Category Archives: Networks

Alibaba, Aliyun, Chris Sharp, Equinix, Infrastructure as a Service, Networks, News & Analysis, Sicheng Yu

Equinix to offer direct access to Alibaba’s cloud service

Equinix will offer direct links to Alibaba's cloud

Equinix will offer direct links to Alibaba’s cloud

Equinix has signed an agreement with Alibaba that will see the American datacentre incumbent provide direct access to Chinese ecommerce firm’s cloud computing service.

The deal will see Equinix add Aliyun, Alibaba’s cloud computing division, to its growing roster of cloud services integrated with its cloud interconnection service, and offer direct access to Aliyun’s IaaS and SaaSs in both Asia and North America.

Equinix said it’s aiming this primarily at large multinationals looking to expand their infrastructure into Asia.

“Our multi-national enterprise customers are increasingly asking for access to the Aliyun cloud platform, as they deploy cloud-based applications across Asia,” said Chris Sharp, vice president of cloud innovation, Equinix.

“By providing this access in two strategic markets, we’re empowering businesses to build secure, private clouds, without compromising network and application performance,” Sharp said.

Sicheng Yu, vice president of Aliyun said: “Aliyun is very excited about our global partnership with Equinix, who not only has a global footprint of cutting-edge datacentres, but has also brought together the most abundant cloud players and tenants in the cloud computing ecosystem on its Equinix Cloud Exchange platform. Connecting the Equinix ecosystem with our Aliyun cloud services on Cloud Exchange will provide customers with the best-of-breed choices and flexibility.”

The move will see Equinix expand its reach in Asia, a fast-growing market for cloud services, and comes just one week after Equinix announced it would bolster its European footprint with the TelecityGroup merger.

Akamai, Asia Pacific, China Unicom, Networks, News & Analysis, Noam Freedman, Telco Cloud, Vendor

Akamai, China Unicom strike cloud deal

China Unicom may be using the Akamai deal to bolster its appeal outside China

China Unicom may be using the Akamai deal to bolster its appeal outside China

China Unicom and Akamai have announced a partnership that will see the two companies integrate their cloud services and content delivery network, respectively.

The deal between China Unicom’s cloud division CU Cloud and Akamai will see the former offer the latter’s full portfolio of content delivery, web performance and security offerings, a move CU Cloud said will improve global access to its growing suite of cloud services.

Akamai’s turnkey CDN technology will also underpin global delivery of its cloud services, CU Cloud said.

“China Unicom is a major carrier in China, serving the global internet market,” said Noam Freedman, senior vice president of Akamai’s global networks division. “We’re excited to be partnering with CU cloud to tap into the fast-growing China cloud and CDN market. Akamai sees increased demand for delivering content to Chinese internet users from global customers. With this strategic partnership, we believe Akamai is best positioned to serve this growing need.”

China Unicom has for the past few years targeted cloud services fairly aggressively. In 2013 it was revealed the company was teaming up with a other incumbents including China Mobile and China Telecom on the construction of massive cloud computing datacentres, with total investment from all three operators topping $3bn.

It has also partnered with other local specialists like Huawei and Pacnet on cloud infrastructure and service development.

The latest move may be a sign that China Unicom has set its sights beyond the local market and wants to compete with other increasingly global cloud providers with roots in China – like Alibaba and Pacnet, which have also bolstered global access to their platforms in a bid to cater mainly to large Chinese multinationals.

AT&T, Ericsson, Networks, News & Analysis, NFV, SDN, telstra

Ericsson cloud lab to focus on NFV, SDN

Ericsson is opening up a lab to help coordinate SDN and NFV research among telcos

Ericsson is opening up a lab to help coordinate SDN and NFV research among telcos

Ericsson has opened a lab in Italy which will coordinate research among telecoms operators on deploying software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV) in their datacentres.

The company said the lab, which will be based in Rome but will also have an associated cloud platform for data sharing and collaboration, will help develop multi-vendor SDN and NFV solutions that primarily address the needs of telcos.

Participating organisations will be able to link up to the cloud platform and share their results.

Nunzio Mirtillo, head of Ericsson in the Mediterranean region said: “Cloud will enable the biggest evolution of the telecom business and this new lab is an example of Ericsson’s passion for driving innovations in Italy.”

“As great ideas come from collaboration, operators can turn cloud-based approaches to their advantage and implement new architectures that provide network efficiency and shorter time to market for innovative services,” Mirtillo added.

