by partnering with Tier 1 operators".

http://ibasis.com/

Read More

Orange Egypt selects Oscilloquartz Synchronisation for LTE Roll-out

Oscilloquartz, a supplier of timing solutions and an ADVA Optical Networking company, announced that Orange Egypt, a company of France-based global telco Orange, has deployed its OSA 5421 technology as part of a complete synchronisation solution.

The advanced precision time protocol (PTP) grandmaster clocks from Oscilloquartz are designed to distribute and assure accurate timing throughout the national network in Egypt. The end-to-end synchronisation solution will also support the phase and frequency requirements required for Orange Egypt's large-scale deployment of LTE and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) capabilities.

It was noted that in October 2016, Orange Egypt became the first mobile operator in Egypt to be awarded a license to operate 4G services, which the company is now rolling out supported by an investment of around $484 million. The new network and services are supported by the synchronisation network based on the Oscilloquartz OSA 5421 solution.

Oscilloquartz's advanced PTP grandmaster clock is a compact synchronisation distribution and assurance device that incorporates the vendor's Syncjack technology that enables continual monitoring. The solution is designed to deliver both the accurate phase and frequency information required for Orange Egypt's 4G services and provide assisted partial timing support via a quartz oscillator that allows extended holdover in the case of GNSS outages. In addition, the solution is optimised for deployment at the network edge.

In November 2016, Oscilloquartz announced it had been selected to synchronise a national core transport network being deployed for India's armed forces. The 60,000 km infrastructure, being built by a consortium led by Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL), featured Oscilloquartz technology to provide precise frequency and phase delivery leveraging its caesium beam clock and synchronisation supply unit, plus its synchronisation management system, SyncView Plus.

http://www.oscilloquartz.com/

Read More

Open Compute Project Summit Kicks Off in Silicon Valley

The 2017 Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit kicks off on March 8th and is expected to attract 2,000 attendees interested in next-gen data center design.

Keynote speakers include Kushagra Vaid, General Manager, Azure Cloud Hardware Infrastructure, Microsoft; Masaharu Miyamoto, Senior Server Engineer, Yahoo! JAPAN; Jason Waxman, Vice President, Data Center Group (DCG) General Manager, Datacenter Solutions Group (DSG), Intel; and Vijay Rao, Director of Technology Strategy, Facebook.

http://opencompute.org/ocp-u.s.-summit-2017/agenda/

Read More

HPE to Acquire Nimble Storage for $1 Billion

Hewlett Packard Enterprise agreed to acquire Nimble Storage, a supplier of predictive all-flash and hybrid-flash storage solutions, for $12.50 per share in cash, representing a net cash purchase price at closing of $1.0 billion. In addition to the purchase price, HPE will assume or pay out Nimble’s $200 million in unvested equity awards.

Nimble offers midrange flash storage solutions featuring an intelligent, predictive analytics engine that assesses performance issues across the full data path, from apps to the array.  In addition, Nimble has recently introduced multicloud storage services that combine the best of on-premises and public cloud storage capabilities for Hybrid IT deployments.  Nimble, which is based in San Jose, California, was founded in 2007 and has approximately 1,300 employees worldwide. The company delivered revenue of $402 million in its most recent fiscal year, up 25 percent year over year.

HPE said Nimble’s predictive flash offerings are complementary to its own scalable midrange to high-end 3PAR solutions and affordable MSA products.  In addition, HPE plans to incorporate Nimble’s InfoSight Predictive Analytics platform across its storage portfolio, which will enable a stronger, simplified support experience for HPE customers.

“Nimble Storage’s portfolio complements and strengthens our current 3PAR products in the high-growth flash storage market and will help us deliver on our vision of making Hybrid IT simple for our customers,” said Meg Whitman, President and CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “And, this acquisition is exactly aligned with the strategy and capital allocation approach we’ve laid out. We remain focused on high-growth and higher-margin segments of the market.”

“Over 10,000 enterprises are using Nimble Storage because our Predictive Cloud Platform is reliably fast, radically simple, and cloud ready,” said Suresh Vasudevan, CEO at Nimble Storage. “This acquisition validates our technology leadership in flash and in the use of cloud-based predictive analytics.  We’re confident that by combining Nimble Storage’s technology leadership with HPE’s global distribution strength, strong brand, and enterprise relationships, we’re creating expansion opportunities for the combined company.”

http://www.hpe.com

https://www.nimblestorage.com/

Read More

NeoPhotonics Develops Micro Modulator for 400~600 Gbps

NeoPhotonics has developed a 64 GBaud, polarization multiplexed, quadrature micro-modulator (Micro-MOD) implemented in a small form factor (3.9x27x13 mm) package.  The unit is co-packaged with a quad-channel, differential 64 GBaud driver with an Indium Phosphide based Mach-Zehnder (MZ) quadrature modulator chip. It has a bandwidth over 40 GHz and exhibits low insertion loss in a small form factor modulator. By integrating the drivers inside the modulator package directly adjacent to the low power InP modulator chip, the total power requirement is 4.5 Watts.  which leverage its small size, high bandwidth and low power dissipation.

