IoT hacker builds Huawei-based botnet, enslaves 18,000 devices in one day

How long does it take to build a #botnet? Not long, if you consider #Anarchy 's 18,000-device-strong creation, brought to life in only 24 hours. First spotted by researchers from @NewSky Security, as reported by @Bleeping Computer, other security firms including @Rapid7 and @Qihoo 360 @Netlab quickly jumped on the case and confirmed the existence of the new threat.

The security teams realized there has been a huge recent uptick in @Huawei device scanning.The traffic surge was due to scans seeking devices vulnerable to CVE-2017-17215, a critical security flaw which can be exploited through port 37215.Scans to find routers vulnerable to the issue began on 18 July.

If a Huawei router is exploited in this fashion, attackers can send malicious packets of data, launch attacks against the device, and remotely execute code -- which can be crafted in order to control, enslave, and add these devices to botnets.

Botnets are the creation of vast networks full of enslaved devices, which can include standard PCs, routers, smartphones, and a more recent addition, the compromise of Internet of Things (IoT) devices ranging from smart lights to fridges.

The LizardStresser botnet, a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)-for-hire system, for example, was able to launch 400Gbps attacks thanks to our vulnerable IoT devices.

After the source code was released to the public in 2015, LizardStresser botnet variants were discovered which targeted IoT products use telnet brute-force logins to random IP addresses with a hard-coded list of user credentials.

Hard-coded credentials are a common problem with IoT products even today, and all it often takes is a simple scanner to compromise such devices.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/iot-hacker-builds-huawei-based-botnet-using-18000-devices-in-one-day/

OpenSDS Project Issues First Release for Software-Defined Storage

The @LinuxFoundation is hosting a little-known open source project that’s doing #softwaredefinedstorage. The #OpenSDS project officially launched with the #Linux Foundation in November 2016. And it recently issued its first code release — #Aruba. The impetus of the project was to bring together different companies to collaborate on an open storage platform, said Steven Tan, chairman of the OpenSDS technical steering committee and CTO of cloud storage solutions at Huawei. There are so many open source projects for compute and networking. The founders of OpenSDS wanted something for storage.

Some of the vendors behind the start of OpenSDS were @Hitachi, @Huawei, and @Fujitsu. @Dell EMC joined a bit later. The group also includes end users of #softwaredefinedstorage such as @Vodafone, @YahooJapan, and @NTTCommunications.

“A lot of end users have a traditional IT set-up, and if they have cloud-native apps they still need to connect to the existing IT infrastructure,” said Tan. “A lot of projects are just addressing one environment. We’re trying to connect the dots and make sure to provide a framework that connects traditional with cloud-native.”

Similar to SDN, software-defined storage separates the control plane from the data plane. OpenSDS is creating the control plane for storage. Tan said it doesn’t matter whether the underlying storage is handled by hardware or software. The OpenSDS code provides a management and control interface.

“It’s definitely a very challenging endeavor,” said Tan. “In terms of more traditional storage like block or file, each vendor does stuff differently. OpenSDS is a consistent way to manage different storage.”

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/opensds-project-issues-first-release-for-software-defined-storage/2018/07/

Huawei is preparing a major AI hardware push

The company is reportedly currently hard at work on "Project Da Vinci", a major campaign that will bring AI technology to a wide range of its various hardware offerings. Amazon Prime Day deals: see all the best offers right now! According to The Information, #AI is set to play a major role in @Huawei 's near future -  as everything from smartphones to data centres and even networking equipment is set to get an intelligence boost under Project Da Vinci. Huawei Project Da Vinci AI is already a common feature in many of the smartphones released recently by both Huawei and its Western offshoot Honor. Both companies have launched devices featuring AI-enriched hardware and software, with the latter being used to improve photography or battery efficiency. Now it seems that Huawei is planning to expand its AI tools into the company's wider ecosystem. This would probably include the networking equipment that helped make Huawei what it is today, where AI could be used to ensure smoother and regulated network performances - key considerations with 5G on the horizon. But the report also claims that Huawei could be set to launch into the data centre chip space, bringing it into conflict with Nvidia, AMD and Intel. All these vendors have recently released AI-boosted hardware targeting the data centre, and as more and more organisations move into the cloud, such a transition by Huawei makes good business sense. Smart cities could also be another huge potential use case for Huawei's AI technology, with the report also mentioning the company's work in video surveillance cameras. Here, AI could be used to quickly scan through hours of video to detect criminals, or to monitor traffic build-up to ensure a city never gets gridlocked.