The company said the lab is intended to help operators experiment with getting SDN and NFV technologies integrated into their existing infrastructure estate, which can be quite a challenge for most that aren’t refreshing their hardware for SDN or NFV compliance quickly enough. As a result many have been forced to take the overlay approach.

Ericsson is already working with a number of operators on SDN and NFV. Last year the company was tapped up by Telstra and AT&T to help virtualise key aspects of their networks.

John Chambers, Networks, News & Analysis, SDN, Verizon

Verizon confirms SDN overhaul plans

Verizon is revamping its network

Verizon is revamping its network

Verizon has confirmed publicly its plans to develop and implement a software defined networking infrastructure, working alongside Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson and Nokia Networks, among others, reports Telecoms.com.

The US telco claims its SDN project will enable a transformation of its existing network, introduce new operational efficiencies and accelerate rapid and flexible service delivery to its customers. In outlining its intended overhaul, Verizon has worked with its aforementioned technology partners to create an SDN network architecture overview document.

The document, the telco claims, has included all interface specifications, reference architectures, plus requirements for both the control layer and forwarding box functions. It appears, as a consequence, Verizon is giving its suppliers very specific requirements for the upgrade, and that each partner is expected to deliver unique and bespoke elements to allow it to achieve the business and technical benefits of an SDN-enabled network.

The business case for implementing SDN has been well documented, such as elastic and scalable network-wide service creation, as well as dynamic resource allocation and network automation. Speaking of the announcement, Verizon’s chief information and technology architect, Roger Gurnani, reckons harnessing SDN will enable Verizon to more agilely deliver new services to its customers.

“Verizon and our key technology partners have always focussed on providing high-performance networks for our customers, and with this SDN architecture we will continue to ensure our network and services meet the needs of our customers, today and in the future,” he said.

Cisco’s chairman and CEO John Chambers, meanwhile, has targeted IoT as the next big growth opportunity for telcos, and says SDN will help enable its monetisation.

“This will become the foundation for innovative, new Verizon services and applications,” he said. “Both companies share a vision to transform the entirety of the network architecture to achieve the speed and operational efficiency required to meet the needs of today, as well as capture the growth opportunities to monetize with the Internet of Everything over the next decade and beyond.”

Juan Manuel Moreno, Networks, News & Analysis, OpenStack, Telco Cloud, Telco Cloud Forum, Telefonica, Unica

Telefónica: Unifying cloud and comms can make us more efficient

Juan Manuel Moreno, global cloud director at Telefónica

Juan Manuel Moreno, global cloud director at Telefónica

Telefónica is working to roll out a wide range of internally and customer-focused cloud services on both its own UNICA and OpenStack platforms, but the company’s global cloud director Juan Manuel Moreno said the challenges of shifting such a large company aren’t purely technical.

Moreno, who was speaking at the Telco Cloud Forum in London Tuesday, said the company has been in the process of transforming its technology platforms and internal operations for some time.

It’s no secret telcos like Telefónica have in recent years worked to strengthen their cloud capabilities in a bid to broaden their service portfolios and battle dwindling voice and data revenues – and to regain ground lost to more nimble OTT players.

“We are reliant on the full ecosystem of providers of technology… using technology partners to build these new services. But it’s a challenge because these players are moving so quickly,” Moreno said. “One of the biggest challenges in this space is that everyone and everything is moving so quickly.”

Much of what the company has done externally was intricately linked with its efforts to virtualize core elements of its own networks, plans it originally set out in 2014, with the aim of virtualising 30 per cent of all new infrastructure by 2016. The company took many of those platforms to use as the foundation for their customer-facing cloud services.

“Unifying communications and cloud or IT is an opportunity to be more efficient, to discover more services, and of course to develop a broad portfolio of services,” he explained.

But he was fairly candid about the challenges involved with moving Telefónica, a large, global service provider with very heterogeneous technology platforms and business processes, over to a more automated, cloud-centric operational model and product portfolio.

He said overcoming the business process-related challenges would also be key if the company is to effectively capture more revenue from its traditional base as well as new segments (he said Telefónica sees SMBs as the largest commercial opportunity for the foreseeable future).

“In cloud the technology is available for everyone now… But we still have to transform internally in order to really strengthen our market position,” he added.

