Thursday, September 3, 2020

Rain Tree Photonics and MaxLinear deliver 400G module for hyperscalers

Singapore-based Rain Tree Photonics (RTP) and MaxLinear announced the availability of a silicon photonics-based solution for 400G-DR4 optical modules for hyperscale data centers.

Rain Tree Photonics’ proprietary photonics engine leverages the company's silicon photonics integration technology and offers high yield and volume scalability. It is also developed to be ready for Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) architectures, while maintaining compatibility with pluggable module architectures.

MaxLinear’s MxL93542 Telluride PAM4 DSP is a key component in the development of high-speed, mega-scale data centers based on 100Gbps single lambda optical interconnects. This SOC and others in the Telluride family are the world’s first DSPs with integrated electro-absorption modulated laser (EA-EML) drivers for 100/400Gbps optical interconnects and breakout mode clocking support for 400Gbps DR4 optical modules.

The RTP1908, RTP’s 400G-DR4 silicon photonic engine, integrates multiple photonic devices allowing all 4 channels to fit into a tiny chip footprint. Each channel also features RTP’s energy-efficient modulator which is directly driven by the MxL93542’s integrated EA-EML driver. The entire photonic circuit is optimized for low optical insertion loss and features large mode-field-diameter fiber couplers that ensure high yield with standard packaging lines.

The MxL93542 16nm CMOS PAM4 DSP SoC consumes an extremely low 6.7W of power, which includes the integrated EA-EML driver power dissipation. The minimal power consumption of the MxL93542 meets the stringent power constraints of 400Gbps optical module form-factors, including QSFP-DD, OSFP and COBO devices.

“MaxLinear’s MxL93542 PAM4 DSP with integrated quad-channel EML drivers provides outstanding cost benefits for 400G-DR4 optical module customers. Driver integration also simplifies the module design, which together with RTP’s fabless++ approach, improves NPI cycle-time for customer adoption,” said Dr. Huang Ying, Co-founder at Rain Tree Photonics. “The MxL93542’s integrated drivers also work well with the high-efficiency, low-drive silicon photonic modulators in the RTP1908, achieving excellent TDECQ and OMA performance.”

“We are pleased with the successful pairing of the MxL93542 with Rain Tree Photonics’ RTP1908 silicon photonics engine to provide a compelling integrated solution for 400G-DR4 modules,” said Will Torgerson, Vice President and General Manager of MaxLinear’s High-Speed Interconnect Group. “The highly integrated Telluride DSPs offer superior link-margin performance and industry-leading power consumption.”


Broadcom pushes ahead with Gen 7 64Gb/s Fibre Channel

Broadcom released the first Gen 7 64Gb/s Fibre Channel switching platforms and the first 64Gb/s Fibre Channel optical transceiver.

The solutions are currently being qualified for use in Brocade switches and Emulex adapters, for end-to-end Gen 7 Fibre Channel performance.

“Broadcom continues to lead the market and drive innovation with the launch of the industry’s first end-to-end Gen 7 Fibre Channel portfolio,” said Jack Rondoni, senior vice president and general manager, Brocade Storage Networking division, Broadcom. “Brocade Gen 7 harnesses the power of 64Gb/s switching technology and transforms current storage networks with autonomous SAN capabilities, simplifying management, and significantly reducing operational costs.”

Brocade said its Gen 7 Fibre Channel being 64Gb/s line-rate speed along with a 50 percent reduction in latency. Brocade Gen 7 also introduces a range of autonomous technologies to simplify and automate management. The self-optimizing capability utilizes actionable intelligence to automate network management and maximize performance. Learning traffic behavior enables the network to make smarter decisions on traffic prioritization, congestion management and notification to ensure optimal network performance for applications and storage.

https://www.broadcom.com/company/news/product-releases/53756
https://www.broadcom.com/products/fibre-channel-networking


  • Broadcom acquired Brocade in November 2017.

Ericsson activates 5G on its own campus in Texas

Ericsson activated its own 5G Distributed Innovation Network across multiple locations in North Texas. The network uses Ericsson’s 5G portfolio across multiple campuses, including Plano Ericsson Village, the company’s 38-acre North American headquarters near Legacy Park, and Ericsson's Richardson Labs, a research facility nine miles away.