The company said its new modulator is designed for applications in pluggable coherent CFP2-ACO and CFP2-DCO modules as well as on transport line cards. The Micro-MOD could be used in 400/600 Gbps coherent transceiver modules and in line card applications. It joins the NeoPhotonics family of 64 GBaud components, including a 64 GBaud Micro-ICR and ultra-narrow linewidth tunable lasers.

"When coupled with our high bandwidth Micro-ICR and ultra-narrow linewidth tunable laser, this new micro-modulator represents a significant step in providing small form factor capability for next gen 400/600 Gbps datacenter interconnect, core metro and long haul networks for carriers worldwide,” said Tim Jenks, Chairman and CEO of NeoPhotonics. “This device is an excellent example of our advanced hybrid photonic integration capabilities as it depends on a close integration of driver and modulator chips made out of different high performance materials to achieve superior performance, low power, high reliability and stability,” continued Mr. Jenks.

http://www.neophotonics.com

Read More

ZTE to Plead Guilty and Pay $1.19 Billion to U.S. Government

In the case involving the shipment of U.S.-origin technology to Iran during the period of economic sanctions, ZTE Corporation agreed to enter a guilty plea and to pay a $430,488,798 penalty to the U.S. ZTE simultaneously reached settlement agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In total ZTE has agreed to pay the U.S. Government $892,360,064. The BIS has suspended an additional $300,000,000, which ZTE will pay if it violates its settlement agreement with the BIS.


Attorney General of the United States Jeff Sessions, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary B. McCord, U.S. Attorney John R. Parker for the Northern District of Texas and FBI Assistant Director Bill Priestap for the Counterintelligence Division made the announcement.

“ZTE engaged in an elaborate scheme to acquire U.S.-origin items, send the items to Iran and mask its involvement in those exports. The plea agreement alleges that the highest levels of management within the company approved the scheme. ZTE then repeatedly lied to and misled federal investigators, its own attorneys and internal investigators. Its actions were egregious and warranted a significant penalty,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary B. McCord.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/zte-corporation-agrees-plead-guilty-and-pay-over-4304-million-violating-us-sanctions-sending

Read More

Cylance Plans AI-powered Antivirus for Consumers

Cylance disclosed plans to launch a consumer version of its AI-powered antivirus which blocks everyday malware along with advanced cyber threats.  The company named security industry veteran Christopher Bray to launch its consumer division. Cylance currently sells its artificial intelligence-based CylancePROTECT product to businesses, universities, and government organizations.  The consumer version is planned for 2018.

“All of us at Cylance are thrilled to bring Christopher on board to architect our consumer strategy,” said Stuart McClure, president and CEO at Cylance. “His direct experience building business relationships and consumer businesses for security software companies will provide a strong foundation and ensure a successful launch.”

Bray began his career in brand management for Procter & Gamble, but quickly moved into sales and marketing management positions for Dell in South Africa. Following that period, Bray held a variety of executive positions during more than a decade spent with McAfee Security, ultimately advancing to become the senior vice president and general manager of consumer PC OEM/ISP/Retail/Mobile. Most recently Bray served as senior vice president of Norton Field Sales and Marketing at Symantec, where he spearheaded Norton’s re-entry into PC OEM and other large, high-volume consumer distribution partnerships, positioning the Norton business for a return to growth.

http://www.cylance.com

Read More

Juniper Announces a Management Shuffle

Juniper Networks announced the appointment of Kevin Hutchins to the newly created position Senior Vice President of Strategy and Product Line Management. Juniper's engineering organization will now report into chief development officer, Andy Athreya. Both of these positions will report into chief executive officer, Rami Rahim.

Hutchins is a six-year veteran of Juniper and has been responsible for strategy and business development. Athreya has been an engineering leader at Juniper since 2004 and has held various leadership positions within the routing and security products groups.

In addition to these shifts, Jonathan Davidson has resigned from the company. Davidson served as executive vice president and general manager of Juniper Development and Innovation.

