Google Cloud CAS provides a highly scalable and available private CA to address the unprecedented growth in certificates in the digital world. Google says the exponential growth in certificates is being driven by the rise of cloud computing, moving to containers, the emergence of pervasive high-speed connectivity, the proliferation of Internet-of-things (IoT) and smart devices.
Netskope closed a new $300 million investment round for its SASE solutions
The latest funding round was led by existing investor ICONIQ Growth and included all other major existing Netskope investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Accel, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Base Partners, Sapphire Ventures, and Geodesic Capital. Following this significantly oversubscribed investment round, Netskope has achieved a post-money valuation of $7.5 billion.
The Netskope Security Cloud Platform provides visibility and real-time data and threat protection when accessing cloud services, websites, and private apps from anywhere, on any device. The solution combines next-generation secure web gateway (SWG) capabilities, zero trust secure access, advanced machine learning to detect unauthorized data exfiltration, and advanced threat protection to prevent cloud-based attacks that often evade legacy defenses.
Netskope claims more than 1,500 worldwide customers, including:
“We started Netskope because we saw a cloud-centric, digital-first future of business that simply can’t be achieved using legacy approaches to security and networking,” said Sanjay Beri, CEO and co-founder of Netskope. “We were SASE before the term SASE existed and today we are seeing our vision manifest across the globe as enterprises increasingly turn to Netskope to enable secure digital transformation. We are fortunate to have attracted a truly exceptional team and set of partners, customers and industry luminaries who support and bring tremendous value to us, and we are pleased to take another step forward with all of them in our journey.”
Microsoft agreed to acquire RiskIQ, a leader in global threat intelligence and attack surface management. Financial terms were not disclosed, however, media reports suggested the price exceeded $500 million.
Ekinops reported consolidated revenue of €27.6m in Q2 2021, a 12% increase compared with Q2 2020. At constant exchange rates, quarterly growth comes out at 14%. Revenue for the first half of the year amounted to €50.8 million, up 11% over the same period last year.
The share of software and services increased to 12% of revenue in the reporting period (compared with 8% in H1 2020), driven in particular by the success of network function virtualization solutions.
In geographic terms, growth in North America came out at 15%, rising to 25% in US dollars. While Optical Transport equipment continue to prove highly successful, the first half was marked by a boost in the sales of Access solutions. These solutions enable operators to undertake the virtualization of their network functions and benefit from new-generation software-defined networks (SDNs). Access sales almost doubled in the region, reaching a seven-digit number over the period. After a stable first quarter, the EMEA region bounced back sharply in the second, ending the first half with robust growth of 22%. All the business lines posted growth, with an extremely strong increase for Optical Transport equipment. First-half growth in France amounted to 4%, with a slight slowdown in Q2 2021 that was to be expected owing to extremely strong momentum in the region in Q2 2020 (growth of 29%). In the domestic market, all the Group's business activities also posted growth. In Asia-Pacific, the business activity remained depressed in the first half (-29%). The region continues to struggle to rebound following the extreme impact of the pandemic.
Qualcomm appointed Don McGuire as senior vice president and chief marketing officer (CMO), reporting directly to Cristiano Amon, president and CEO, effective immediately. Penny Baldwin, senior vice president and chief marketing officer who joined Qualcomm in 2017, will continue to serve in an advisory role to support the transition along with other marketing initiatives until her retirement later in the year.
McGuire joined Qualcomm in 2016 as vice president of Global Product Marketing and was promoted to senior vice president last year. He joined Qualcomm from Intel where he led global marketing strategy, campaigns, and messaging supporting their Client Computing Business. Prior to Intel, McGuire was founder and CMO of Panelfly, and held leadership positions at companies including Dunebuggy Media, Amp'd Mobile, Kyocera Wireless Corp., Cricket Communications and Sprint PCS.
Sierra Wireless appointed Phil Brace as its new President and CEO, effective July 26, 2021, replacing Kent Thexton, will stay on at Sierra Wireless until August 13, 2021 to complete the transition.
Brace was most recently Executive Vice President at Veritas Technologies. His previous executive roles include President of Seagate Technology’s Cloud Systems and Electronic Solutions, Executive Vice President at LSI Corporation, and General Manager at Intel Corporation. Brace holds a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Science from the University of Waterloo and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from California State University, Sacramento.
Board Chair Robin Abrams also commented: "On behalf of the entire Board, I would like to thank Kent for his significant contributions to Sierra Wireless, both over the 13 years he spent as a member of the Board and over the last three years as CEO. Thanks to his vision and leadership, Sierra has successfully transformed from a hardware-only company to a strong and dynamic market leader in IoT services and solutions. We wish Kent all the best in his retirement."
It’s all about the application experience.