Both 5G Core Stand-Alone (SA) and integrated Non-standalone (NSA) radio access network (RAN) are supported in the lab using an SD-WAN connection to the public cloud as well as radio and mobile transport for full application cloud-to-device connectivity, management and orchestration.

Ericsson’s 5G Distributed Innovation Network now provides a collaboration environment for operators, application developers, hyperscalers and hardware manufacturers developing solutions for 5G. In fact, Ericsson will utilize Dell Technologies hardware at the Ericsson Village to demonstrate a realistic hardware configuration for the edge network.

Tomas Ageskog, Head of Digital Services for Ericsson North America, says: “Decades of communications technology experience and a passion for innovation have shaped our ability to anticipate our customers’ challenges. This end-to-end network provides a great platform for trial and development to demonstrate what end-users face in deploying 5G in an Enterprise environment across devices, access, transport and core.”

Kevin Zvokel, Head of Networks for Ericsson North America, says: “We built it, and we run it both as an operator and as a large, complex Enterprise, demonstrating how 5G and edge computing work together to deliver new services and use cases. We’re running real-world experiments and use cases to solve problems today that the industry will encounter tomorrow, such as end-to-end network slicing.”

SpaceX completes 12th Starlink launch, private testing undeway

SpaceX successfully completed its 12th Starlink launch mission, delivering a further 60 satellites to orbit and bringing the constellation size to over 700.

During the launch webcast, SpaceX disclosed that private beta testing of the Starlink network has achieved download speeds of 100 Mbps with "super good latency" capable of supporting the fastest online video games. SpaceX also confirmed that inter-satellite links using "space lasers" have been successfully tested. Once the constellation is fully operational, the inter-satellite links should be able to transfer large data flows across the globe.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Open Policy Agent: Building a standard for cloud-native authorization

Here is a quick introduction to Open Policy Agent (OPA), which is now a Cloud Native Computing Foundation incubating project, and which provides an open source, general-purpose policy engine for cloud infrastructure.

The cloud-native stack is becoming so complex and distributed that a common, application autorization mechanism is necessary.

 In this video, Bill Mann, CEO of Styra, talks about how OPA is gaining momentum as the de facto approach for establishing authorization policies across cloud native environments. Styra pioneered OPA. Its founding team of Tim Hinrichs and Teemu Koponen previously played key roles in the development of software-defined networking and network virtualization at Nicira.
https://youtu.be/U-a91ylm8uw

T-Mobile US begins lighting up 5G with 2.5 GHz spectrum

T-Mobile started lighting up its mid-band 5G spectrum (2.5 GHz) in more than 80 new cities and towns across the United States. The service is delivering peak download speeds of up to 1 Gbps and average speeds of around 300 Mbps - about 7.5x faster than today’s average LTE speeds.

“T-Mobile has the competition in the rear-view mirror on 5G, and they’re only getting farther behind. While the other guys are playing catch-up, we’ve had nationwide 5G since last year, and we’re now adding faster speeds across the country with mid-band 5G,” said Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile. “This is our 5G strategy in action. Mid-band is *the* 5G spectrum, and T-Mobile has more of it than anyone. We have nearly twice as much low and mid-band spectrum as AT&T and nearly triple that of Verizon. And that means T-Mobile is the only one capable of making the world’s best 5G network a reality.”

In April following its merger with Sprint, T-Mobile lit up mid-band 5G in Philadelphia and New York City, with Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. launching soon after.

T-Mobile US activates standalone 5G

T-Mobile US activated standalone architecture (SA) in its 5G network across the United States.

“Since Sprint became part of T-Mobile, we’ve been rapidly combining networks for a supercharged Un-carrier while expanding our nationwide 5G footprint, and today we take a massive step into the future with standalone 5G architecture,” said Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile. “This is where it gets interesting, opening the door for massive innovation in this country — and while the other guys continue to play catch up, we’ll keep growing the world’s most advanced 5G network.”

In SA areas, T-Mobile engineers have already seen up to a 40% improvement in latency during testing.

In the near-term, SA allows T-Mobile to unleash its entire 600 MHz footprint for 5G. With non-standalone network architecture (NSA), 600 MHz 5G is combined with mid-band LTE to access the core network, but without SA the 5G signal only goes as far as mid-band LTE. With today’s launch, 600 MHz 5G can go beyond the mid-band signal, covering hundreds of square miles from a single tower and going deeper into buildings than before.

