Cisco completes acquisition of Isovalent for open source networking

Cisco completed its previously-announced acquisition of Isovalent, a leader in open source cloud native networking and security. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Isovalent holds leadership positions in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and eBPF Foundation, in addition to upstream software contributions, and has led the development of Cilium, the leading cloud native solution for networking and security. 

• eBPF, which stands for extended Berkeley Packet Filter,” provides a lightweight, efficient, and secure framework for running bytecode in the Linux kernel without changing kernel source code or loading kernel modules. Originally designed for network packet filtering, eBPF has evolved to offer more generalized functionality, including:
• Network Functionality: eBPF is widely used for networking tasks, such as filtering, monitoring, and routing of network packets.
• Observability: It allows for detailed monitoring and tracing of system and application behaviors. eBPF can be used to trace kernel and user-space functions, making it a powerful tool for performance analysis and debugging.

The Isovalent team joins the Cisco Security Business Group.

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Lumen wins US government managed network services contract

Lumen Technologies recently landed a $73,616,904 contract to transform the U.S. Government Accountability Office's (GAO) network, data, voice and video connectivity.

Highlights

• These modern technologies powered by Lumen enable GAO to provide Congress, the executive branch and the public with well-timed, fact-based, non-partisan analysis and recommendations that can improve government and save taxpayers billions of dollars.
• Lumen is delivering secure managed network services, virtual private network services, ethernet transport services, internet protocol services, videoconferencing services, and voice and toll-free services to GAO, which serves as the audit, evaluation and investigative arm of Congress.
• This task order has a base performance period of one year, with eight additional one-year options. It was awarded to Lumen under the General Services Administration's Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) program.

https://news.lumen.com/2024-04-11-Lumen-lands-73-6-million-contract-with-U-S-Government-Accountability-Office

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NTT Achieves Less Than 1ms Latency, Below 1μs Jitter at 400Gbps

NTT's All-Photonics Network (APN) has achieved ultra-low latency over metro-area distances, demonstrating the potential for higher-performance data center interconnected.

NTT published results of APN connections between its data centers near London and in Northern Virginia, achieving round-trip delays of less than 1 millisecond. These tests also showed significantly reduced jitter. 

Two data centers, HH2 in Hemel Hempstead and LON1 in Dagenham, in the United Kingdom, and VA1 and VA3 in Ashburn, in the United States, were connected using NEC APN equipment to measure round-trip delays and delay jitter between the two data centers.

As a result of the demonstration experiment, both data centers were connected with delay of less than 1 millisecond and delay jitter of less than 1 microsecond at 400Gbps. In the U.K., the delay2 between data centers at the same distance as this demonstration exceeds 2 milliseconds.

NTT notes that conventional networks with general Layer 2 switch experience delay jitter of several microseconds to tens of microseconds. A major cloud service provider specified that the conditions under which data centers can be treated as the same data center are 2 milliseconds3, which is significantly lower than the delay expected for general cloud applications.

https://www.nttdata.com/global/en/news/press-release/2024/april/ntt-low-latency-network-connects-urban-and-suburban-data-centers-in-us-and-uk

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China Telecom achieves record 120 Tbps over single fiber

In a trial conducted with Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC) and ZTE, China Telecom Research Institute achieved a maximum real-time single-wavelength rate of 1.2Tbit/s, resulting in a single optical fibre single-direction transmission rate exceeding 120Tbit/s. 

The test used S+C+L bands over standard single-mode quartz optical fibre. 

The verification test has set new benchmarks in system bandwidth, algorithms, and architecture:

• Enhanced bandwidth: The traditional C-band spectrum expands to include the S and L bands, achieving a substantial communication bandwidth of 17THz across the S+C+L multiband, spanning the range of 1,483nm-1,627nm.
• 
  Higher performing algorithms: China Telecom Research Institute leverages the optical fiber loss and power transfer characteristics of the S/C/L bands, implementing a technique that maximizes spectrum efficiency through adaptive matching of symbol rate, channel spacing, and modulation code type. Additionally, with ZTE's advanced multi-band system filler wave and automatic power balancing technology, the service performance across all channels is balanced, vastly expanding the maximum transmission distance.
• Reimagined architectural design: this real-time transmission methodology incorporates the industry's leading CPO (Co-Packaged Optics) technology, boasting a single-wave signal baud rate exceeding 130GBd and a bit rate of 1.2Tbit/s, significantly reducing the number of required photoelectric components.

