The Future of 5G Wireless
CEO of Ericsson, Hans Vestberg estimates that commercial 5G networks should be available around 2018, with more than 10 spots around the world already testing early versions that show latency below 10 milliseconds, compared to current LTE latency, which is around 100 milliseconds. Their tests also show transfer rates of up to 5 gigabits per second, with Ericsson expecting to be able to increase that figure to 10 gigabits per second. With that unmatched speed, the implications of this could be astounding, as Ericsson demonstrated during the Consumer Electronics Show with remote operation of cars and construction equipment in close to real-time.
Vonage SmartWAN powered by VeloCloud
Vonage announces plans to launch Vonage SmartWAN powered by VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN technology, which will help simplify the technology and improve redundancy across their locations for businesses with high demand for voice, video and data communications. Benefits will also include enhanced performance of mission critical application SaaS, CRM tools, hosted email, quality of service (QoS) assurance and protection, as well as the ability to maximize bandwidth resources.
Vonage chose VeloCloud for their unique combination of dynamic multipath optimization and on-demand remediation capabilities for multiple or single network connections. VeloCloud also offers bandwidth on-demand, providing direct access to cloud-based applications, which simplifies the deployment of services.
Pluribus Networks Offering Virtualization-Centric Fabric Called Netvisor
Pluribus Networks announces their Virtualization-Centric Fabric (VCF), an architectural approach to software-defined networking, offered through Netvisor operating systems for open switches. It offers the industry’s only completely virtualized networking fabric with macro segmentation and completed flow-level visibility.
Pluribus releases this in partnership with Ericsson’s Hyper Scale Data Systems for the Cloud, with the head of Ericsson’s Hyper Cloud Solutions Business Unit, Howard Wu, citing that the use of VCF fabric architecture with their optical networking could offer “a level of on-demand and subscription capabilities not available anywhere else.” This partnership should be interesting to watch, as advancements in virtualization help to manage the volume and velocity of increased network traffic. It should also be interesting to watch how the CDN market and SP’s react with these changes in networking.
Alcatel-Lucent Expands in Asian Markets Amidst Corporate Shifts
Alcatel-Lucent has stepped up to deploy infrastructure to help Japan’s largest mobile operating system, NTT DOCOMO, INC., increase the performance of their mobile network while reducing the cost of operations. Japan has one of the world’s largest and most advanced markets in telecom with NTT DOCOMO, INC. serving over 68 million subscribers. Alcatel-Lucent will help to expand the operator’s IP network capabilities, while reducing energy consumption compared to most core routing platforms deployed today. This will greatly help the telecom market in Japan, especially considering projections from Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, predicting that data traffic will double in the country each year, resulting in a thousand-fold increase between now and 2020.
Alcatel-Lucent also has news coming out of India where they entered into a partnership with Pune-based Syntel Telecom for the distribution of their enterprise solutions. They will bring a range of products such as data networking, Wi-Fi, and enterprise voice communication to the Indian market. This is another region of Asia that is poised for mass expansion over the coming years, with Alcatel-Lucent in a good position to further expansion across the country.
All this news comes about amidst reports of corporate restructuring at Alcatel-Lucent after Nokia’s successful public exchange offer last week. Today, Philippe Camus has been confirmed as the new Chairman of the Board and CEO of Alcatel-Lucent. The two companies are still proceeding with integration plans with Alcatel-Lucent’s new board having just approved two service agreements with Nokia to implement plans which will go into effect today. Hopefully, this restructuring at the corporate-level will not distract them from the momentum Alcatel-Lucent is gaining in the Asian markets.
Appcito ADS offers new version 1.12
Appcito ADS released a new version, today, with unified sets of services in traffic management, application security and analytics, which offer comprehensive application delivery for cloud networks. Version 1.12 touts features including a multi-tenant cloud with unique configuration policies for each tenant, additional ways to manage layer 7 persistence, HAProxy and F5 BIG-IP performance monitoring metrics, HTTP/2 support and WebSockets support, as well as Layer 4 IDS/IPS capabilities. While the complexity of these features requires much more elaboration on the technical side, the general results they offer include operational simplicity to application owners, while allowing IT and networking teams to define policies and get visibility of how applications are performing.
Arbor Networks Uncover New Threat to Asian Governments
Arbor released today in a new ASERT Threat Intelligence Report that a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) named “Trochilus” is believed to have been used to target Asian Governments and NGOs. This news comes shortly after Arbor Network discovered the PlugX and EvilGrab malware targeting the same Asian governments in 2015, which suggests an ongoing malware siege. In their ASERT findings, Arbor Networks reports that this Trochilus RAT is traceable to a cyber-gang identified as Group 27. Concern revolves around the malware’s ability to move laterally inside a system to spread and increase its impact, which makes it a strategic asset for espionage purposes.
Ericsson and the Internet of Things (IoT)
This past week, Ericsson released plans for the first complete cellular low-power wide-area (LPWA) solution to both AT&T and Verizon, with Verizon welcoming plans to leverage their existing LTE infrastructure for IoT opportunities on a massive scale. IoT has quickly been on the rise, with innovators in the industry developing plans for connected homes, smart cities and connected vehicles. Amidst this interest in IoT, Ericsson leads the charge, launching three IoT solutions—smart metering as a service, user and IoT data analytics, and network software upgrades to accelerate mass-market adoption.
The ramifications of this could be huge, not just for the value of the companies involved, but for society, with experts projecting that the IoT could consist of almost 50 billion connected objects by 2020. This could mean smart bikes, cars and public transportation, smart homes with intelligent thermostats, appliances and alarms, and even citywide applications with grid management, water quality monitoring and smart agriculture.
With such a broad range of exciting potential, Verizon and their LTE network stands at the forefront, poised to achieve a faster time to market with the best mobility, security and reach. As further advances are made, it will be exciting to see how the void in IoT will be filled, and whether companies like AT&T will see be able to stay in the game.
Qualys Introduces New Features
Qualys announced today new features on their Malware Detection 2.8, Web Application Firewall 2.0, Web Application Scanning 4.5, and Qualys Cloud Suite 2.11. Qualys MD 2.8 now allows the flexibility of running hourly scans. WAF 4.5 now supports multiple secure web applications in one cluster through the SNI extension of TLS protocol. WAS 4.5 and the Cloud Suite 2.11 update allow for customers to receive more comprehensive CSV reporting on their scans and also includes an API update to help users integrate their programs and API calls.
AWS Launches Data Centers for its Cloud Platform in Korea
Amazon continues to lead the race as they expand their geographical reach to the Seoul, Korea, building physical infrastructure there to help provide fast-paced and reliable cloud services across the region. This new region in Seoul contains two Availability Zones, and while AWS didn’t release the actual figures, each Zone usually consists of one or more data centers. Amazon’s demand in the Seoul market required them to launch physical data centers to help reduce latency, which marks their fifth Availability Zone in the region after Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo and Sydney. They further add to their reputation as the world’s most expansive CDN, with Microsoft and Google racing to keep up in the competition for global reach.
Incapsula Announces Two New Data Centers in Milan and Melbourne
With the addition of two new data centers in Milan and Melbourne respectively, Imperva Incapsula now spreads their reach to 28 dedicated centers. The Milan data center marks their 10th PoP in the Europe/Middle East/Africa region, adding support for the Italian market and connecting Incapsula to Milan IX, the largest Internet Exchange in the country. Their Melbourne data center marks the third PoP in the region, along with Auckland and Sydney. Both data centers will help to provide reliable services that protects secure websites with sturdy WAF, load balancers to increase capacity, Layer 3 scrubbing, and IP security.