https://www.techradar.com/news/huawei-is-preparing-a-major-ai-hardware-push

Security Is the Top Concern for Enterprises as They Select a Data Center Switch Vendor, Says IHS Markit

@Cisco, @DellTechnologies, @Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( #HPE), @Juniper, and Huawei were identified as the top five data center Ethernet switch vendors by respondents to a survey from IHS Markit. For its Data Center Strategies and Leadership North American Enterprise Survey, IHS Markit asked enterprise IT leaders about the data centers they operate. Respondents ranked a list of eight criteria for choosing their data center Ethernet switch vendors from 1 (most important) to 8 (least important). Security and reliability were the top criteria, while pricing ranked lower. Security is the top criterion for selecting an Ethernet switch vendor. “On-premises data centers are likely targets, and equipment that can be compromised because it has not been designed to withstand attacks can expose the enterprise to unwanted risks,” said Cliff Grossner, senior research director and advisor for cloud and data center at IHS Markit. Enterprises evaluating Ethernet switch vendors also want assurance that they can count on their vendors, ranking reliability as their second highest criteria. “As enterprises’ applications served from the on-premises data center become more critical to the business, their ability to tolerate service interruptions is significantly reduced,” said Grossner. “When problems do occur, it is imperative vendors handle them quickly and efficiently.”

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/security-is-the-top-concern-for-enterprises-as-they-select-a-data-center-switch-vendor-says-ihs-markit/2018/07/

Huawei says it does not expect US sanctions: Report

China’s @Huawei, the world’s largest maker of #telecommunication network equipment, does not see itself becoming the target of U.S. sanctions and will keep buying U.S. chips this year, one of its three rotating chairmen told a French newspaper. Huawei, also the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, is a private company but has found itself battling perceptions of ties to the Chinese government, which it has repeatedly denied. Several U.S. lawmakers last month claimed its research funding to American universities posed a “significant threat” to national security, the latest difficulty Huawei has faced operating in the United States.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/09/huawei-says-it-does-not-expect-us-sanctions-report.html

Huawei developing its own OS in case it’s barred from Android?

@Android is the go-to operating system for those that aren’t into @iOS, but that may not be the case forever. @Samsung has been developing its own #Tizen OS for some time now, even using it on some smartphones. Now it could be @Huawei ’s turn: The South China Morning Post says Huawei has been working on an Android alternative. There are a few reasons an Android alternative might be important for Huawei. For starters, trade and security tensions between the U.S. and China have placed ZTE under threat of losing its Android license from Google. Huawei, another Chinese company, could be under the same threat. Even without U.S.-China tensions, there are plenty of reasons Huawei might want to explore its own technology. For example, the company may be looking to reduce its dependence on other companies in general — as it has done in the mobile processor business. While it does still use third-party processors, many of its devices use chips built by the company itself. According to the report, the plan to build a new operating system was set in motion by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, and was really a failsafe in case of a “worst-case scenario.” The operating system hasn’t seen the light of day yet because it simply isn’t as good as Android — but another problem with it could be that it doesn’t have enough third-party support. Even if it is developing its own operating system, it’s possible that Google’s apps and services will still be available on it — though that will depend on the operating system itself.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/huawei-operating-system-news/