In this video, Mehul Patel, Head of Marketing at Prosimo, discusses the important factors in delivering application experience with today’s infrastructure, including application security, speed, and the overall cost.
Service assurance must evolve to expand visibility, understand context, and encompass SD-WAN and SASE.
In this video, Angelique Medina, Director, Product Marketing of Cisco ThousandEyes, discusses how service assurance is evolving and why it needs to progress from monitoring to observability.
Swisscom has selected AWS as its preferred public cloud provider for its enterprise IT.
Swisscom said its will use AWS to increase IT agility, drive operational efficiencies, and accelerate time to market for new information and communications technology (ICT) features and services. The carrier will migrate to AWS a wide range of core applications that power its enterprise resource planning, operational support system (OSS), business support system (BSS), analytics, contact center, and communications provisioning workloads.
Swisscom will also leverage AWS’s infrastructure to explore how it can build a reliable, scalable, secure, and cost-effective 5G Core in the cloud that would enable rapid development and deployment of new 5G services for its customers. The goal is a new standalone 5G network powered by a cloud-native 5G Core. As envisioned, Swisscom’s 5G Core will run on a hybrid cloud infrastructure with Swisscom infrastructure, AWS Outposts, and in the AWS Europe (Zurich) Region launching in 2022. (AWS Outposts extend AWS infrastructure, services, APIs, and tools to virtually any on-premises facility, such as the factory floor or a 5G base station.)
“AWS contributes to the technological foundation and agility we need to unlock new growth potential by transforming our IT services and delivering robust 5G communications that meet the needs of our enterprise and consumer customers,” said Christoph Aeschlimann, CTIO of Swisscom. “We expect 5G to open the door for a host of specialized services. Having AWS by our side, with their proven infrastructure and unparalleled suite of cloud technologies, will help us innovate and grow at a rapid pace. Leveraging AWS, we are able to quickly build and run the applications that underpin our organization with low latency, reliability, and scalability, while meeting security and compliance requirements.”
The GSMA is calling on national telecoms regulators to make an average of 2 GHz of mid-band spectrum available in the 2025-2030 time frame to guarantee the IMT-2020 requirements for 5G. Without the additional spectrum, GSMA believes it will be impossible to realise the full potential of 5G in some cases. In others, the number of antennas and base stations needed will lead to higher carbon emissions and consumer prices.
The GSMA is also asking regulators to:
Carefully consider 5G spectrum demands when 5G usage increases and advanced use cases will carry additional needs;
Base spectrum decisions on real-world factors including, population density and extent of fibre rollout; and
Support harmonised mid-band 5G spectrum (e.g., within the 3.5 GHz, 4.8 GHz and 6 GHz ranges) and facilitate technology upgrades in existing bands.
Shell Gas & Power Developments BV (Shell) and T-Systems International GmbH signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to advance digital innovation as both companies accelerate their transitions to net-zero emissions.
Key points:
by Benedict Chua, Associate Editor
MIT and Ericsson are collaborating on two research projects:
“As energy-efficient connected devices take the next leap forward, we are thrilled to be collaborating with Ericsson to tackle the key technical challenges,” said Anantha P. Chandrakasan, Dean of MIT’s School of Engineering. “By combining our knowledge with Ericsson’s expertise in mobile technology, we aim to develop hardware that will power exciting new AI applications on the edge, and take significant strides in the next generation of mobile networks.”
“5G is leading to a fully-realized IoT and bringing us closer to a truly connected world,” said Magnus Frodigh, Head of Ericsson Research. “Massive amounts of tiny IoT devices and AI-driven, cognitive networks are two drivers of the next leap forward. Working with the brilliant teams at MIT, we hope to develop the hardware that will make that possible.”
The Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP) announced that Rebecca Weekly was elected as chairperson of the Open Compute Project.
Weekly is Vice President, General Manager, and Senior Principal Engineer of Hyperscale Strategy and Execution at Intel Corporation. She replaces Mark Roenigk, Head of Hardware Engineering at Facebook, who served as chair for the past two years.
Mark Roenigk is a founding board member of OCP and has served on the board since its inception in 2011 and will continue to serve on the board representing Facebook.
An additional change announced today is the retirement of Rocky Bullock as CEO of the OCP Foundation. Rocky has faithfully served on the Board since its inception, served the OCP Foundation as Chief Financial Officer, and was then named Chief Executive Officer of OCP in 2015.
Bill Carter, currently serving at OCP’s Chief Technology Officer will assume the role of Executive Director for the Foundation on an interim basis, while the Board of Directors conducts a search for a permanent replacement for Rocky’s position.
"We’re thankful for the 10 years of service and passion from Rocky and Mark that have shaped the pace of innovation and community that OCP has built and will continue to nurture for many years to come,” said Rebecca Weekly.