By flipping the switch to activate SA, T-Mobile increased its 5G footprint by 30 percent — now covering 1.3 million square miles in more than 7,500 cities and towns across the country.

T-Mobile partnered closely with Cisco and Nokia to build its 5G core, and Ericsson and Nokia for 5G radio infrastructure. OnePlus, Qualcomm Technologies and Samsung have helped T-Mobile ensure existing devices can access SA 5G with a software update, based on compatibility.

VMware intros 5G Telco Cloud Platform

VMware introduced its 5G Telco Cloud Platform, featuring Tanzu Kubernetes Grid - an embedded Kubernetes distribution - that will allow Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to reliably build, manage and run containerized workloads across private, telco, edge and public clouds.

VMware said its new solution provides a cloud-first network architecture to accelerate 5G and edge innovation while delivering service agility, operational consistency and integrated lifecycle management automation from infrastructure up to network services. The idea is to evolve the existing VMware vCloud NFV solution to Telco Cloud Infrastructure, supporting both Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and Cloud Native Network Functions (CNFs) across telco networks.

The VMware Telco Cloud Platform combines VMware Telco Cloud Infrastructure – an evolution of the vCloud NFV solution – and VMware Telco Cloud Automation – the recently launched multi-domain orchestration and automation capability.

VMware’s Telco Cloud Automation intelligently automates the end-to-end lifecycle management of network functions and services to simplify operations and accelerate service delivery while optimizing resource utilization. Telco Cloud Automation also now supports infrastructure and Containers-as-a-Service (CaaS) management automation to streamline workload placement and deliver optimal infrastructure resource allocation. It also significantly simplifies the 5G and telco edge network expansions through zero-touch-provisioning (ZTP) whenever capacity is required.

“VMware continues to accelerate the delivery of a comprehensive telco and edge cloud portfolio that addresses our customers’ challenges of today and enables them to harness the opportunities of tomorrow,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud Business Unit, VMware. “With support for cloud native technologies in the Telco Cloud Platform, CSPs can now boost their innovation speed to deliver new applications and services, reduce operational complexities, and realize substantial total cost of ownership savings, further accelerating the rollout of their 5G networks.”

VMware is also announcing Telco Cloud Operations, a real-time automated assurance solution designed to bridge the gap between virtual and physical networks. The solution provides holistic monitoring and performance management across multiple layers of the network, including SD-WAN, for rapid insights, lower costs and improved customer experience. It integrates machine-learning based performance analytics and vivid reporting dashboards for proactive assurance.  Complemented by the Uhana solution from VMware that provides intelligent automation for Radio Access Networks (RANs), CSPs can have comprehensive operations visibility across their entire network.

https://blogs.vmware.com/telco/

DISH picks VMware for 5G cloud-native O-RAN

DISH selected VMware's Telco Cloud solution for its 5G, cloud-native Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN).

VMware said its Telco Cloud will enable DISH to utilize software from leading vendors to optimize and accelerate its 5G network deployment. Additionally, it will provide DISH with enhanced automation, resiliency, security and flexibility. The VMware Telco Cloud provides an abstraction layer across multiple network domains and enables DISH to leverage hyper-scale public cloud capacity where needed, while maintaining core control points. The software-defined nature of the VMware Telco Cloud is part of the platform to support the DISH ecosystem of partners to accelerate 5G leadership in the U.S.

“VMware software will serve as a powerful foundation for our cloud-native, software-defined 5G network,” said Marc Rouanne, executive vice president and chief network officer, DISH. “By bringing together innovations such as the distributed cloud, edge computing and network slicing, this software will help us provide our customers with customizable, secure solutions that will be more cost-effective than legacy, vertically-integrated, hardware-reliant alternatives.”

“We’re excited to work with DISH to architect and build a state-of-the-art, nationwide cloud-first 5G mobile network platform,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco and Edge Cloud Business Unit, VMware. “This software-led approach will enable DISH to innovate and deliver new services to all types of customers – enterprise, small business, and consumer – across the U.S.”

VMware certifies Network Functions Orchestration and Automation

VMware is expanding its Telco Cloud certification program to enable telco network functions partners to test the interoperability and readiness of their Virtual Network Functions (VNF) and Cloud-Native Network Functions (CNF) with the VMware Telco Cloud platform.