HPE Denies Huawei Partnership Reports

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- "This announcement and resulting news coverage is inaccurate. @HPE does not have a partnership with @Huawei to develop #SDWAN or any other technology for general market availability. As a strong supporter of open standards and interfaces, HPE works together with all major vendors on customer-specific projects." @Hewlett Packard Enterprise

https://www.lightreading.com/carrier-sdn/sd-wan/hpe-denies-huawei-partnership-reports/d/d-id/742519

Scality Raises $152M, Talks Multi-Cloud Integration With Cisco and HPE

#Softwaredefined storage vendor @Scality today closed a $60 million funding round, bringing its total raised to $152 million. The company will invest the latest funding in its multi-cloud controller software, which it plans to launch commercially later this year. And it is already in talks with @Cisco and @Hewlett Packard Enterprise ( #HPE) about using the technology in their multi-cloud tools, said @PaulSpeciale, vice president of product management at Scality. “Both Cisco and HPE have their own multi-cloud products: HPE has OneSphere, and Cisco has CloudCenter, Speciale said. “But neither of those products have the data management piece.” Bundling Scality’s technology into their respective products would provide the data management piece. “We’re in discussions with HPE, and I see it going down that path,” he said. “We’re a little bit closer with CloudCenter. We’re at the point where we can start integration testing with them.” Related Articles  Construction Firm Replaces MPLS With CloudGenix App-Centric SD-WAN  Qualcomm’s Vision Intelligence IoT Platform Features an AI Engine  No More Meltdowns: Cisco and Microsoft Will Use Intel’s Silicon-Level Security  Google Kaniko Tool Wrenches on Container Privilege Concern  Winners and Losers After ZTE Is Banned From Buying U.S. Components Scality has been around since 2009. Founded in France, its headquarters are now in San Francisco along with facilities in Paris, London, Germany, and Australia. It launched its flagship scale-out object and file storage software called Ring in 2010. Customers include major companies in just about every vertical: Rackspace, Orange, KDDI, DMM.com, Telstra, Bloomberg Media, Dailymotion, Lancaster General Health (Penn Medicine), and Banque Natixis, among others. Make Multi-Cloud Easy In September 2017 the company launched an open source multi-cloud data controller called Zenko. It allows customers to store data on-site or in the cloud, and it supports Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. Scality will release a commercial version of the product in the upcoming months, Speciale said. “We will use the funding to fuel R&D around Zenko,” he said. “In conjunction with the Ring, it becomes our multi-cloud solution. The whole idea is it makes multi-cloud as easy as point and click.” Bloomberg is the first Zenko beta customer, using all three public clouds to manage its video files, Speciale said. “They wanted to push to AWS, Azure, and GCP all at the same time,” he said, adding that the media company signed a “seven-figure deal with us, on top of the Ring deal from two years ago.” Although the company’s software is sold running on top of HPE, @Cisco, @Dell EMC, and @Huawei servers, Scality is considering developing a branded appliance of its own, Speciale said. IPO Dreams? When asked if there’s an initial public offering on the horizon, he said, “Anything’s on the table. At this point, you just have to build a company that gets the profitability, and I think we see that window rising in the next year-and-a-half to two years, whether that’s an IPO or an M&A. If the opportunity arises, we’ll go IPO. If an acquisition makes sense, we’ll do it. Both are on the table.”

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/scality-raises-152m-talks-multi-cloud-integration-cisco-hpe/2018/04/

Cisco Faces a Dangerous New Rival: AT&T

@Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the largest manufacturer of network switches in the world, usually considers @Huawei, @Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, @Arista Networks, and @Juniper Networks to be its main competitors. Cisco controlled over half of the global ethernet switching market last year, according to IDC. However, a recent report from The Information indicates that @AT&T (NYSE: T), one of Cisco's major customers, is developing its own network switches. That move would reduce AT&T's costs and give it more flexibility and customization options across its networks. But it also could hurt Cisco by shattering a main pillar of its business model.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.yahoo.com/amphtml/finance/news/cisco-faces-dangerous-rival-t-154500371.html#ampshare=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cisco-faces-dangerous-rival-t-154500371.html