The experiment employed the ultra-low attenuation, large effective area optical fibre developed by YOFC. This fibre boasts a lower attenuation coefficient and an expanded effective area, facilitating the expansion of the system's bandwidth to include the S-band. This advancement enables the achievement of a maximum real-time single-wavelength rate of 1.2Tbit/s.

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Vantage Data Centers plans 2nd data center in Zurich

Vantage Data Centers unveiled plans for a second Zurich campus (ZRH2) supporting 24MW of critical IT capacity. This campus, the company’s 33rd globally, is located 30 kilometers north of Zurich’s City Center in Glattfelden. It is conveniently situated just over 20 kilometers from Vantage’s ZRH1 campus in Winterthur and 15 minutes from Zurich Airport.

ZRH2 will have a total of 226,000 square feet (21,000 square meters) of space for Vantage’s customers consisting of hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. It comes online as the company is seeing increased demand globally to support artificial intelligence and other high-performance computing applications.

When combined with Vantage’s flagship Zurich campus (ZRH1), both campuses will offer customers 64MW of capacity for their computing requirements.

“Zurich is a rapidly growing data center market due to its strategic central location and its global financial leadership, and we expect to continue developing in this market based on customer demand,” said David Howson, president of Vantage Data Centers, EMEA. “Across Europe and the globe, the demand for highly efficient, hyperscale data centers is booming to meet the needs of next generation applications, from powerful AI models to high-performance computing and cloud transformation. Vantage is prepared to meet that demand for current and new customers, and we look forward to opening the doors of our latest data center this summer.”

https://vantage-dc.com/data-center-locations/emea

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Dell'Oro: Private Wireless RAN Revenues up ~40 Percent in 2023

Private Wireless Radio Access Network (RAN) revenue growth slowed in the fourth quarter on a year-over-year (Y/Y) basis; however, full-year revenues still accelerated around 40 percent in 2023, propelling private wireless to comprise around 2 percent of the overall RAN market.

“Although public RAN is still fueling the lion’s share of the overall RAN capex and the overall investment levels are tracking below some of the initial projections provided by the vendors in the early part of the 5G enterprise hype cycle, the fact of the matter is that private wireless is now growing at a formidable pace,” said Stefan Pongratz, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “This stands in contrast to public RAN and enterprise WLAN – both segments are projected to contract in 2024,” continued Pongratz.

Additional highlights from the April 2024 Private Wireless Report:

• The evolving scope of private wireless taken together with the fact that the $20 B+ enterprise RAN opportunity remains largely untapped is spurring interest from a broad array of participants across the ecosystem. Still, the traditional RAN suppliers are currently well-positioned in this initial phase.
• Top 3 Private Wireless RAN suppliers in 2023 include Huawei, Nokia, and Ericsson.
• Top 3 Private Wireless RAN suppliers in 2023 excluding China include Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung.
• The overall Private Wireless RAN forecast is mostly unchanged (+3 percent relative to the last report), reflecting the fact that our bottom-up vendor analysis vs. the initial top-down calculations is improving the market size estimates. In addition, the industry is now past the hype phase and in a better place from a forecasting perspective.
• The high-level message that we have communicated for some time has not changed—private wireless is a massive opportunity, but it will take some time for enterprises to embrace private cellular technologies.
• Total Private Wireless RAN revenues are projected to grow at a 21 percent CAGR over the next five years, while public RAN revenues are set to decline at a 2 percent CAGR over the same time period.
• The underlying technology mix has also not changed. 5G is dominating in China, while LTE is currently dominating outside of China. Private 5G RAN revenues are expected to reach the $1 B to $2 B range by 2028.