"The opportunity we have at Juniper to lead the next wave of innovation and network transformation in our industry is incredible," said Rami Rahim, chief executive officer, Juniper Networks. "To achieve our vision, I am thrilled to have Kevin Hutchins and Andy Athreya to lead and help realize our innovation potential. These changes will allow Juniper Networks to double-down on innovation."

http://www.juniper.net

Read More

Kingston Ships Next-Generation Data Center PCIe SSD

Kingston Digital announced shipment of its Data Center PCIe 1000 SSD, a Flash-based drive aggregates four 8-channel controllers together to deliver up to 1.25 million IOPS from a single SSD.

The PCIe-based NVMe Gen. 3.0 x8 SSD is targeted toward high-performance data center applications such as database optimization, online transaction processing (OLTP), software defined storage, virtual desktop infrastructure and virtualization.

“We are proud to introduce the next generation of PCIe storage and performance for data centers with our new DCP1000 PCIe NVMe SSD,” said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager, Kingston. “This drive is a game changer among data center technology solutions. DCP1000 SSD enables IT professionals to quickly and economically scale and improve performance without replacing an entire storage system or server infrastructure.”

Some key specs:

High capacity: With up to 3.2TB1, DCP1000 is a high-capacity NVMe solid-state drive.
Power failure protection: DCP1000 offers enterprise-class power failure protection to maximize uptime.
Interface: Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe™) PCle Gen 3.0 x8 Lanes
Capacities1: 800GB, 1.6TB, 3.2TB
Sequential Read/Write2:
800GB: 6,800 / 5,000MB/s
1.6TB: 6,800 / 6,000MB/s
3.2TB: 6,800 / 6,000MB/s

Steady-State Random 4k Read/Write2:
800GB: 900,000 / 145,000 IOPS
1.6TB: 1,100,000 / 200,000 IOPS
3.2TB: 1,000,000 / 180,000 IOPS

Latency: (Typical) Read/Write 100us / 30us3
Endurance: Terabytes Written (Whole Drive)4
800GB: 748TB5
1.6TB: 1500TB5
3.2TB: 2788TB5

http://www.kingston.com

Read More

UNH-IOL Launches ONIE Logo Certification Program

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) is launching a certified Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) Logo Certification Program.

ONIE enables a white box network switch ecosystem where end users can choose from a variety of network operating systems. By allowing any operating system to be installed and used on any white box switch, it greatly simplifies the installation and use of a networking operating system.

The ONIE Tested Logo confirms conformance to the open source initiative enabling a network switch ecosystem that provides end users a choice of network operating systems.

“As part of the Open Compute Project, ONIE is helping reimagine hardware to make it more efficient, flexible, and scalable. Enabling choice in both hardware and software decisions, it creates a vast ecosystem,” said David Woolf, Senior Engineer, Datacenter Technologies, UNH-IOL. “The UNH-IOL ONIE Tested Logo Program and ONIE Tested Integrators List propel open networking forward by enabling companies to validate their devices through trusted, third-party interoperability testing.”

“ONIE certification offers numerous benefits to end users and hardware vendors. With ONIE certified hardware, end users can procure with confidence, knowing their hardware purchases are ready for mega-scale deployment,” said Curt Brune, Project Lead, ONIE and Principal Engineer, Cumulus Networks. “For hardware vendors, ONIE certification adds an additional level of quality assurance and brand recognition to their hardware offerings.”

http://www.iol.unh

Read More

Vodafone Egypt Teams with Ericsson to Launch Commercial VNF

Vodafone Egypt, which serves nearly 40 million customers in Egypt, has launched what is believed to be the first commercial virtual network function in the Middle East region.

Ericsson stated that since October 2016, its virtual Serving GPRS Support Node - Mobility Management Entity (SGSN-MME) has been serving and managing commercial mobile broadband traffic on the Vodafone Egypt network. Ericsson's virtual SGSN-MME supports multi-access technologies including GSM, WCDMA and LTE, and interworks with WiFi.

The Ericsson solution is designed to provide feature parity and is agnostic to the underlying cloud system, offering support for both OpenStack and VMware. Based on the Ericsson pooling concept, the Vodafone Egypt network operates using a combination of virtual and native SGSN/MME within the same pool and helps to support efficient capacity expansion via enhanced scalability and capacity, enabling operators to optimise their operations and address growth in mobile broadband traffic.

Recently, Ericsson and Cisco announced they had been selected to transform and virtualise Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA)'s networks, including evolving its core network to provide greater flexibility and programmability using network slicing.

In 2016, Ericsson in partnership with Cisco announced they had been chosen by Vodafone Portugal to implement a mobile backhaul evolution project. As part of the project, Ericsson was to deploy and integrate Cisco's Aggregation Services Router (ASR) 9000 product families to upgrade Vodafone Portugal's IP backhaul network.