To date, more than 35 partners have received more than 170 certifications. The expanded program will offer two new certifications:

  • VMware Ready for Telco Cloud certifies network functions for deployment and lifecycle operations through VMware Telco Cloud Automation, a multi-cloud orchestration and automation platform. As part of this certification program, VMware collaborates with partners to create an ETSI-Compliant descriptor, as well as workflow, resource, and artifacts for a validated and tested Cloud Service Archive (CSAR). This level requires the partner to complete the VMware Ready for Telco Cloud Infrastructure certification as a pre-requisite.
  • VMware Ready for Telco Cloud Infrastructure, formerly known as VMware Ready for NFV, identifies telco network functions that interoperate with the core infrastructure layers of the VMware Telco Cloud, as referenced by the VMware ETSI-compliant vCloud NFV Reference Architecture. The focus of this certification level is on the virtualized infrastructure manager (VIM) based on VMware Cloud Director and VMware Integrated OpenStack and, shortly, CaaS (Container as a Service): VMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid compatibility, as well as the compatibility with the platform’s core components: VMware vSphere for virtualized compute, VMware NSX for virtualized networking and VMware vSAN for virtualized storage. The program is available at no cost to VMware partners. Testing can be completed either in the VMware on-premise certification lab or in the cloud as a self-service model.
VMware said its expanded program enables partners to accelerate the onboarding and deployment of their 5G-ready services on the VMware Telco Cloud platform, thereby reducing communications service providers (CSPs) time to revenue. CSPs benefit from having access to advanced network functions and services, such as 5G Core components, that are ready to be deployed on the VMware Telco Cloud platform.

Verizon is biggest winner in 3.5 GHz spectrum auction

The FCC posted the winning bidders in its recently completed auction of 70 megahertz of Priority Access Licenses (PALs) in the 3550-3650 MHz band (Auction 105).

Auction 105 gross proceeds reached $4,585,663,345, with net proceeds totaling $4,543,232,339.  A total of 228 bidders won 20,625 of 22,631, or more than 91.1%, of available licenses. 


The full auction results are posted here: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-1009A2.pdf

ADTRAN enhances its Gigabit switch portfolio

ADTRAN has expanded its NetVanta Gigabit Ethernet Enterprise Switch portfolio to meet a broader range of Power over Ethernet (PoE) budgets.

The new family of switches are designed to support emerging applications in the enterprise, ranging from site surveillance to industrial automation, demand high availability, security and flexible power options.

The NetVanta 1560 Gigabit Ethernet switches combine carrier-grade features like Ethernet OAM and G.8032 Ethernet Ring Protection Switching (ERPS) with enterprise-class features like Denial of Service (DoS) attack prevention and flexible PoE powering. Configurations are available with 8-, 24- and 48-port options.

When paired with ADTRAN’s PON SFPs, the NetVanta 1560 switches can be utilized as high-density ONTs. With the updated QoS capabilities and ethernet protection features, the switches can bridge the gap between traditional enterprise switching and Carrier Ethernet NID solutions, providing a high-value, cost-effective delivery and termination solution. Service providers can deliver gigabit to the switch for MDUs, small business and enterprise customers, including those with large campus environments where these new recovery capabilities and failover times deliver faster than traditional spanning tree modes.

“Businesses are rapidly deploying a wide range of power-intensive, high-capacity connected devices to drive efficiency and improve productivity, but need to consider how these new devices drain both power and bandwidth,” said Brian Lenahan, Enterprise Product Line Manager at ADTRAN. “ADTRAN’s gigabit Ethernet switches make it easier for service providers to support these evolving environments and provide relief for the standard and high-power PoE budgets.”

http://www.adtran.com/switches

Credo showcases 50G Optical DSPs

At next week's China International Optoelectronic Expo in Shenzhen, Credo will be showcasing its next gen product suite, including:

  • New 50G Optical DSPs for 5G Wireless Service Providers
  • Next-Gen 100G/200G/400G Optical DSPs for Hyperscale Data Centers
  • New Low Power 800G Gearboxes/400G Retimers
  • Industry-leading security solutions for MACsec and IPsec
  • 7nm and 12nm XSR SerDes IP and Chiplets

“We recently closed a Series D Preferred financing round of $100M to accelerate the commercialization of our breakthrough 400Gbps and 800Gbps connectivity solutions,” said Scott Feller, Credo Vice President, Marketing. “We’re excited to demonstrate this new generation of products at CIOE which extends our penetration in the Hyperscale Datacenter market and expands our reach into the 5G wireless carrier markets,” Feller continued.

https://www.credosemi.com

Credo raises $100 million for serial connectivity devices

Credo, which develops Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) technology for 100G, 400G, and 800G, closed $100 million in a Series D funding round. Funds & accounts managed by BlackRock led the funding round.