The 2021 OCP Global Summit is scheduled by the week of November 8 – 10 at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA. The annual event consists of two days of live sessions, sponsored exhibits, interactive experience centers and live virtual attendance components for those unable to travel.
https://www.opencompute.org/summit/global-summit
ADVA announced post-quantum cryptography (PQC) capabilities for its optical transport solution.
ADVA said its post-quantum cryptography is deployable over long-haul and multi-operator links.
“Our market-first FSP 3000 quantum-safe ConnectGuard™ encryption technology answers the urgent threat posed by quantum computers and gives organizations a way to safeguard their networks before the danger materializes. Our customers’ data will be fully protected even from cybercriminals’ intent on harvesting information so that they can store it today and exploit it tomorrow,” said Christoph Glingener, CTO, ADVA. “We’re providing long-term security for data in motion. What’s more, our solution is ready to be upgraded later to comply with emerging specifications, including the NIST’s PQC standardization competition.”
“Organizations everywhere have woken up to the security threat that quantum computing represents. With many experts anticipating powerful commercially available quantum computers in the next decade, it’s now widely understood that the danger is very real and the stakes are enormously high. That’s why we’ve invested so much time and energy into developing the world’s first transport solution ready for the challenges ahead,” commented Jörg-Peter Elbers, SVP, advanced technology, ADVA. “By integrating PQC security into our FSP 3000 ConnectGuard™ optical encryption solution, we’re empowering our customers to protect their networks today against tomorrow’s threats. Our solution is easily deployable and only requires end-point access. What’s more, it works over any distance and in any optical transport network.”
Lumen Technologies announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft Azure focused on the next generation of enterprise application delivery at the network edge.
The companies cited several go-to-market efforts to support mutual customers worldwide:
"By making Microsoft Azure technology available on the Lumen platform we are giving enterprises access to an environment where they can get the low-latency performance they need for critical applications, with the familiarity of Microsoft services and tools," said Yousef Khalidi, corporate vice president, Azure for Operators at Microsoft. "With this collaboration we are expanding the ways in which businesses can connect Azure to their enterprise networks and are excited about having Lumen as a collaboration partner to expand the number of use cases we can achieve at the edge of the network."
"Working with Microsoft, Lumen will offer businesses and developers capabilities at the edge that are unique in the industry," said Shaun Andrews, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Lumen. "By deeply integrating more of our platform services with Microsoft Azure, we can help businesses quickly utilize their data for the insights they want and need, with the ability to support unique and customized use cases. We're excited about the innovations and amazing new digital experiences we can enable for our mutual customers by extending Azure to the edge of our global network."
Also under the alliance, Lumen has selected Azure as the preferred public cloud venue for workloads that serve its enterprise customers. Lumen will also leverage Azure, Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft 365 E5 Security & Compliance for its internal digital transformation.
Additionally, Microsoft has named Lumen as one of its preferred partners supporting Azure globally with Lumen networking, infrastructure, and managed services.
https://www.lumen.com/en-us/solutions/edge-computing.html#edge-computing-map
NTT West agreed to sell 71 of its owned telecommunications towers to JTOWER. NTT West will then lease back the same facilities.
Under the deal, NTT Group will provide JTOWER and telecommunications companies attracted by JTOWER with optical fiber service required for 5G and NTT's telephone office building spaces required for the installation of telecommunications equipment. In addition, NTT Group will advise to support operations such as construction and maintenance, to contribute to the early development of 5G, and on the optimization of capital expenditures.
https://group.ntt/en/newsrelease/2021/07/08/210708a.html
Quantifi Photonics, formerly known as Coherent Solutions, raised US$10 million in Series B funding for its photonics test and measurement solutions.
The company, which is based in Auckland, New Zealand, will use the new funds to expand its U.S.-based sales, marketing, and customer support teams from its office in Austin, Texas. It will also accelerate its product roadmap to target companies that are ramping up R&D and manufacturing of 400G optical transceivers.
Dan Henmi, Quantifi Photonics’ VP of Sales for North America says “It’s fantastic to receive strong support from technology-savvy investors who recognize the capability of our team and the opportunity for Quantifi Photonics to carve out a leadership position in the photonics test and measurement industry in the US. Photonics test, particularly for optical communications, evolves so rapidly that customers are often looking for solutions that don’t yet exist. Our understanding of current test challenges and our innovative technology platform means we can quickly develop solutions to keep up with customer needs."
The company is launching a PXI PAM4 BERT module that will enable 400G transceiver testing in Q3 2021, and intends to support manufacturers of pluggable coherent transceivers using its expertise and signal analysis software designed for coherent optical communications.