 https://www.delloro.com/news/private-wireless-ran-revenues-up-40-percent-in-2023/

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Crown Castle names Moskowitz as next CEO

Crown Castle appointed Steven J. Moskowitz as President and Chief Executive Officer

Moskowitz held several executive leadership roles over his 12 years at American Tower Corporation, including seven years as EVP and President, of the U.S. Tower business. During his tenure, American Tower’s U.S. operations became the largest and most profitable U.S. wireless infrastructure company, tripling in size to more than 20,000 cell sites and expanding the indoor DAS network division, growing Adjusted EBITDA approximately 5x, representing more than 85% of the corporation’s profitability. Most recently, Mr. Moskowitz served as CEO of Centennial Towers Holding LP, where he created a leading provider of build-to-suit cell sites in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. Prior to Centennial, Mr. Moskowitz served as the CEO of NextG Networks, a provider of fiber-based small cell solutions. During his tenure, he successfully scaled the business, significantly increasing revenue and cash flow, and doubling the asset base prior to its sale to Crown Castle in 2012.

"We are excited to welcome Steven as Crown Castle’s next leader. His appointment marks the conclusion of a robust process during which the CEO Search Committee and the Board unanimously determined that Steven is the candidate best suited to oversee our strategy and path forward. He possesses all the key skill sets that the Board was looking for, including strong operating experience with domain expertise, strategic capital allocation, proven value creation, and prior CEO experience leading high-performing teams," said P. Robert Bartolo, Chair of the Crown Castle Board of Directors.

"Steven's breadth and depth of experience in domestic and international towers and small cell solutions is unique in the industry, and we know that he will provide valuable insights as we continue our progress on the strategic and operating review of the company's enterprise fiber and small cell business, and tower growth opportunities. We are confident that under Steven’s leadership, Crown Castle is well positioned to execute on its strategic initiatives and drive enhanced value for our shareholders."

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Teledyne LeCroy captures Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 traffic

Teledyne LeCroy introduced its Frontline X500e wireless protocol analyzer with Wi-Fi 7. The solution captures and correlates data from a wide range of communication technologies, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 802.15.4-based technologies (including Matter, Thread, and Zigbee), or wired interfaces such as HCI-UART, USB, SPI, and Audio I2S.

The Frontline X500e with its ability to handle 320MHz channel width and 4096 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) empowers design and test engineers, and IT specialists to optimize performance and troubleshoot issues, in the rapidly evolving landscape of wireless communication. Only the Frontline X500e equips design and test engineers with the means to:

• Ensure seamless interoperability of products that integrate Wi-Fi 7 technology.
• Measure the impact of Wi-Fi 7 on overall system performance, latency, and throughput.
• Reveal how Wi-Fi 7 implementations coexists with other wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth, fostering harmonious communication.

www.TeledyneLeCroy.com/FrontlineX500e

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Renesas opens 300-mm wafer fab for power semiconductors

Renesas Electronics commenced operations at its Kofu Factory, located in Kai City, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. 

The Kofu Factory previously operated both 150mm and 200mm wafer fabrication lines under Renesas Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Renesas, but ceased operations in October 2014. Renesas made the decision to re-open the factory in May 2022 as a 300-mm wafer fab to support the growing demand for power semiconductors, which is propelled by the industry-wide goal to realize a decarbonized society. Renesas conducted a 90-billion-yen worth investment in 2022 and has now started operations. The factory will start mass production of IGBTs and other products in 2025, doubling Renesas’ current production capacity for power semiconductors.

“We are proud to announce a remarkable achievement of the Kofu Factory. After its closure in 2014, the Kofu Factory has gone through a transformation and emerged as a dedicated 300-mm wafer fab for power semiconductors, exactly a decade later,” said Hidetoshi Shibata, President and CEO of Renesas. “We extend our heartfelt thanks to the local governments of Yamanashi Prefecture, Kai City and Showa Town as well as the plant construction companies, equipment vendors, outsourcing and other partner companies. The power semiconductors produced at the Kofu Factory will help maximize the effective use of electricity, which will be in significant demand as EVs and AI continue to proliferate and advance.”

