Verizon Taps Cisco, Juniper to Simplify Network with SDN

@Verizon is partnering up with @Cisco and @Juniper Networks to simplify its network through #softwaredefined networking ( #SDN) technologies. That network simplification will take place on the edge, where SDN will be used to combine Verizon's routers for Ethernet and IP-based services into a single disaggregated platform. A key tenet of SDN is the separation of network data and control planes (or hardware and software network layers). "This new multi-service edge solution features a disaggregated control plane and leverages external compute to enhance the capabilities of that control plane beyond that of a traditional router," Verizon said in a statement today (April 30). In addition to allowing Verizon to respond to industry technology changes more quickly, the company said the new initiative will result in improvements to processes such as the deployment and provisioning of network infrastructure.

https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2018/04/30/verizon-sdn.aspx?m=1

Verizon and Cisco ICN Trial Finds Names More Efficient Than Numbers

@Verizon and @Cisco completed a lab trial of Information-Centric Networking ( #ICN ) technology that uses “named data” rather than location identifiers like IP addresses to support streaming video content. The trial also looked at ways to increase usage of multi-access edge computing ( #MEC ) architectures. The companies demonstrated the ICN software over standard TCP/IP platforms in a Verizon lab located in Waltham, Massachusetts. The demo showed dynamic adaptive streaming and load balancing of video media. This can support different caching strategies to help manage traffic on the front end, and preserve backhaul and core capacity on the back end.

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/verizon-and-cisco-icn-trial-finds-names-more-efficient-than-numbers/2018/03/

Verizon Takes SDN Wireless, with the Help of AI

The nascent software-defined networking ( #SDN ) approach continues to expand its reach, with wireless being among the newest frontiers in which it has made inroads. The move into the wireless ecosystem is exemplified by @Verizon 's debut of its Software Defined Wireless Local Area Network ( #SDWLAN ) last week. With the help of artificial intelligence ( #AI ) and #machinelearning technology from @MistSystems, the SD WLAN is said to increase visibility into corporate wireless network operations -- including Bluetooth-enabled devices connected to such networks -- with the aim of improving the user experience. The self-described user-centric wireless LAN managed solution is under Verizon's Virtual Network Services umbrella. As far back as 2016, Verizon has positioned its new-age offerings as having wireless capabilities, as it sought to keep pace with SDN and network functions virtualization (NFV) functionality found in managed virtualized service products from rivals such as AT&T, Nuage Networks and Cisco

https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2018/02/01/verizon-wireless-sdn.aspx?m=1

Without Net Neutrality, Is It Time To Build Your Own Internet?

Last week, the @FederalCommunicationsCommission went ahead with its deeply unpopular plan to end net neutrality protections, giving internet service providers like @AT&T, @Verizon, and @Comcast unprecedented control of our experience online. But what if you and your community could become your own internet service provider?