Credo is based in San Jose, California. The company's high performance, low power serial connectivity solutions are designed for next generation platforms requiring 25G, 50G, and 100G signal lane-rate connectivity for 100G, 200G, 400G, and 800G port enabled networks.

Credo’s solutions have been adopted and implemented by leading data centers, networking OEMs and ODMs, and optical transceiver manufacturers. The company has pioneered the development and deployment of HiWire™ Active Electrical Cables (AEC). Plug & play AECs deliver the simple functionality and speed of optical cables without the expense and high energy draw of optics. Built-in retiming and fully equalized signals make AEC a high-performance alternative to the risk and hassles of DAC for in-rack and mid-tier interconnects.

Credo is a founding member of the HiWire Consortium.

"Raising $100M in this round of funding with support from new and existing investors puts us in a very strong position," said Bill Brennan, CEO of Credo. "This enables us to accelerate deployment of our current 400Gbps products, as well as to extend our high-speed connectivity leadership with next generation 800Gbps solutions."

https://www.credosemi.com

IDC: Worldwide Enterprise WLAN market dips

The combined consumer and enterprise worldwide wireless local area network (WLAN) market segments rose 7.1% year over year in 2Q20, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Wireless LAN Tracker, although the enterprise segment declined 9.5% year over year in 2Q20 with $1.4 billion in revenue. IDC attributes the decline to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the enterprise WLAN market.

Some highlights from IDC:

  • Revenues for the enterprise class of WLAN infrastructure have now declined 6.1% in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period a year earlier.
  • Wi-Fi 6-enabled dependent access points (APs) made up 28.9% of revenues, up from 21.8% in the first quarter of 2020 and indicating significant adoption of the newest WLAN standard in the enterprise market. 
  • Wi-Fi 6 units accounted for 16.8% of shipments, up from 11.8% in the previous quarter. The Wi-Fi 5 standard (802.11ac) still makes up the majority of dependent AP shipments (75.6%) and revenues (69.4%). Overall unit shipments in the enterprise WLAN market fell 6.4% compared to 2Q19.
  • The consumer WLAN market grew 20.3% year over year in 2Q20. W
  • ithin the consumer market, 60.2% of shipments and 73.7% of revenues were for 802.11ac products. 
  • 802.11ax units made up 3.6% of shipments and 9.5% of revenues, showing the slow adoption of Wi-Fi 6 in the consumer market. 
  • APs supporting the older 802.11n standard still made up 36.2% of unit shipments and 16.8% of revenues.
  • Cisco's enterprise WLAN revenues decreased 10.9% year over year in 2Q20 to $626 million. In the first half of 2020, Cisco's revenues are down 8.9% compared to the first half of 2019. Cisco remains the market share leader, finishing the quarter with 44.3% share, down from 45.7% in 1Q20.
  • HPE-Aruba revenues fell 17.1% year over year in 2Q20 and the company's market share stood at 12.8%.
  • Ubiquiti enterprise WLAN revenues fell 5.0% year over year. The company's market share was 7.1%, down from 9.5% in the previous quarter.
  • CommScope (formerly ARRIS/Ruckus) revenues declined 22.8% year over year in 2Q20. The company held 4.9% market share in the quarter.
  • Huawei's revenues rose 2.5% year over year in 2Q20 and its market share rose to 6.1% from 3.8% in the previous quarter (1Q20).

"Organizations around the globe were forced to rapidly adjust their operations in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, leading some organizations to pause investments in WLAN equipment," says Brandon Butler, senior research analyst, Network Infrastructure. "Wireless connectivity can play an important role in the new normal operations of enterprises though. From providing connectivity for cloud-based and communication applications, to enabling the ability to alert and enforce social distancing rules, IDC believes wireless networking will remain an important part of enterprise IT buying plans in the coming years."

Mitsubishi Electric samples 100Gbps EML

Mitsubishi Electric will begin sampling its 100Gbps EML (electro-absorption modulator laser) CAN, which is aimed at 5G base stations.