Huawei profit rises to 47b yuan for 2017

@Huawei has announced a full-year net profit of 47.5 billion yuan for 2017, up 22.7 percent from the 37.1 billion yuan reported a year earlier, attributing the result to its smartphones, enterprise solutions, and the digital transformation across industries. The Chinese networking giant brought in 603.6 billion yuan ($92.5 billion) revenue during the year, up 15.7 percent from 521.6 billion yuan in 2016. A breakdown of its revenue saw its carrier business grow by the smallest amount, rising by just 2.5 percent year on year to bring in 297.8 billion yuan. "Through advancements in technology like 5G, we are helping telecom networks connect more people, more homes, and more organisations. Ultimately, we aim to position telecom networks as the basic infrastructure of the digital world," Huawei rotating CEO Ken Hu said in the results report [PDF], with Huawei unveiling its first 5G customer premises equipment during MWC in February. During the year, Huawei said it conducted pre-commercial 5G tests with more than 30 carriers in over 10 cities; signed more than 350 network function virtualisation (NFV) and 380 software-defined networking (SDN) contracts; deployed over 30 CloudAIR commercial networks; rolled out more than 500,000 narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) base stations across the globe; worked with 1,000 partners on its "IoT ecosystem"; and shipped over 1 million Boudica NB-IoT chips per month. As of the end of 2017, Huawei had also deployed more than 120 4.5G networks across the world, including for Deutsche Telekom, China Telecom, LG U+, and EE. "5G has entered the commercial deployment stage. The Internet of Things (IoT), video, cloud, and other innovative technologies are seeing widespread adoption and reshaping every industry," Huawei added, remaining positive that it will continue seeing growth across the carrier business.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/huawei-profit-rises-to-47b-yuan-for-2017/

China's Huawei Technologies reshuffles board for first time since 2012

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Smartphone maker @Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] said it has elected a new board in its first reshuffle since 2012, shedding some light on the company’s succession plans following speculation about the retirement of founder @Ren Zhengfei.

Ren will step down as vice chairman, though he will remain as CEO and board member under the new board, Huawei said in a statement to Reuters, confirming reports in local media.

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The telecoms industry has been expecting the 73-year-old to eventually retire but the company has given no exact timeframe.

Huawei said Liang Hua, who has held various positions since joining the company in 1995, will become chairman, replacing chairwoman Sun Yafang.

Ren’s daughter, Meng Wanzhou, who is CFO, was elected one of the four vice chairpersons in the board reshuffle, Huawei said.

The company also said its rotating CEO system, in which Guo Ping, Eric Xu and Ken Hu used to take turns as CEO, would be replaced by a rotating chairman system.

The chairmen will include Guo, Xu and Hu. Huawei did not provide more details.

The new appointments take place with immediate effect, Huawei said.

Huawei was founded by Ren, a former People’s Liberation Army officer in 1987. The company has grown into a global player in telecom equipment and a key brand in mobile phones.

In December, it flagged overall and smartphone revenue figures for 2017 that represented its slowest growth in four years, and vowed to extend its global reach with more premium products next year.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech/chinas-huawei-technologies-reshuffles-board-for-first-time-since-2012-idUSKBN1GZ2J9

Huawei unveils Intent-Driven CloudCampus solution

@Huawei has announced its new #IntentDriven #CloudCampus solution which promises automated service provisioning and O&M, and converged access. The new architecture was announced at Huawei Western Europe Partner Summit in Amsterdam and is built on the campus network insight engine #CampusInsight and its campus network automation solution #SoftwareDefined Campus ( #SDCampus ). Huawei has claimed CampusInsight can help build a predictive, self-healing closed-loop system with added visibility for each user in real-time. “Connectivity, the key to building a digital platform in an enterprise, is being extended from people to things and environments,” said Wang Shihong, GM of Huawei’s Campus Network Domain. “Our CloudCampus solution will help enterprises to build an intelligent digital network platform that links together business intent and network architecture, enabling digital transformation.” Looking more at the technical specifics, CampusInsight collects network and application data from network devices before using big data and AI tech to implement network fault analysis and proactive prediction. Huawei has said up to 85% of potential issues can be automatically identified. SD-Campus automates network deployment, rollout of virtual networks, and user/application-oriented policy management, to reduce OPEX.