Congress can still reject the FCC’s decision, though at least one proposed bill suggests there’s reason not to be overly optimistic they will save the day. Either way, maybe it’s time to rethink our relationship with the internet — and with big ISPs that facilitate our access to the web. Instead of depending on monopolistic corporations, internet users can take back the net by building their own community-supported internet networks. Mesh networks can help. A mesh wireless antenna in Chinatown, New York.  What is a mesh network? When we access the internet via an ISP, we are likely connecting via broadband, which is literally a giant cable that connects our ISP to top-level internet exchanges. In other words, the ISP acts as the central gatekeeper that ultimately controls our point of online access. Mesh networks, on the other hand, connect devices directly to each other. Rather than going through a central point, mesh networks allow for how we connect to automatically reconfigure according to the availability and proximity of bandwidth and storage. Since they are decentralized, the only way to shut down or otherwise disrupt a mesh network is to shut down every node in the network. This makes them much more resilient to interference or other disturbances. In more practical terms, by setting up specially configured wireless routers (known as “nodes”) that connect to other configured wireless routers, mesh networks allow local users to create a network that is physically distinct from the internet. (Although it can connect to the internet, it can also exist as its own local network.)Then, antennas installed on the outside of buildings connect to each other, forming a mesh network. Does this exist in the real world? A map of NYC Mesh's current nodes. Active nodes are in red, and lines show supernode connections. Mesh wireless networks have already been deployed across the world, from New York’s NYC Mesh, Detroit’s Equitable Internet Initiative to eastern Afghanistan’s FabFi — though that was eventually shut down under pressure from local telecoms — to rural communities in South Africa. One of the most sophisticated mesh wireless networks is Guifi.net, a community network in Spain that has grown from a single node in 2004 to more than 30,000 in 2016. It has spawned the creation of local ISPs that connect its users to fiber Internet. In the short time since the FCC’s net neutrality ruling, there have already been a number of new mesh internet projects popping up, including Honolulu Mesh in Hawaii, while a group in Los Angeles just announced its first meet-up to begin planning. Other mesh wireless networks have been temporary, serving as a backup source of internet when the normal networks were knocked down. After Hurricane Sandy, when Internet and cell phone networks were knocked out in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook, a mesh wireless network became the backbone of communication for the mostly low-income community. FEMA ended up installing a satellite internet connection at the community center, which then spread the internet via the mesh. How to Make Your Own How a mesh wireless network that connects to the Internet would look like Several organizations offer guides and free resources to create your own mesh wireless networks.
https://www.inverse.com/article/39507-mesh-networks-net-neutrality-fcc

Google, AWS, Microsoft Tops in Government Cloud Deployments

The global government cloud market is expected to nearly double in size by 2022, reaching nearly $29 billion. That’s according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets, which predicts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.4 percent. The market is $15.4 billion today. @Google, @AmazonWebServices ( #AWS ) and @Microsoft are listed among the major vendors in this market. Others include @ATT, @Verizon, @VMware, @Cisco, @HewlettPackardEnterprise ( #HPE ), #DellTechnologies  and @CenturyLink. Market drivers include lower IT costs, availability of compliant services, minimized human dependence, protection of enterprise data against disasters, and the need for regulatory compliance. The cloud storage segment is estimated to be the largest this year and continue its dominance through 2022. Major drivers include reduced cost, increasing demand, instant access and mobility, and easy deployment. With more cloud adoption, the integration and migration services segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR over the next five years. The partner opportunity should be obvious, but the government vertical clearly is ripe for picking. North America is expected to have the largest market share and dominate the market with large-scale investments in cloud infrastructure implementation; however, Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region in the market.

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/2017/10/16/google-aws-microsoft-tops-in-government-cloud-deployments/

Yahoo is giving a critical piece of internal technology to the world -- just like it did with Hadoop

Yahoo is open-sourcing an internal tool called #Vespa, which it uses for content recommendations, ad serving, and executing certain searches. Vespa is arguably #Yahoo 's biggest open-source software release since #Hadoop in 2009, which formed the basis for two now-public companies, #Hortonworks and #Cloudera. Companies like #Amazon, #Facebook, and #Google could find it useful.

Oath, the #Verizon-owned parent company of Yahoo, is releasing for free some of its most important internal software, which the company has long used to make recommendations, target ads and execute searches.

The Vespa software solves a common but surprisingly difficult problem: quickly figuring out what to show a user in response to input, like when they type text into a box. Oath uses it in around 150 applications, including Flickr, Yahoo Mail and the main Yahoo search engine (specifically for components like entities, local results, images and answers to questions). It handles 3 billion native ad requests every day.

"The typical case is you don't know what you want to serve, but you have 20 billion pictures and you want to find the right ones," Jon Bratseth, a distinguished architect at Yahoo who led Vespa's development, told CNBC in an interview.

Vespa, which is now live on GitHub with an Apache 2.0 open-source license, can easily be added to different applications, making it suitable for use at big companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google that need to do different kinds of processing on different sets of data.