Cisco, Dante Malagrinò, Embrane, Hilton Romanski, M&A, network function virtualisation, Networks, News & Analysis, NFV, Virtualisation

Cisco to buy Embrane in NFV automation play

Cisco is consolidating its NFV portfolio with an increasing focus on automation

Cisco is consolidating its NFV portfolio with an increasing focus on automation

Networking giant Cisco announced its intent to acquire network function virtualisation (NFV) and Cisco tech specialist Embrane for an undisclosed sum this week, a move intended to bolster the company’s networking automation capabilities.

“With agility and automation as persistent drivers for IT teams, the need to simplify application deployment and build the cloud is crucial for the datacentre,” explained Cisco’s corporate development lead Hilton Romanski.

“As we continue to drive virtualization and automation, the unique skillset and talent of the Embrane team will allow us to move more quickly to meet customer demands. Together with Cisco’s engineering expertise, the Embrane team will help to expand our strategy of offering freedom of choice to our customers through the Nexus product portfolio and enhance the capabilities of Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI),” he said, adding that the purchase also builds on previous commitments to open standards, open APIs, and playing nicely in multi-vendor environments.

Beyond complimenting Cisco’s ACI efforts, Dante Malagrinò, one of the founders of Embrane and its chief product officer said the move will help further the company’s goal of driving software-hardware integration in the networking space, and offer Embrane an attractive level of scale few vendors playing in this space have.

“Joining Cisco gives us the opportunity to continue our journey and participate in one of the most significant shifts in the history of networking:  leading the industry to better serve application needs through integrated software-hardware models,” he explained.

“The networking DNA of Cisco and Embrane together drives our common vision for an Application Centric Infrastructure.  We both believe that innovation must be evolutionary and enable IT organizations to transition to their future state on their own terms – and with their own timelines.  It’s about coexistence of hardware with software and of new with legacy in a way that streamlines and simplifies operations.”

Cisco is quickly working to consolidate its NFV offerings, and more recently its OpenStack services, as the vendor continues to target cloud service providers and telcos looking to revamp their datacentres. In March it was revealed Cisco struck a big deal with T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom’s enterprise-focused subsidiary, that will see the German incumbent roll out Cisco’s OpenStack-based infrastructure in datacentre in Biere, near Magdeburg, as well as a virtual hotspot service for SMEs.

Erez Yarkoni, IBM, Infrastructure as a Service, Mark Brewer, Networks, News & Analysis, telstra

Telstra to offer SoftLayer cloud access to Australian customers

Telstra and IBM are partnering to offer access to SoftLayer infrastructure

Telstra and IBM are partnering to offer access to SoftLayer infrastructure

Telstra and IBM have announced a partnership that will see the Australian telco offer access to SoftLayer cloud infrastructure to customers in Australia.

Telstra said that with the recent opening of IBM cloud datacentres in Melbourne and Sydney, the company will be able to expand its presence in the local cloud market by offering Australian businesses more choice in locally available cloud infrastructure services.

As part of the deal the telco’s customers will have access to the full-range of SoftLayer infrastructure services including bare metal servers, virtual servers, storage, security services and networking.

Erez Yarkoni, who serves as both chief information officer and executive director of cloud at Telstra said: “Telstra customers will be able to access IBM’s hourly and monthly compute services on the SoftLayer platform, a network of virtual data centres and global points-of-presence (PoPs), all of which are increasingly important as enterprises look to run their applications on the cloud.”

“Telstra customers can connect to IBM’s services via the internet or with a simple extension of their private network. By adding the Telstra Cloud Direct Connect offering, they can also access IP VPN connectivity, giving them a smooth experience between our Next IP network and their choice of global cloud platforms,” Yarkoni said.

Mark Brewer, general manager, IBM Global Technology Services Australia and New Zealand said: “Australian businesses have quickly realised the benefits of moving to a flexible cloud model to accommodate the rapidly changing needs of business today. IBM Cloud provides Telstra customers with unmatched choice and freedom of where to run their workloads, with proven levels security and high performance.”

Telstra already partners with Cisco on cloud infrastructure and is a flagship member of the networking giant’s Intercloud programme, but the company hailed its partnership with IBM as a key milestone in its cloud strategy, and may help bolster its appeal to business customers in the region.

Internet of Things, IoT, Networks, News & Analysis, WAN, wide-area networking, Will Franks, Wireless IoT Forum

Wireless IoT Forum launches to drive Internet of Things development

The Internet of Things is in need of standards

The Internet of Things is in need of standards

The Wireless IoT Forum (WIoTF) has announced its launch, saying it aims to drive the standardisation and deployment of connected devices and appliances, and the development and adoption of wireless wide-area networking (WAN) technologies, reports Telecoms.com.