Outline of the Kofu Factory

• Official Name: Kofu Factory, Renesas Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
• Address: 4617 Nishiyahata, Kai City, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan
• Date Opened: April 1, 2024
• Size of Clean Room: up to 18,000 square meters
• Products to be Manufactured: IGBTs, Power MOSFETs and other power products

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Google funds new subsea cables to Japan

Google will invest $1 billion in new subsea capacity to Japan. The investment covers the expansion of the Pacific Connect initiative and two new subsea cables, Proa and Taihei. 

In collaboration with several partners — including KDDI, ARTERIA, Citadel Pacific, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) — these cables will create new fiber-optic routes between the continental U.S. and Japan in support of Google’s Japan Digitization Initiative, while improving the reliability and resilience of digital connectivity between the U.S., Japan, and multiple Pacific Island countries and territories.

• The Proa subsea cable from NEC will connect Japan, the CNMI, and Guam and is named after the traditional sailing canoes of the Marianas. To further increase reliability in the region, the NEC cable system Taiwan-Philippines-U.S. (known as TPU) will be extended to the CNMI. As the CNMI’s first international subsea cables, Proa and TPU will together establish a new route between the continental U.S. and Shima, Japan.
• Taihei, the Japanese word for both “peace” and “Pacific Ocean,” is another NEC cable that will connect Japan to Hawaii. Additionally, Tabua will be extended to Hawaii, building on the plans announced last year to run the cable from the continental U.S. to Fiji and Australia. Once complete, the Taihei and Tabua systems will create a diverse path between the continental U.S. to Takahagi, Japan.

Google will also fund the construction of an interlink cable connecting Hawaii, the CNMI, and Guam. This interlink will connect the transpacific routes, improving their reliability and reducing latency for users in the Pacific Islands and around the world.

“Our investments in subsea cables and our close partnerships with the regional and global telecom carriers not only deliver unparalleled reliability for Google services and Google Cloud, they enhance the reliability of the public Internet as well, as we have seen during the multi-cable outages around Africa and Middle East recently,” stated Bikash Kaley in a blog post.

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Google launches Cloud Service Mesh

Google announced Cloud Service Mesh, a fully managed service mesh across all Google Cloud platform types. The idea is to enable secure communication between microservices, allowing them to be composed into robust enterprise applications

Cloud Service Mesh takes the Traffic Director’s control plane and Google’s open-source Istio-based service mesh, Anthos Service Mesh, and combines them into a single offering that provides the best of both worlds. 

With Cloud Service Mesh, customers get:

• Traffic Director control plane with global scale 

• Anthos Service Mesh compatibility

• Istio APIs (the most widely used open-source APIs for mesh in Kubernetes clusters)

• Managed data plane for automatic upgrades of Envoy sidecars 

• GKE Fleet integration

• Hosted certificate authorities for workload identity

• Service Operations dashboard for service metrics

• GCP APIs from Traffic Director for

• Proxyless gRPC support 

• VMs

• Cloud Run

• Gateway API for Service Mesh or GAMMA API  

  
  

  https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/networking/introducing-cloud-service-mesh

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Google Cloud Networking at Next ’24

Google Cloud is rolling out a series of networking enhancements, including:

• Planet-scale networking for AI/ML workloads 
• Any cloud to any service connectivity
• Securing the workload, data, and users 
• Gemini-powered network operations 

One highlight is Cloud Load Balancing for inference workloads. Custom metrics provide queue depth as a metric for load balancing AI workloads to deliver faster user response time to prompts while optimizing TPU and GPU utilization. Cloud Load Balancing for streaming inference uses metrics based on number of streams, bytes-in, and bytes-out, versus requests per second and CPU utilization to optimize performance. In addition, Cloud Load Balancing with traffic management for AI models monitors the health of individual model service endpoints and routes requests to healthy endpoints, initiates cross-region failover when an outage is detected, and splits traffic across different models and model versions, helping you to manage rollouts.