The release is the most important for Yahoo since it open-sourced the code for the Hadoop big data software in 2006. Hadoop has since come to be at the center of two public companies, Cloudera and Yahoo spin-off Hortonworks. Today people at lots of companies can contribute to technology that's still widely used at Yahoo, and build their own systems using Hadoop.

How Yahoo built it

Big tech companies regularly open-source their software. But if there's powerful software at the heart of a company's biggest revenue centers, it can take a while to come out into the open, and Vespa is no different.

Vespa dates back to the early 2000s. Yahoo already had web search technology, first through a partnership with Google and later through its 2002 Inktomi acquisition. What Yahoo didn't have was technology for delivering search results and recommendations on content that falls outside traditional web search results.

In 2003 Yahoo acquired Overture, which included its partner AltaVista as well as a lesser known search engine called AllTheWeb.com. After the deal, the roughly 30 AllTheWeb people were given a year to build software that could perform certain functions quickly before web pages were shown to end users. The system also needed to be easy to set up, run and tweak, so that it could be applied to a variety of applications without much trouble.

In around 2005, the AllTheWeb team worked with Yahoo's shopping team to adopt the new system. It required less management time, freeing up staffers to build new features.

"After that, we had a proven use case -- and that was a complicated one," Bratseth said. "More and more teams in Yahoo started using our system by themselves, because it made business sense. They would offload a lot of the problems they had to take care of themselves."

So Bratseth's team started expanding the powers of Vespa. They made it capable of handling input other than users' strings of text; over time it could also personalize content based on what users had clicked on in the past, which is valuable in cases when users haven't typed in anything. They also changed Vespa so that it could take direction from machine-learning algorithms.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/yahoo-open-sources-vespa-for-content-recommendations.html

New Services Roundup: CenturyLink, Level 3, TBI, More

Perhaps you’ve heard of some of them: #CenturyLink, #Level3, #Telarus, #Windstream, #DellEMC and #VMware, just to name a few. They run the gamut, from big telco providers, to master agents and distributors, to the giants of IT. They’re all here. Software-defined networking continues to be a hot technology, evidenced by multiple companies announcing new SD-WAN services. What follows are the channel’s hottest new products and services, as well as those being offered to certain groups of partners for the first time. Scroll down and click on the arrows on the pictures to advance through the gallery! You’ll want to keep up with the latest in technology and find services that could make you more money. Miss last month’s new services roundup?
Dell EMC

#DellEMC expanded its portfolio of #VDI Complete Solutions: the #Latitude5280 — its latest mobile #thinclient; and #NVIDIA virtual #GPU options. The vendor also announced advances in #VxRail Appliances and #VxRack #SDDC Systems; Dell EMC Enterprise #HybridCloud and Native Hybrid Cloud turnkey platforms; and new #VMware Ready Systems. 

#CenturyLink CenturyLink enhanced its #privatecloud service, which now combines a large-scale, interconnected network with VMware Cloud Foundation and #HewlettPackardEnterprise ( #HPE ) server technology for #hyperconvergedinfrastructure. CenturyLink Dedicated Cloud Compute ( #DCC ) Foundation is an updated architecture moving to a converged, software-defined data center model aimed at helping businesses lower their total cost of ownership, deliver advanced security and simplify their operations.

http://www.channelpartnersonline.com/gallery/new-services-roundup-centurylink-level-3-tbi-more/?slide=1#master-slider-anchor