http://telecoms.com/488513/huawei-unveils-intent-driven-cloudcampus-solution/

Huawei Unveils New CloudCapmus Solutions & Programmable Switches

Today at the @Huawei Western Europe Partner Summit 2018, Huawei announced its #IntentDriven #CloudCampus solution and new programmable switches for enterprise campus networks. This new Intent-Drive Network ( #IDN ) architecture is said to help build future-proof wired and wireless networks that feature uncompromised user experience, automated service provisioning and Operations and Maintenance ( #O&M ), and converged access. The company states the new new solution builds AI, Big Data, and Cloud into network architecture.  Digital transformations are pushing everything to run at higher speeds. The bottleneck is getting pushed to the network, where either the technology is lacking or it can’t advance fast enough for everything else. With this in mind, Huawei states that its new Intent-Driven CloudCampus will adopt the 'Intelligent, Simplified, Converged, Secure, and Open' design concepts. The company is launched both a campus network insight engine CampusInsight and a campus network automation solution Software-Defined Campus (SD-Campus). Huawei is also launching two new programmable switches. Huawei's Intent-Driven CloudCampus New Components CampusInsight 2.0 (Campus network insight engine): By leveraging telemetry technology, CampusInsight collects network and application data from network devices in real time and on demand. Big Data and AI technologies are used to implement network fault analysis and proactive prediction, and up to 85 percent of potential issues can be automatically identified. SD-Campus 2.0 (Full-lifecycle campus network automation solution): Designed for medium- and large-sized campus networks, SD-Campus leverages Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and cloud technologies to automate network deployment, rollout of virtual networks, and user/application-oriented policy management. These features help to reduce OPEX by 80 percent. New agile switches S5730-HI and S6720-HI supporting SD-Campus: These fully programmable agile switches, built on Huawei's Ethernet Network Processor (ENP) chips, implement wired and wireless convergence through the native Access Controller (AC) function and support SD-Campus scenarios. Huawei S5730-HI is a next-generation agile switch that supports all-gigabit access. Huawei S6720-HI is the industry's first fully programmable fixed switch with 100GE uplink ports for campus networks. Huawei intends to continue to release new CloudCampus solutions and products to help the market adapt to the changes they face.

http://www.storagereview.com/huawei_unveils_new_cloudcapmus_solutions_programmable_switches

How China's Huawei Killed $117 Billion Broadcom Deal

#CFIUS is concerned that @Broadcom would cut back on R&D funding at @Qualcomm, strengthening Huawei at a time when rivals from @Ericsson to @Nokia are grappling with weak telecoms spending. That theoretically gives Chinese companies such as @Huawei and closest rival @ZTE Corp. the upper hand in steering the direction of wireless communications development, thereby -- so the argument goes -- jeopardizing U.S. national security. CFIUS’s concerns over the deal are said also to stem from Broadcom’s ties to Huawei, which was blacklisted in 2012 along with ZTE when the U.S. House Intelligence Committee cited security risks posed by the companies.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-13/how-china-s-huawei-killed-117-billion-broadcom-deal-quicktake