Regarding the project, Osama Said, Vodafone Egypt Technology Director, commented, "Vodafone Egypt is working with Ericsson to take steps towards network function virtualisation… (which) will enhance the speed and efficiency of services provide to customers… and customer satisfaction".

http://www.ericsson.com

Read More

Northeast region operator FirstLight to acquire FLTG serving New York and Pennsylvania

FirstLight Fiber, a fibre bandwidth infrastructure services provider operating in New York and northern New England, announced its intent to acquire Finger Lakes Technologies Group (FLTG), a subsidiary of Trumansburg Telephone Company (TTC) that provides data, Internet and voice solutions to business customers across New York and Pennsylvania.

The company stated that the acquisition of FLTG is intended to strengthen FirstLight's position as a leading fibre communications provider in the Northeast region. The transaction will combine FLTG's privately owned fibre network, which spans nearly 2,500 route miles in New York state and Pennsylvania, with FirstLight's 9,500-plus route mile fibre network and data, Internet, data centre, cloud and voice services.

Through the transaction, FirstLight will be able to offer increased fibre density in the upstate New York area, and expand its service offering in the northern Pennsylvania region. Headquartered in Victor, FLTG and its parent companies employ 140 people, with offices in Buffalo, Binghamton, Norwich, Phelps, Romulus and Trumansburg.

Based in Albany, New York, FirstLight provides fibre data, Internet, data centre and voice services to enterprise and carrier customers throughout the Northeast, connecting more than 5,000 locations to services and with a further 20,000 locations serviceable over its fibre network.

FirstLight offers a portfolio of high bandwidth connectivity solutions including Ethernet, wavelength and dark fibre services, as well as data centre, cloud and voice services. Customers includes national cellular providers and wireline carriers, enterprises, the education sector and local and state governments.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2017, following the satisfaction of customary regulatory and shareholder approvals. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

https://www.firstlight.net/

• In January, FirstLight, a company of Oak Hill Capital Partners, completed similar transactions with Oxford Networks and Sovernet Communications. Oak Hill Capital Partners completed its acquisition of Oxford Networks and combined the operations with FirstLight, with Novacap, Bank Street Capital Partners and Riverside Partners continuing as minority investors in the combined company. The Sovernet transaction is expected to close early in 2017 following receipt of customary regulatory approvals.

Read More

Huawei Intros 4 Tbit/s Line card for NE9000 Backbone Router enabling 80 Tbit/s Capacity

Huawei has unveiled what it claims is the first 4 Tbit/s router line card that enables high density 100 Gigabit Ethernet interface interconnection and equips its NE9000 backbone router to support a total capacity of up to 80 Tbit/s.

The NE9000 platform comprises part of Huawei's CloudBackbone solution, which is designed to provide higher capacity and improved efficiency for core node and data centre interconnection (DCI) applications in cloud environments.

The new Huawei 4 Tbit/s router line cards utilise the latest Solar5.0 network processing chip design and is claimed to deliver the highest density 100 Gigabit Ethernet interface interconnectivity and to help operators to build flattened backbone networks. In addition, as the NE9000 platform provides support for 400 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, end-to-end 400 Gbit/s links can be implemented with transport devices for a simplified network topology.

The NE9000 router provides capacity of up to 80 Tbit/s, enabling support for up to 2 million concurrent online users streaming 4K video and designed to address current and future network bandwidth requirements. The NE9000 also features energy-saving capabilities, with a single device claimed to consume 0.4 W/Gbit/s.

As a core element of Huawei's CloudBackbone solution, the NE9000 is designed to work with the company's Network Cloud Engine to offer centralised control and allow real-time detection of traffic changes on the network, thereby helping operators to implement flexible adjustment of the network and improve network efficiency.

Additionally, the Huawei NE9000 can be separated into multiple virtual devices to enable unified bearing of multiple services and the use of fewer network nodes. Moreover, service isolation can be provided utilising virtualisation technology for enhanced network security and reliability.

http://www.huawei.com

Read More

Ericsson and BT Conduct 5G Research

Ericsson, BT and King's College London are collaborating on the development of 5G projects in support of mission-critical services, commercial and consumer markets.

The multi-year collaboration agreement focuses on 5G testing and development.

BT has worked with Ericsson to build a 5G Proof of Concept Center at the BT Labs in Adastral Park, Ipswich. King's College contributes with low-latency use cases and specialized knowledge in communication technologies, robotics and haptic control.

Howard Watson, CEO, BT Technology, Service & Operations, and BT Group CIO, says: "The initial focus of the collaboration is on Proof of Concept solutions and trials of services needing both high availability and low latency - both key features of the forthcoming 5G technology."

In 2016, BT bought EE, the United Kingdom's leading 4G network provider.

http://www.btplc.com
http://www.ericsson.com

Read More