Yahoo’s Massive Hadoop Scale on Display at Dataworks Summit

#Yahoo put its massive #Hadoop investment on display this week at #Dataworks Summit, the semi-annual big data conference that it co-hosts with #Hortonworks. While Hadoop is no longer the conference headliner that it once was, the platform is still critical for the daily operations of Yahoo, which officially became part of #Verizon Communications this week when the $4.5 billion acquisition finally closed. With 120,000 servers and 800 PB of in storage, few companies have the computing scale of Yahoo. And as the birthplace of this distributed computing platform called Apache Hadoop, it’s worth keeping an eye on what Yahoo is doing with its collection of big data tech. Sumeet Singh, the senior director of cloud and big data platforms at Yahoo, took to the Dataworks Summit stage on Wednesday to describe how the technological makeup of Yahoo’s massive cloud platform has evolved over the years. For starters, the company is moving solidly away from #MapReduce. Over the past 17 months, Tez has replaced MapReduce as the underlying engine for many of the batch-oriented #Pig and #Hive workloads that Yahoo relies on to serve its 1 billion monthly users. Today, 70% of the Hadoop workloads and Yahoo run under Tez, according to Singh. Use of Apache Spark has also grown, but not nearly as quickly as Tez, he says. Singh referred to this switch from MapReduce to Tez and Spark as “compute shaping.” “What compute shaping does, it allows us to make better use of the platform,” he says. “This is fantastic for the company and our customers because they can make better use of the capacity.”

https://www.datanami.com/2017/06/16/yahoos-massive-hadoop-scale-display-dataworks-summit/

Verizon closes $4.5B acquisition of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer resigns [Memo]

It’s now official. After #Yahoo shareholder approval last week, #Verizon today announced that it has finally closed its acquisition of Yahoo, which it plans to combine with its #AOL assets into a subsidiary called #Oath, covering some 50 media brands (including TechCrunch) and 1 billion people globally. It will be led by Tim Armstrong, who was the CEO of AOL before this. As expected, Marissa Mayer, who had been the CEO of Yahoo and recently received a $23 million ‘golden parachute’ for her work there, has resigned. “Given the inherent changes to Marissa Mayer’s role with Yahoo resulting from the closing of the transaction, Mayer has chosen to resign from Yahoo. Verizon wishes Mayer well in her future endeavors,” Verizon said in a statement. You can find Marissa in her own words here on Tumblr. TLDR: It’s a long list of the achievements made with her at the helm these last five years, and — alas — you will only read of the struggles that Yahoo went through between the lines. The deal, nevertheless, brings to a close the independent life of one of the oldest and most iconic internet brands, arguably the one that led and set the pace for search — the cornerstone of doing business on the spaghetti-like internet — at least until Google came along and surpassed Yahoo many times over, and led the company into a number of disastrous and costly attempts to redefine itself, ultimately culminating in the sale we have here today. The sale of Yahoo is another sign of the massive consolidation that continues to happen in the world of online media and content, as large companies look to bring together multiple audiences for economies of scale to build out stronger advertising businesses in competition with the likes of Google and Facebook. “The close of this transaction represents a critical step in growing the global scale needed for our digital media company,” said Marni Walden, Verizon president of Media and Telematics (which will include Oath), in a statement. “The combined set of assets across Verizon and Oath, from VR to AI, 5G to IoT, from content partnerships to originals, will create exciting new ways to captivate audiences across the globe.” Carriers have been an especially interesting player in this regard, as they are looking to offset declines in their legacy businesses. But don’t cry for Verizon just yet: the company employs 161,000 people and made $126 billion in revenues in 2016, with 113.9 million retail connections in its mobile business. As we wrote last week, there will be cuts of around 15 percent of all staff associated with the acquisition of Yahoo and merger with AOL, around areas like operations and sales and marketing. Today, no word about that in the official announcement although we are asking about this. Also not specified is who else is departing along with Mayer. As we reported last week, Adam Cahan, who had been an SVP at Yahoo very close to Mayer, was also on his way out, as was Bob Lord, the CISO who was at the head of Yahoo’s security operations when its massive breaches were revealed (although he was not there not at the time that they were taking place). That breach resulted in Verizon knocking off several hundred million dollars from its original offer price for the company. A spokesperson for AOL/Oath declined to comment on specific departures, and provided the following statement about the other redundancies, in line with previous statements: “Oath’s strategy is to lead the global brand space. With access to over 1B consumers upon close, we will be positioned to drive one of the most important platforms in the consumer brand space. Consistent with what we have said since the deal was announced, we will be aligning our global organization to the strategy.” In the meantime, unsurprisingly, David Filo, Eddy Hartenstein, Richard Hill, Marissa Mayer, Jane Shaw, Jeffrey Smith and Maynard Webb Jr. have already resigned from Yahoo’s board. “We’re building the future of brands using powerful technology, trusted content and differentiated data. We have dominating consumer brands in news, sports, finance, tech, and entertainment and lifestyle coupled with our market leading advertising technology platforms,” Armstrong said in a statement. “Now that the deal is closed, we are excited to set our focus on being the best company for consumer media, and the best partner to our advertising, content and publisher partners.” This will include not just media brands but ad tech underpinnning how to leverage these audiences. In this case, the focus in on ONE by AOL and its BrightRoll technology covering mobile, video, search, native and programmatic ads.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/13/verizon-closes-4-5b-acquisition-of-yahoo-marissa-mayer-resigns-memo/