Huawei Unveils First Car To Be Driven By AI-Powered Smartphone

@Huawei has become the first mobile device manufacturer in the world to use an #AI -powered smartphone to drive a car. The #RoadReader project pushes the boundaries of Huawei’s object recognition technology and puts the learning capabilities, speed and performance of its AI-powered devices to the test. Unlike other driverless cars, which simply detect obstacles, Huawei has transformed a @Porsche #Panamera into a #driverlesscar that doesn’t just see, but crucially, understands its surroundings. This means that it can distinguish between 1000s of different objects including a cat and a dog, a ball or a bike and learn to take the most appropriate course of action. Huawei’s RoadReader project is taking advantage of the AI capabilities already in the Huawei Mate 10 Pro. The device uses AI to automatically recognise the objects like cats, dogs, food and other objects, to help people take pictures like a pro.

https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/633744/huawei-unveils-first-car-driven-by-ai-powered-smartphone/

Huawei to invest $800 million in R&D for 5G in 2018

In 2018, @Huawei will invest CNY5 billion ($800 million) in R&D for 5G, and launch a full range of commercial 5G equipment, including wireless access networks, bearer networks, core networks, and devices.  In addition, Huawei aims to increase the number of #NBIoT connections to over 100 million around the world. The technology giant will launch over 20 new products and showcase the results of its cooperation with over 300 partners at the upcoming MWC 2018.   Huawei recently held a pre-MWC 2018 briefing in London, during which the company called on all industries to work together and go beyond traditional boundaries in the areas of capabilities, connections, business, experience, and partnerships for a fully-connected, intelligent world.  The vendor forecast that by 2025, 180 ZB of data will be generated around the world every year, a 20-fold increase compared with today. "Such new data will become a huge 'data oilfield', serving as an inexhaustible source of intelligence and value."  Ryan Ding, executive director of the Board and President of Huawei Carrier BG, said: "Before entering the intelligent world, we are still faced with many challenges. To achieve sustainable business growth, we need to keep moving beyond existing constraints and boundaries, first internally and then externally." The briefing further focused on how carriers should innovate across areas like IoT, video, and cloud strategy to generate new sources of revenues. In 2017, over 100 carriers around the world made video their basic service, with this number expected to increase to 150 in 2018. During the MWC, under the theme of "ROADS to a Better Future", Huawei will showcase its latest products and solutions and, together with partners, provide demonstrations in multiple scenarios.

http://www.itp.net/mobile/616519-huawei-to-invest-$800-million-in-r&d-for-5g-in-2018

Huawei claims national security is used as plausible excuse for 'protectionism'

@Huawei has told an Australian parliamentary committee it believes national security is sometimes being used to hide protectionist trade policies. The Chinese comms gear giant made the comments to the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth, which is conducting an inquiry into trade and the digital economy. US Senate mulls giving Huawei and ZTE the Kaspersky treatment READ MORE Without identifying particular incidents, Huawei's global government affairs veep Simon Lacey said national security should not be “used as a blank cheque to justify or disguise protectionism.” Lacey told the committee that exceptions to free trade would be better regulated under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, so companies could use WTO dispute settlement processes to stop “public policy exceptions” being used to “justify disguised restrictions on international trade”. In a paper that will soon be published as its submission to the inquiry, Huawei says “governments intervene in the digital economy in a number of ways, both directly and indirectly, in order to achieve a very wide range of – for the most part – perfectly legitimate and commendable policy objectives”. In that context, the submission calls for “reasonable regulatory objectives” which “do not act as a disguised restriction on international trade”.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/12/huawei_against_protectionism/