The organisation said it will work with stakeholders across the board, including operators, infrastructure providers, app developers in utilities, government and specialist SMEs, semiconductor vendors, and end-users.

Its goal, according to the WIoTF, is to encourage the adoption of WAN IoT connectivity in competition with, or as a complement to, LAN, PAN, mesh and other options, spanning all forms of WAN connectivity, including 3GPP cellular-IoT and license-exempt WAN IoT

Although the founding members of the WIoTF won’t be revealed until 28 April, apparently to be announced at the M2M World Congress, the group said Will Franks has been appointed as Chairman and William Webb as CEO. Franks’ background is in Cisco-acquired small cell vendor Ubiquisys, where he was Founder and CTO. Webb is currently also President at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), as well as previously having held senior positions at Ofcom.

According to Franks, openness is a key to successful mobile technologies. “Successful wireless technologies have always been founded on interoperability, open standards, and a focus on the demands of end-users,” he said.

“The Forum is committed to securing these conditions and working with all major stakeholders to ensure successful and timely deployment of the Internet of Things worldwide. We are delighted to have helped bring together key industry players with the common goal of driving standardisation and interoperability. These players have the vision to recognise the need to collaborate to create robust technology platforms while competing to create dynamic markets.”

One of the aims of the WIoTF is to minimise fragmentation within the IoT market. Webb said: “The wireless Internet of Things is bringing connectivity and control to an order of magnitude more devices, however there is a very real risk of fragmented standards and technologies holding back the development of the market.

“There has also been a tremendous amount of work done in the IoT world across a wide range of technologies. As in the cellular world, the success of this will lie in the promotion of open standards. The Forum will work tirelessly to make this a reality in the IoT world.”

Nicolas Graube, fellow at Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), agreed with the view the IoT will not materialise in a meaningful way unless common standards are put in place. Commenting on the back of an announcement about Cambridge Wireless’ upcoming Future of Wireless International Conference (to be held 23 and 24 June), he said: “The IoT is arguably at the peak of its hype cycle and there are some significant obstacles that must be overcome before this dream can become a reality.

“Standardisation coupled with the logistics involved in managing, protecting and making accessible the constant stream of data generated by an ever growing number of connected devices are just some of the key challenges that lie ahead’.

IoT certainly has been one of the industry’s most prominent buzzwords for some time but it seems lately a growing number of people have started to voice concern over the absence of any standardisation. As recently reported by Telecoms.com, the importance of security and simplicity of use have also been highlighted as key considerations for the IoT. It looks like the period of hype is beginning to come to an end and the industry needs to start focusing on developing a framework under which the IoT can materialise in a meaningful way.

The 2nd annual Internet of Things World event to be held in San Francisco in May is due to address some of the challenges ahead of the industry in terms of IoT. Sign up here.

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IBM, Networks, News & Analysis, NFV, Pete Lorenzen, SDN, Virtualisation

IBM opens SDN, NFV labs in Dallas, Paris

IBM is moving to bolster its service provider business

IBM is moving to bolster its service provider business

IBM has announced the launch of two Network Innovation Centres, where the company’s clients can experiment with software-defined networking and network function virtualisation technologies. The move seems aimed at bolstering its service provider business.

The centres, one in Paris, France and the other in Dallas, Texas, will focus primarily on experimenting with solutions for large enterprise networking systems and telecoms operators, and feature technologies from a range of IBM partner companies including Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, Juniper Networks, Riverbed, and VMware.

IBM said facilitating automation and orchestration innovation will be the main thrust of the centres.

“Effectively applying cloud technologies to the network could allow a company to reduce its overall network capacity while increasing utilization by dynamically providing resources during the day in Beijing while it’s nighttime in New York, and vice versa,” said Pete Lorenzen, general manager, Networking Services, IBM Global Technology Services.

“A telecom company could better manage periodic, localized spikes in smartphone usage caused by major sporting events or daily urban commutes, dynamically provisioning capacity when and where it’s needed,” Lorenzen added.

IBM has pushed farther into the networking space in recent years, having scored a number of patents in the area of networking automation and dynamic network resource allocation. A significant driver of this is its service provider business, where some of the company’s competitors – like HP – are attempting to make inroads.