Confirmed: Verizon will cut ~15% of AOL-Yahoo staff after merger closes

The proportion of jobs being made redundant across #AOL and #Yahoo is around 15 percent globally, we have confirmed with our sources. This shakes out to as many as 2,100 jobs being lost as part of the corporate merger. Yesterday Re/Code suggested up to 1,000 jobs will be cut across the combined company, as duplicate roles in departments such as finance, HR, marketing and admin are taken out, but our sources said that figure is too low. We understand there are around 14,000 employees in total across AOL and Yahoo today. While no voluntary redundancies are being offered, one source told us that employees who left in recent months are being paid out to help hit reduction targets. We are also told that the proportion of redundancies is not equal across internal departments. One source said this can be up to 30 percent, depending on the organization, noting another has cuts of ~5 percent. “It seems that a lot of thought and effort has gone into this, and counterpoints have been listened and accepted,” the source added. Last July Verizon, AOL’s parent company, announced it had finally sealed an agreement to acquire Yahoo (Disclosure: AOL is also TechCrunch’s parent company). The deal is now racing to a close. We understand the proxy vote is taking place today — meaning the acquisition will close in a week’s time. The combined AOL-Yahoo entity has already been given a new brand name (Oath:), and will be headed up by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. Asked for comment for this story, an AOL spokesperson told us: “Oath’s strategy is to lead the global brand space. With access to over 1 billion consumers upon close, we will be positioned to drive one of the most important platforms in the consumer brand space. Consistent with what we have said since the deal was announced, we will be aligning our global organization to the strategy.” Back in February, Yahoo and Verizon agreed that $350 million would be knocked off the sale price for Yahoo — cutting it down to $4.48 billion — following the disclosure of two massive data breaches, one estimated to cover around 500 million accounts, and another affecting more than 1 billion accounts. It’s not yet clear who will head up security for Oath.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/08/confirmed-verizon-will-cut-15-of-aol-yahoo-staff-after-merger-closes/

Verizon Is Buying Straight Path for More Than $3 Billion

#Verizon Communications, the No.1 U.S. wireless carrier, is buying wireless spectrum holder #StraightPath Communications for an enterprise value of about $3.1 billion, ending a bidding war with rival #ATT. The $184 per share all-stock offer represents a discount of 17.8% to Straight Path's close on Wednesday and has an equity value of $2.3 billion. The stock surged nearly five-fold since April 7, a day before the company first received a $95.63 per share takeover bid from AT&T (T, +0.13%). Straight Path's shares (STRP, +0.88%), which had jumped 39% since Verizon (VZ, -0.39%) made its final bid on Monday, plunged 20% to $178 on Thursday, indicating some investors were disappointed with the deal. Straight Path, which holds a large trove of 28 GHz and 39 GHz millimeter wave spectrum used in mobile communications, will give Verizon an advantage in fifth-generation (5G) network development. 5G networks are expected to offer faster downloads and boost internet-reliant products such as self-driving cars. Straight Path had said on Monday an unnamed telecommunications company had raised its offer to buy the company. Reuters reported, citing sources, that the unnamed bidder was Verizon. Verizon's bid tops AT&T's offer of $95.63 per share, or $1.25 billion, which was announced last month. Straight Path, which earlier agreed to be bought by AT&T, said it would terminate the previously announced deal. Verizon will pay, on behalf of Straight Path, a termination fee of $38 million to AT&T. Evercore was financial adviser to Straight Path and Weil, Gotshal & Manges served as company counsel on the deal.Debevoise & Plimpton served as counsel to Verizon.