Another new feature is Private Service Connect transitivity over Network Connectivity Center, which enables services in a spoke VPC to be transitively accessible from other spoke VPCs. 

“AppLovin operates one of the most successful platforms for app developers to grow their business, reaching over 1.4 billion daily active users (DAUs) worldwide. We are leveraging Google Cloud to advance our next gen AI platform with state-of-the-art hardware to power our training and inference workloads. Google Cloud’s global front-end solution with Load Balancer, Cloud Armor, and CDN not only protects our users but helps businesses reach, monetize, and grow their audiences.” - Omer Hasan, VP of Operations, AppLovin

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/networking/whats-new-for-networking-at-next24

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Palo Alto Networks expands AI security partnership with Google Cloud

Palo Alto Networks has extended and increased its commitment to Google Cloud with a ten-figure, multi-year commitment and named Google Cloud its AI and infrastructure provider of choice. Google Cloud has long considered Palo Alto Networks its preferred next-generation firewall (NGFW) provider, and the expanded agreement solidifies that relationship. The alliance also underscores the critical importance of platformization fueled by AI to automate and consolidate multiple solutions, and deliver near-real-time security resolutions.

The expanded partnership will create customer value as new and existing workloads are developed and managed with: 

• Zero Trust, World-Class Network Security: Palo Alto Networks Network Security platform with VM Series is embedded into Google Cloud to enable a Zero Trust Network posture and strengthen defenses against threats targeting applications, devices, and users–and it will leverage Cloud Delivered Security Services (CDSS) offerings. The integrated solution provides protection and scalability across public cloud and Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) deployments, even in air-gapped network environments.
• Enhanced AI Capabilities: Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM, the AI-driven security operations platform for the modern Security Operations Center (SOC), is built on over a decade of expertise in machine learning models and the most comprehensive, rich, and diverse data store in the industry. Backed by Google's advanced cloud infrastructure and advanced AI services, including BigQuery and Gemini models, the combination delivers global scale and near real-time protection across all cybersecurity offerings.

"As the threat landscape intensifies, organizations are betting on AI-powered platformization to protect their most valuable assets," said Nikesh Arora, President and CEO of Palo Alto Networks. "The increased depth of Palo Alto Network's partnership with Google Cloud empowers customers to transform their digital futures without sacrificing security. We look forward to expanding our footprint using Google's capabilities to accelerate and deliver AI-driven cybersecurity advancements."

"Palo Alto Networks is one of Google Cloud's most strategic partners, and we have a long history of delivering solutions that solve our customers' most complex security challenges," said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. "Through this major partnership expansion, we will combine our security expertise, product leadership, and trusted infrastructure to help businesses protect against sophisticated threats using tools powered by Google Cloud's generative AI."

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Integra Optics launches XGS-PON & GPON combo transceiver

Integra Optics launched a XGS-PON & GPON combo OLT SFP+ BiDi optical transceiver module. This module integrates the functionality of XG(S) PON OLT and GPON OLT optical modules, facilitating seamless network rate deployment within Optical Distribution Networks (ODNs) based on Optical Network Unit (ONU) requirements.

The company says its transceiver module enables a smooth transition from GPON to XG/XGS-PON.  It supports up to 20 km reach over single-mode fiber (SMF) at 10/2.5 G and 10/10 Gbps data rates, ensuring robust and efficient long-distance connectivity. It adheres to the SFP+ MSA and is compliant with GPON/XGS-PON standards, showcasing its versatility and readiness for diverse network environments.

The product accommodates a wide range of operational conditions, offering both industrial operating temperature (-40° to +85° C) and commercial temperature (0° to +70° C) versions, making it suitable for various deployment scenarios.

A key advantage of the XGS-PON & GPON Combo OLT SFP+ module is the elimination of the need for external wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) equipment, simplifying network architectures and significantly reducing both construction and maintenance costs.

Furthermore, the module features a Digital Diagnostic Monitoring (DDM) interface as per the QSFP28 Multi-Source Agreement (MSA), enhancing network reliability through real-time monitoring and diagnostics.