The company says its new 100Gbps EML CAN will benefit from greater efficiency in manufacturing optical transceivers.  The device is tuned to the 1310nm wavelength and will operate in the -40°C to + 95°C range.

Zayo appoints Jesper Aagaard as Managing Director of Europe

Zayo appointed Jesper Aagaard as Managing Director of Europe. He will report directly to Zayo’s CEO, Dan Caruso.

Aagaard joins Zayo from GTT Communications where he served as division president of Europe and drove GTT’s successful integration of Interoute Communications. Prior to GTT, he held leadership positions at Interoute where he was responsible for operations and sales to enterprises, wholesale and channel. He was the co-founder and CEO of Netmore A/S, a profitable connectivity service provider, and oversaw its acquisition by Comendo A/S in 2008.

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Telefónica activates 5G across Spain

Telefónica switched on its 5G network in Spain.

Telefónica is promising to bring 5G to 75% of the Spanish population by the end of the year.

The first phase of the rollout combines NSA (non-standalone) 5G and DSS (Dynamic Spectrum Sharing) using the 3.5 GHz band (the only 5G band frequency already licensed to operators) and the mid-band (1800-2100 MHz). The second phase will bring SA (standalone) 5G once the technology is fully standardized.

The new deployments will take place in tandem with a gradual shut-down of the 2G and 3G networks, which is slated for 2025. Telefónica also expects to have replaced 100% of its old copper network with fiber by 2025.

The announcement was made by José María Álvarez-Pallete, Telefónica’s Executive Chairman, who stressed that “the launch of our 5G network constitutes a leap forward towards the hyperconnectivity that will change the future of Spain”. The switching on of Telefónica’s 5G network comes after Álvarez-Pallete confirmed Telefónica’s commitment to promote the complete digitisation of the country last July. “It’s 5G for everyone, without any exceptions. In all the autonomous communities. Telefónica will accelerate the digitisation of SMEs, the public administrations and the general public with this initiative. “Like fibre and like so many other great things, 5G is Telefónica”, explained the company’s chief executive.

Telefónica Germany / O2 builds 5G core w Ericsson & AWS

Telefónica Deutschland is working with Ericsson and AWS to build a cloud-first 5G core for the O2 mobile network of the future.

The carrier said that for the particularly security-relevant 5G core network, it selected a European provider in the form of the Swedish telecommunications supplier Ericsson. Plans call for a completely independent 5G core network with full cloud compatibility in its infrastructure by next year.

"As the network operator that connects most people in Germany with mobile communications, we have a very special social responsibility for secure digital connectivity. With 5G we are shaping Germany's digital future," says Markus Haas, CEO of Telefónica Deutschland. "With Ericsson as technology partner for our 5G core network, we can continue to offer our private and business customers the most powerful network technologies at economically attractive prices. The O2 mobile network will become a synonym for digital trust.”

With the virtualization of our 5G core network, we are laying the foundation for the digital transformation of the German economy. This collaboration with AWS is an important part of our strategy for building industrial 5G networks", says Markus Haas, CEO of Telefónica Germany / O2.

https://www.telefonica.de/news/press-releases-telefonica-germany/2020/06/european-network-supplier-for-the-most-security-relevant-network-area-telefonica-deutschland-builds-5g-core-network-with-ericsson-technology.html?pk_campaign=related_news

AWS launches second local zone in Los Angeles

The new Los Angeles Local Zone contains a subset of services, such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon FSx for Windows File Server and Amazon FSx for Lustre, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), and Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, and remember, applications running in the zone can access all AWS services and other resources through the zone’s association with the parent region.

AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones, which each comprise of one or more data centers and are located in separate and distinct geographic locations with enough distance to significantly reduce the risk of a single event impacting business continuity, yet near enough to provide low latency for high-availability applications. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected via redundant, ultra-low-latency networking. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault-tolerance.


https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/announcing-a-second-local-zone-in-los-angeles/

ECI/Ribbon selected for Italy's LightNet Research Network

Ribbon Communications has been selected to modernize and extend the University of Trieste’s LightNet Research and Education Network (REN) in partnership with TIM.

Under the three-year, fully turnkey open project, Ribbon will deploy its portfolio of  E-Line and E-LAN protected services solution, part of its Neptune and Apollo product lines, to deliver enhanced connectivity to the university’s students, faculty and research centers. The company was selected for its outstanding portfolio, proven track record of success, and previous experience in successfully collaborating with TIM.