http://fortune.com/2017/05/11/verizon-straight-path/

Equinix completes $3.6 billion deal to buy 29 data centers from Verizon

#Equinix completes $3.6 billion deal to buy 29 data centers from #Verizon Posted 4 hours ago by Ron Miller (@ron_miller)  Equinix, an international data center company based in Redwood City, California, announced today that it has completed the purchase of 29 data centers from Verizon for $3.6 billion. The deal was announced in December. Verizon owns AOL, which owns TechCrunch. The acquisition greatly expands Equinix’s footprint, including giving it access to Latin America through a data center in Bogotá, Colombia, along with a new presence in Houston, Texas and Culpeper, Virginia. The jewel in the acquisition, however, might be the new Miami location, because it acts as a key internet connection point. “As the fourth largest Internet exchange point in the U.S., [the Miami location] hosts the termination points of 15 subsea cable systems and more than 120 global networks interconnecting to approximately 150 countries,” the company wrote in a statement. Equinix was also especially interested in the Culpeper facility, which it called “one of the most secure and technologically sophisticated data center campuses in the eastern U.S.” Taking ownership of Culpeper should allow the company to grow its government business. With this purchase, Equinix now owns a total of 179 data centers worldwide. It’s worth noting that these data centers are co-location facilities, which are essentially data center rental facilities where companies bring their own servers, storage and other hardware and rent space inside someone else’s facilities. The vendor takes care of all the maintenance and management of the overall facility, including access to the internet, power, cooling, security and so forth. Equinix didn’t just buy the facilities themselves, it also got 250 of Verizon’s employees in the deal, who become Equinix employees today and will continue to run the buildings. They also get 1,000 Verizon customers who are using the data centers, of which 600 are new to Equinix. Verizon isn’t just cutting and running after the sale. Equinix reports it will continue to be a customer and partner selling Equinix co-location services, even after the deal closes. The idea is to pair Equinix’s services with Verizon’s security, network and advanced communications services. Verizon doesn’t have to worry about maintaining the facilities, collects a substantial cash payment and still can continue to sell those services to customers. Equinix gets to own the facilities and gets access to new markets and new customers, as well as taking advantage of Verizon’s sales and marketing clout.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/01/equinix-completes-3-6-billion-deal-to-buy-29-data-centers-from-verizon/

Why 2017 will be the year of the industry cloud

The year 2016 will go down in the history books as another year of impressive growth in the #Enterprisecloud software space — and the numbers prove it. Last year there were 31 cloud software companies that were publicly held and commanded a market capitalization north of $1 billion. Together, they reported average annual revenue growth of nearly 25 percent, and saw their share valuations grow by more than 30 percent, beating the year’s performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the NASDAQ and the S&P 500. And the year just passed was notable for another reason: Cloud companies with businesses aimed at vertical industries became juicy buyout targets for large horizontal software companies. #Oracle was a leading buyer, and spent a combined $1.2 billion on two of these industry cloud companies: Opower, which is focused on the energy industry, and #Textura, which processes payments for the construction industry. In aggregate, deals for industry cloud companies totaled more than $12 billion in 2015 and 2016. We think this buying trend will intensify into a full-blown buying spree in 2017. Here’s one reason why: Traditional acquirers like #Oracle, #IBM and #Salesforce now find themselves in an increasingly crowded field of potential buyers that includes non-software companies attempting to deepen their value proposition within vertical industries. Some of these buyers will come from outside the traditional confines of software and technology. Consider three deals from 2016: Last year, #GE spent $915 million to acquire one of our portfolio investments, #ServiceMax, a service cloud platform, and #Verizon spent a combined $5.8 billion to acquire two #telematics firms, #Fleetmatics and #Telogis.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/26/why-2017-will-be-the-year-of-the-industry-cloud/