"The integration of GPON and XGS-PON functionalities into a single optical module not only signifies a leap in technology but exemplifies our commitment to innovation and understanding the needs of the telecommunications sector," said Senior Engineering Manager Marlena Miller. "This module is designed to solve real-world networking challenges, offering unparalleled distance coverage, compliance with industry standards, temperature versatility and a simplified network design."

www.infiniteelectronics.com

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U.S. intros Broadband Nutrition Labels

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the nationwide launch of Broadband Consumer Labels, which Internet Service Providers will now be required to display to ensure broadband price and service transparency.

The Broadband Consumer Labels resemble the well-known nutrition labels that appear on food products.  To ensure the label benefits all consumers, the Commission adopted language and accessibility requirements for the label's display.  Labels are required for all standalone home or fixed internet service or mobile broadband plans.  Providers must display the label – not simply an icon or link to the label – in close proximity to an associated plan’s advertisement.

“Today is an exciting day for consumers. Broadband Nutrition Labels are finally here.  Consumers across the country can now benefit from consistent, transparent, and accessible point-of-sale information about broadband prices and services,” said Chairwoman Rosenworcel.  “These ‘nutrition label’ disclosures are designed to make it simpler for consumers to know what they are getting, hold providers to their promises, and benefit from greater competition—which means better service and prices for everyone.”.

 In 2021, Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which directed the FCC to require consumer-friendly labels with information about broadband services. In 2022, the FCC adopted rules requiring broadband providers to display, at the point of sale, labels displaying key information consumers want: prices, speeds, fees, data allowances, and other critical information.

By October 10, 2024, providers will be required to make the labels machine-readable to enable third parties to more easily collect and aggregate data for the purpose of creating comparison-shopping tools for consumers.  At that time, providers with less than 100,000 subscribers must also comply with the rules.

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Intel debuts Gaudi 3 AI processor

Intel introduced its Gaudi 3 AI accelerator for training and inference on popular large language models (LLMs) and multimodal models.

The Gaudi 3 processor delivers 4x AI compute for BF16,  1.5x increase in memory bandwidth, and 2x networking bandwidth for massive system scale out compared to its predecessor.

Features and Improvements:

• The Gaudi 3 AI accelerator is built on a 5nm process, offering advanced efficiency for large-scale AI compute.
• It includes 64 AI-custom Tensor Processor Cores (TPCs) and eight Matrix Multiplication Engines (MMEs), capable of performing 64,000 parallel operations for improved computational efficiency and deep learning computations.
• The accelerator boasts 128GB of HBMe2 memory, 3.7TB of memory bandwidth, and 96MB of on-board SRAM, facilitating large GenAI dataset processing with enhanced performance and cost efficiency.
• It features twenty-four 200Gb Ethernet ports for flexible, open-standard networking and efficient system scaling from single nodes to large clusters.
• Integrates with PyTorch framework and provides optimized community-based models for ease of use and productivity in GenAI development.

Performance Projections, according to Intel: 

• Compared to Nvidia's H100, the Intel Gaudi 3 is expected to offer 50% faster training times and inference throughput for various LLMs, including Llama and GPT-3 models, with significant improvements in inference power efficiency.
• A projected 30% faster inferencing compared to Nvidia's H200 on similar models.

Market Adoption and Availability:

• Scheduled for OEM availability in Q2 2024 with general availability in Q3 and the PCIe add-in card in Q4 2024.
• Notable OEMs like Dell Technologies, HPE, Lenovo, and Supermicro will market the Gaudi 3.
• The Gaudi 3 accelerator aims to power cost-effective cloud LLM infrastructures, offering performance and cost advantages.

Strategic Importance:

• The accelerator supports critical sectors transitioning GenAI projects to full-scale implementations, requiring open, cost-effective, and energy-efficient solutions.
• Designed for scalability, performance, and energy efficiency, meeting enterprise needs for return on investment and operational efficiency.
• The momentum of Gaudi 3 accelerators is foundational for the development of Falcon Shores, Intel’s next-generation GPU, combining Intel Gaudi and Intel Xe IP under a unified programming interface based on the Intel oneAPI specification.