“Learning environments and research centers have become increasingly digitized or digitally-led, making access to reliable, resilient, and competitive connectivity services essential,” said Giorgio Giorgetti, LightNet Technical Director at The University of Trieste. “Our high capacity connections with the national REN GARR, our cross-border links with Slovenia's REN ARNES, and the use of supercomputers for AI simulation and big data analytics have increased our users’ need for a high capacity, scalable and adaptable network that cost-effectively meets shifting requirements. We’re pleased to be working with Ribbon and TIM for this upgrade.”
 already underway, will replace the existing legacy network infrastructure deployed in the city of Trieste and the regional extension of the network connecting universities and research centers. The solution leverages the Apollo ROADM (Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer) dynamic layer for the underlying backbone, and Neptune to deliver E-Line and E-LAN services. Ribbon’s Muse network lifecycle management system will provide the end-to-end management.

“We’re delighted to have been chosen to upgrade the LightNet research and education network with next generation network infrastructure technology. This is our eighth consecutive win in this unique sector with similar projects in the USA and across Europe,” said Fernando Valdivielso, Ribbon’s EVP of EMEA and APAC Sales. “Our high performance, future-proof networking solutions portfolio has demonstrated itself to be particularly well suited to the needs of the REN community worldwide time and again.”

Colocation Australia deploys ADVA's FSP 3000 OpenFabric

Colocation Australia (ColoAU), a subsidiary of 5G Networks Limited, has deployed ADVA's FSP 3000 OpenFabric.

ADVA says its open OTN cross-connect technology enables ColoAU to optimize links between Australia’s mainland state capital cities and Singapore. Customers can select data rates ranging from 1.25Gbit/s to 50Gbit/s over OTN, Ethernet, SDH/SONET and Fibre Channel interfaces.

“We’re using ADVA’s technology to solve one of the key problems that small and medium-sized companies face. They no longer need to waste valuable resources in overprovisioning links that end up redundant or obsolete and are able to support growing bandwidth requirements driven by demand. By utilizing the ADVA FSP 3000 OpenFabric™, we’re able to provide elastic bandwidth offerings that can instantly be turned up or down,” said Nic Tippelt, wholesale manager, ColoAU. “Our new national wavelength product lets customers take control. It empowers them to choose high-quality, secure, point-to-point connectivity that supports ever-changing capacity needs.”

Finland's Elisa moves forward with 5G Standalone

Working with Ericsson, Elisa has established the first end-to-end 5G Standalone connection in Finland.

Kalle Lehtinen, CTO, Elisa, says: “Elisa started to test 5G technology years before its launch in 2019. Now, together with Ericsson, we again walk a few steps ahead and look to the future of 5G. Although this was a pilot, it’s a big step towards even faster, more reliable and efficient 5G that will benefit our customers in the near future.”

Jenny Lindqvist, Head of Northern & Central Europe, Ericsson, says: “Elisa and Ericsson have always been united in our dedication towards a sustainable and connected future. We are incredibly pleased to continue our journey together as Elisa’s trusted partner, reaching all 2.8 million of their customers with our superior connectivity, and now innovating with our leading 5G portfolio. The low-latency benefits of 5G will be multiplied by utilizing 5G standalone connectivity, and alongside Elisa we will unlock more solutions to transform both society and industry.”

Teledyne LeCroy tests 200GbE PAM4

Teledyne LeCroy announced the support for complete analysis of IEEE 802.3cd based 200GbE Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM4) Ethernet links in the SierraNet M648 Ethernet and Fibre Channel Protocol Test System with the latest Net Protocol Suite software version 4.30.

SierraNet M648 offers extensive and deep Ethernet protocol analysis, including InFusion traffic impairment tools for both NRZ and PAM4 signaling and is the only dedicated analysis tool in the market to offer complete test and network validation tools covering the full range of ethernet speeds and protocols available.

"The IEEE 802.3cd signaling and data rates are seeing accelerated adoption, and 200GbE is a key element for achieving the high-speed access to cloud and enterprise data storage.  With a focus on both the transport layer as well as the supporting storage protocols, the SierraNet is essential for maintaining critical networks, and to improve uptime, energy and resources," said David Rodgers, Senior Product Manager with Teledyne LeCroy.