KUKA, a leading manufacturer of industrial robots and automation solutions, will deploy Nokia 5G SA private wireless networking at KUKA’s Smart Production and Development Center in Augsburg, Germany. As part of the multi-year subscription contract, Nokia will also support KUKA with network deployment, operation support services and training, enabling integration of new use cases that include new 5G-based interfaces and components for the KUKA solution portfolio.
KUKA is planning to deploy 5G technology in its intelligent robotics and automation solutions, and the Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) campus networking and application platform will support product development with immediate effect.
Michael Wagner, Director R&D, Competence Center Control Technology, KUKA, said: “In coming years, KUKA will develop solutions that harness the potential of 5G’s fast, reliable and secure connectivity. By partnering with Nokia for private wireless networking, we have now established a long-term development roadmap that will allow us to capitalize on the new capabilities in future 5G releases for our automation solutions.”
Dirk Lewandowski, Vice President Central and East Europe, Nokia Enterprise, said: “5G is continuously evolving with new capabilities. Advanced automation manufacturers who leverage 5G for their own solutions need to take this into consideration. With KUKA preparing to use 5G in industrial applications, deployment of a Nokia DAC platform will enable it to accelerate development of smart automation solutions for its customers.”
Keysight Technologies' open radio access network (O-RAN) test solutions are now available on AWS Outposts.
AWS Outposts is a fully managed service that offers the same AWS infrastructure, AWS services, APIs and tools to virtually any datacenter, co-location space, or on-premises facility for a consistent hybrid experience. Vendors of radio units (O-RUs), distributed units (O-DUs), central units (O-CUs) and RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) need integrated, virtualized and cloud native solutions to validate performance, establish interoperability between network elements and ensure compliance to the latest O-RAN and 3GPP specifications.
Keysight’s open radio access network (RAN) architect (KORA) consists of multiple simulators working in unison to deliver a seamless solution to vendors, carriers and testers to verify the end-to-end O-RAN ecosystem infrastructure.
The KORA suite that is now available via AWS Outposts brings together all the major elements for testing the evolving RAN ecosystem in one comprehensive family of test solutions, including RuSIM, DuSIM, CuSIM, RIC Test and LoadCore.
RuSIM provides fully scalable RU emulation on the fronthaul interface for O-DU functional, performance full-stack testing, protocol conformance testing and interoperability compliance testing. DuSIM validates open central unit (O-CU) performance in accordance with 3GPP standards and aligns with O-RAN C-plane and U-plane parameters of performance and interoperability with 5G and O-RAN network functions. Capable of generating hundreds of O-DU’s and thousands of UE’s, DuSIM provides optimal performance of the O-CU under heavy loaded conditions with realistic voice, video and data traffic. CuSIM helps infrastructure vendors, chipset providers and mobile operators validate the open distributed unit (O-DU) functionality by emulating traffic over the mid-haul interface.
In addition, RIC Test helps vendors and mobile operators validate RAN Intelligent Controllers (RIC) and RIC enabled artificial intelligence/machine learning xApps and rApps (intelligent applications hosted on the RIC platform that control resource allocation across the 5G networks) used to efficiently manage radio resources. This is a done by emulating traffic scenarios over distributed set of RAN elements (eNB, gNB, CU, DU) over the O-RAN Alliance’s E2 interface. LoadCore allows communication service providers (CSPs) to scale their network and edge capabilities beyond past on-premise presence, delivering flexible, rapid deployment and execution of their continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) pipeline.
“Keysight is extremely pleased with the opportunity to offer our key 5G testing solutions on AWS,” said Kalyan Sundhar, vice president and general manager, 5G Edge to Core Solutions at Keysight. “Embracing the future of dis-aggregated 5G RAN open interfaces allows legacy providers and emerging stakeholders’ new opportunities to explore advancing technologies in multiple diverse vertical segments such as autonomous vehicles, remote medicine and connected cities, that private networks will allow to become reality.”
Cirrus Logic agreed to acquire Lion Semiconductor for $335 million in cash.
Lion Semiconductor’s switched-capacitor architectures enable wired and wireless fast-charging user experiences and are used in numerous flagship and mid-tier smartphones. These solutions are integrated close to the battery and deliver higher efficiency and better heat dissipation for the rapidly developing fast-charging market. Lion, which was incorporated in 2012, has operations in San Francisco and Seoul.
“The acquisition of Lion Semiconductor adds further momentum to our strategy of applying our mixed-signal expertise to new markets and driving growth through innovation in areas such as power,” said Cirrus Logic President and Chief Executive Officer John Forsyth. “Lion’s proprietary fast-charging products and robust intellectual property portfolio are expected to contribute meaningfully to revenue growth in the coming years, strengthen the company’s position to pursue exciting new opportunities and significantly expand our addressable market.”