“In the ever-evolving landscape of the AI market, a significant gap persists in the current offerings. Feedback from our customers and the broader market underscores a desire for increased choice. Enterprises weigh considerations such as availability, scalability, performance, cost, and energy efficiency. Intel Gaudi 3 stands out as the GenAI alternative presenting a compelling combination of price performance, system scalability, and time-to-value advantage," stated Justin Hotard, Intel executive vice president and general manager of the Data Center and AI Group.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/vision-2024-gaudi-3-ai-accelerator.html#gs.7ploog

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Intel looks to Ultra Ethernet as its AI fabric

Achieving scale-up and scale-out AI systems requires an advanced networking fabric. In his keynote. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said he expects Ultra Ethernet to meet this requirement. 

Intel isintroducing an array of AI-optimized Ethernet solutions, including a network interface card, AI chiplets, as well as soft and hard IP through Intel Foundry. These Ultra Ethernet developments build on Intel’s work with integrating Xeon and Gaudi into AI systems.  “We don’t need proprietary networking solutions for our AI systems,” said Gelsinger.

In addition, Intel announced new edge silicon across the Intel Core Ultra, Intel Core and Intel Atom processor and Intel Arc graphics processing unit (GPU) families of products, targeting key markets including retail, industrial manufacturing and healthcare. All new additions to Intel’s edge AI portfolio will be available this quarter and will be supported by the Intel Tiber Edge Platform this year. 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/vision-2024-keynote-livestream-replay.html#gs.7pxeb3

Ultra Ethernet Consortium targets networking for AI and HPC

Wednesday, July 19, 2023    

A new Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) has been established with the goal of bringing together leading companies for industry-wide cooperation to build a complete Ethernet-based communication stack architecture for high-performance networking. UEC is 

The aim is to capitalize on Ethernet's ubiquity and flexibility for handling a wide variety of workloads in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC).

Founding members of Ultra Ethernet Consortium, which is a Joint Development Foundation project hosted by The Linux Foundation , include AMD, Arista, Broadcom, Cisco, Eviden (an Atos Business), HPE, Intel, Meta and Microsoft.

The consortium will follow a systematic approach with modular, compatible, interoperable layers with tight integration to provide a holistic improvement for demanding workloads. The founding companies are seeding the consortium with highly valuable contributions in four working groups: Physical Layer, Link Layer, Transport Layer and Software Layer.

The technical goals for the consortium are to develop specifications, APIs, and source code to define:

1. Protocols, electrical and optical signaling characteristics, application program interfaces and/or data structures for Ethernet communications.
2. Link-level and end-to-end network transport protocols to extend or replace existing link and transport protocols.
3. Link-level and end-to-end congestion, telemetry and signaling mechanisms; each of the foregoing suitable for artificial intelligence, machine learning and high-performance computing environments.
4. Software, storage, management and security constructs to facilitate a variety of workloads and operating environments.

"This isn't about overhauling Ethernet," said Dr. J Metz, Chair of the Ultra Ethernet Consortium. "It's about tuning Ethernet to improve efficiency for workloads with specific performance requirements. We're looking at every layer - from the physical all the way through the software layers - to find the best way to improve efficiency and performance at scale."

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Google unwraps Arm-based CPUs for the data center

Google introduced Axion, its first custom Arm-based CPUs designed for the data center.

Built using the Arm Neoverse V2 CPU, Axion processors promise up to 30% better performance than the fastest general-purpose Arm-based instances currently available in the cloud , up to 50% better performance and up to 60% better energy-efficiency than comparable current-generation x86-based instances.

Axion is supported by Titanium, Google's specialized framework consisting of custom-designed silicon microcontrollers and scalable tiered offloading systems. These Titanium offloads handle essential platform functions such as networking and security, freeing up Axion processors to allocate more resources and boost performance for client tasks. Additionally, Titanium enhances system efficiency by redirecting storage input/output operations to Hyperdisk, Google's block storage service. Hyperdisk separates performance capabilities from the size of the instance and offers the flexibility of being provisioned dynamically in real-time.