Here's What Happens To Private Cloud If VMware Reverse Merges With Dell

This week it was reported that one option for @Dell Technologies to reemerge as a public company would be for @VMware to buy Dell Technologies in a “ #reversemerger .” A reverse merger makes sense, given that @Dell EMC is behind in developing compelling #privatecloud and #multicloud solutions, and VMware is not. VMware has been positioned as strongly independent of Dell EMC. CEO @PatGelsinger said last year “We were an independent company, and we remain an independent company.” Such a reverse merger would throw that independence away. The effect could be profound on Dell Technologies’ enterprise private cloud hardware competitors ( @Cisco, @HPE, @Huawei, @IBM, @Lenovo and @Oracle) and VMware’s private cloud software competitors (primarily @Cloud Foundry, @Microsoft #Azure Stack and @Red Hat @OpenStack). Container vendors and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), plus Microsoft’s Azure Stack, could be the biggest winners. Products that can manage private cloud to multi-cloud application deployment will also benefit, such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) OneSphere and IBM’s Cloud Private products. Containers vs. Virtual Machines Most enterprise IT shops still use VMs to manage deploying legacy application instances. There will be a shift from VMs to containers and private cloud, but it will be a long, slow shift. Because of the massive installed base of enterprise legacy applications, all major enterprise IT vendors must support VMware for their customer base. However, VMware’s relationships run much deeper than simply support: Recommended by Forbes The Whole Story On Microsoft Tapping ARM To Break Intel's Datacenter Monop... AMD EPYC Enters Azure Cloud Through Microsoft Project Olympus Quantum Computing Will Not Break Your Encryption, Yet Microsoft Azure Stack Moving On Private Cloud At Ignite MOST POPULAR Photos: The 10 Most Dangerous U.S. Cities TRENDING ON LINKEDIN Ten Things Never, Ever To Give An Employer -- Until After You're Hired MOST POPULAR Photos: 15 Small Company Stocks You Should Own Now MOST POPULAR Shake Shack Founder Danny Meyer On His Fear Of Fast-Growth And Why He Prefers... Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers VMware Cloud Google partnered with Pivotal to provision VMware NSX HPE has a strategic alliance with VMware IBM has a strategic partnership with VMware, with Dell EMC reselling IBM Cloud for VMware solutions Lenovo sells VMware reference architectures Microsoft Azure offers bare metal instances running VMware One of the effects of Dell’s merger with EMC (resulting in the company’s majority stake in VMware) was that Dell EMC’s IT competitors’ started searching in earnest for long-term alternatives to VMware. Most of them are partnered with or investing in private cloud framework options: TIRIAS Research During 2017, all the top-tier public clouds joined or increased membership levels in the CNCF to declare their support for Kubernetes container infrastructure or simply keep an eye on its progress (“keep your friends close, and your enemies closer…”), including: Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Baidu, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Tencent and VMware. As you can see, many IT vendors have placed redundant investments in private cloud infrastructure. That can’t hold forever. Multi-Cloud VMware Cloud will run apps across vSphere-based clusters, and will integrate, discover and manage VMs and containers on AWS and Microsoft Azure (currently in the US, only). VMware Horizon Cloud Service hosts virtual desktops and applications on VMware Horizon Cloud and on Microsoft Azure. A reverse merger with VMware should be designed to settle Dell EMC’s private cloud and multi-cloud investment strategies on VMware products—otherwise, why bother? Dell EMC is already leaning heavily on VMware. And the rest of the competitive field is already looking for alternatives. Many vendors offer products to scale single-vendor products to multiple datacenters, for example Huawei’s ManageOne and Oracle Private Cloud Appliance scaling to Oracle Cloud for VM deployment (IaaS). But neither of these provides a scalable multi-cloud strategy. HPE OneSphere provides a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) layer on top of Kubernetes containers, plus VMware and OpenStack VMs (and in the future Microsoft Azure Stack). HPE OneSphere enables managing applications across private clouds and in the future, multiple public clouds (for the moment only AWS is supported, though Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform are under consideration). IBM Cloud Private is built on Kubernetes and Cloud Foundry; it provides a branded “Cloud Native” option for deployment. IBM Cloud Private’s open source application environments are consistent with IBM’s public cloud offerings, enabling a clean single-vendor hybrid application deployment model. In addition, IBM Cloud Private also includes multi-cloud management tools in its hybrid cloud management services and can be managed through its SaaS-based IBM Cloud Orchestrator. IBM Cloud Private can be deployed on VMware and OpenStack distributions. IBM Cloud Orchestrator provides multi-cloud support for AWS, IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Note that, like VMware vSphere, HPE OneSphere and IBM Cloud Private can run on pretty much any industry standard (i.e. x86) hardware—they all support heterogeneous hardware. A Post-Independent VMware World In 2017 VMware removed vSphere support for third-party virtual switches, which had a profound effect on Cisco’s enterprise software-defined networking (SDN) products, as well as HPE and IBM virtual switch products. If a Dell Technologies reverse merger with VMware occurs, I think that will be a driving factor for the rest of the industry to accelerate private cloud investments away from VMware. But a fragmented set of private cloud investments and choices will not pose a competitive challenge to VMware. The rest of the industry should pick a direction, much as they did with OpenStack about 5 years ago. The two private cloud infrastructure strategic directions that make the most sense to me are CNCF for containers and Microsoft Azure Stack for both VMs and containers. As much as OpenStack was a truly great idea in 2010, containers became an even better idea with Kubernetes orchestration in 2015. That is why there is so much overlap in IT vendor sponsorship of both OpenStack and CNCF (notably missing from CNCF are the telecommunications carriers, but that is a story for another time). The cloud giants don’t want to enable each other, but public cloud customers want to have choice among public clouds. HPE, IBM and VMware are trying to fill the gap and have the most advanced multi-cloud applications management solutions today. Dell EMC is leaning on Red Hat OpenStack and Microsoft Azure Stack for undifferentiated private cloud software solutions. Dell EMC also does not have a competitive multi-cloud product. A reverse merger with VMware makes sense from that perspective. Dell EMC needs to harness VMware as a competitive advantage to stay in the game.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tiriasresearch/2018/01/31/heres-what-happens-to-private-cloud-if-vmware-reverse-merges-with-dell/#2b2570d7446c