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/compute/introducing-googles-new-arm-based-cpu

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STACK reaches $3.3B in green financing for global data centers

Global data center developer and operator STACK Infrastructure announced securing $3.3 billion in green financing to fund eco-friendly data center construction worldwide. This significant capital injection highlights STACK's commitment to sustainable practices and aligns with growing investor demand for environmentally responsible projects.

Key Highlights:

• $3.3 billion secured in green financing for global data center development.
• Funds will be used to build water and energy-efficient data centers with features like low-carbon materials and electric vehicle charging stations.
• 
  STACK prioritizes responsible development, aiming to benefit surrounding communities through job creation and environmental initiatives.

Global Expansion:

The $3.3 billion will be allocated to projects across various regions, including Silicon Valley ($1.4 billion), Loudoun County, Virginia ($750 million), and Milan, Italy ($1.2 billion). These data centers will support the growing demand for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other cutting-edge technologies.

Significant opportunities include:

• A 48MW Santa Clara data center, featuring immediately available shell space powered by an onsite substation with rare, contracted capacity.
• A 56MW Toronto campus, spanning 19 acres, including an existing 8MW data center and 48MW expansion capacity, all supported by committed power.
• A 48MW build-to-suit opportunity in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, boasting abundant power and connectivity options.
• A 200MW campus in Portland spanning 55 acres with 24MW of available capacity with committed power.
• A New Albany, Ohio 58MW data center campus with immediately available capacity and build-to-suit expansion opportunities.
• A planned five-building data center campus offering 250MW of scale in Central Phoenix with a dedicated on-site substation.
• A strategically located data center campus in Osaka, Japan with 72MW of capacity across three planned buildings.
• A 30MW data center campus in Stockholm with 18MW under development.

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MEF intros Enterprise and Operational Lifecycle Service Orchestration APIs

MEF released an API portfolio that empowers enterprises to seamlessly perform automated business and operations with their service providers.

The new MEF enterprise business and operational Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) API portfolio features a range of new and existing MEF assets to fuel the advancement of Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) for enterprises. The APIs enable large enterprises undergoing digital transformation and cloud migration to seamlessly connect their internal automation systems and applications with service provider networks. 

Currently available MEF business LSO APIs include address validation, site query, product catalog, product offering qualification, product offering availability discovery, quote, price discovery, product order, product inventory, trouble ticketing and incidents, appointment, work order, and billing and settlement. Current and planned MEF operational LSO APIs include service function testing, service performance monitoring, and fault management. 

MEF enterprise business and operational LSO APIs are available for Carrier Ethernet (E-Line, E-LAN and E-Tree) and traditional IP Broadband and Direct Internet Access network services.  New services to be added in coming months include dark fiber, wavelengths, edge compute, cross-connects, cloud connects, and satellite followed by SD-WAN, SASE, Zero Trust, and SSE.   

“MEF’s enterprise business and operational LSO API portfolio is a game-changer for enterprises undergoing digital transformation,” said Debika Bhattacharya, Chair, MEF Board of Directors, and Chief Technology Solutions Officer, Verizon Business. “These APIs allow for seamless automation of managed services between businesses and their technology partners, giving enterprises greater control, flexibility and visibility over their NaaS environments and eliminating the need for proprietary APIs. This translates to improved operational efficiency and a stronger foundation for innovation.” 

Initial use-cases of the enterprise portfolio include: 

• Buying and managing enterprise services such as network services, cloud connectivity, low latency edge compute for AI, cybersecurity, IoT, and more 
• Incident reporting for rapid enterprise response to service changes and cybersecurity threats 

In addition, MEF noted that more than 155 service providers worldwide are now in various stages of the adoption lifecycle for MEF business and operational LSO APIs. At least 35 service providers are already in production with these APIs to automate business and/or operational functions with their service provider partners, and this number is forecasted to surpass 100 by the end of 2025. 

https://www.mef.net/news/mef-pioneers-industry-leading-enterprise-business-and-operational-lso-api-portfolio-for-network-services/

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