China Mobile and China Unicom Deploy Huawei’s Cloud Fabric

Both @China Mobile and @China Unicom are using @Huawei’s #CloudFabric for their data center modernization programs. China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile provider with 873 million subscribers, is building a private cloud at five of its data centers in the cities of Hohhot and Harbin in China. The private cloud will support the carrier in evolving its traditional IT systems to a centralized cloud computing platform. China Mobile says, once completed, this will be the world’s largest @OpenStack project.

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/china-mobile-china-unicom-deploy-huaweis-cloudfabric/2018/01/

Vodafone and Huawei claim virtualised fibre breakthrough

New development from @Huawei and @Vodafone could accelerate high-speed broadband roll-outs. Chinese tech giant Huawei and Vodafone Ireland have successfully conducted a field trial of virtualising fibre-to-the-home ( #FTTH ) networks into multiple network slices. The breakthrough could significantly speed up how FTTH and business deployments are managed, and enable ISPs and telcos to serve multiple customers across the same infrastructure. ‘In a world where delivering fibre to the premises will be critical to consumers and businesses alike, Vodafone is confident that the technology will help increase utilisation levels and stimulate the development of new service’ – MADALINA SUCEVEANU The field trial of fixed-access network slicing (FANS) makes it possible for different service providers to manage their own customers on the same piece of fibre going into a building. Effectively, a virtualised network can run across a single strand of fibre, making it possible for different ISPs to independently serve customers in the same building or premises.  “The introduction of the access virtualisation technology is an important step for our commitment to be at the forefront of technological innovation,” explained Madalina Suceveanu, Vodafone Ireland technology director. “This will translate into a better network experience offered to our fixed customers.” The breakthrough has the potential to facilitate new joint ventures and co-investment partner models for operating FTTH networks. “In a world where delivering fibre to the premises will be critical to consumers and businesses alike, Vodafone is confident that the technology will help increase utilisation levels and stimulate the development of new services. “It could also make it easier for partners to share networks, which in turn will further help us to build fibre networks that deliver ultra-fast speeds to everyone, bringing about the gigabit society of the future,” Suceveanu said.
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/vodafone-huawei-fans-fibre-virtualisation