CES Preview: Ericsson CTO Talks Fixed Wireless and the Evolution to Mobile 5G

Like a jeweler showcasing its diamond, representatives for the Swedish telecommunications company said #Ericsson is planning a massive display to highlight the many facets of 5G. In particular, Ericsson said it will focus on different use cases across a variety of industries and the new capabilities 5G will enable, honing in on six key areas including broadband, man-machine interfaces like virtual and augmented reality, critical services, sensor networks, machine-type communications, and remote devices. But while Ericsson’s CES display will look toward the future, Wireless Week reached out to CTO Glenn Laxdal ahead of the show to get his thoughts on where 5G technology stands today and how exactly it will progress to that hyper mobile vision of the future. Back in December, #Verizon told Wireless Week that it was working closely with Ericsson and a handful of other vendors on pre-commercial fixed wireless 5G trials slated to kick off this month. Though many people like to think of 5G as a mostly mobile technology, Laxdal explained there are a couple of reasons Ericsson’s clients – including companies like Verizon – are focusing on fixed wireless as the initial use case. It’s well known that the 3GPP standards for mobile 5G won’t be released for some time yet, but Laxdal said fixed wireless is possible because participants in the standards process can already see what the building blocks of 5G will be. Thus, he said, Ericsson can construct a solution around those foundations and start to deliver some components in a 2017 timeframe. Fixed wireless is a great vehicle to test those components because of the element of control it offers, Laxdal noted. “I think the lead use case is going to be fixed wireless access because that’s a very contained use case,” Laxdal said. “We can control the devices that are being used for fixed wireless access as well as the network and co-develop those together.” Additionally, Laxdal said the software Ericsson is developing for these early 5G components will be “completely upgradable” to the standards-based 5G system that will fully defined in the mid-2018 timeframe. Laxdal said the evolution of 5G devices will likely unfold in a manner similar to the roll out of 4G technology. That is, Laxdal said with 5G we will see fixed wireless devices becoming available first since they don’t have to handle all the capabilities required by mobile broadband. Those devices, he said, will be followed by the roll out of hotspot devices (which would perhaps be the first fully standards-compliant devices) in a late 2018 timeframe and eventually smartphones with 5G capabilities in the early 2019 timeframe. Once all of those pieces fall into line and the ecosystem includes a variety of devices that are able to “talk” 5G, Laxdal said the world will see a much broader deployment of the technology across the market. This, he said, will likely come in a 2019 or 2020 timeframe. “When you’re out in the 2021, 2022 timeframe, now you’ve got a fully standards-based 5G system and you’re starting to ramp smartphones,” Laxdal said. “That’s when we really see the significant volume of subscribers starting to take advantage of 5G.” According to the latest Ericsson Mobility report, the volume of 5G subscribers is expected to reach 150 million in 2021 before jumping to more than half a billion in 2022.

https://www.wirelessweek.com/article/2017/01/ces-preview-ericsson-cto-talks-fixed-wireless-and-evolution-mobile-5g

Cisco Exec Touts NFV, SDN in New Year's Predictions

Although old-guard networking company #Cisco Systems Inc. was slow to embrace new-age disruptions such as network functions virtualization ( #NFW ) and #softwaredefinednetworking ( #SDN ), it's fully invested now and a company exec predicts big things for the upstart technologies in the year ahead. Exec Jeff Reed penned a list of 10 factors contributing to a major technology shift in 2017, with #NFV and SDN figuring prominently in the top five. Coming in at No. 2 in Reed's list is the prediction that "NFV comes to the enterprise." " #Virtualization is hot right now -- and with good cause," Reed said in his post. "We're going to see Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) spread from service providers to the enterprise -- beginning in the branch. It will allow those leading-edge network teams with a multitude of branches to more easily provision, chain and scale branch network services." Reed's prediction is bolstered by industry heavyweights such as AT&T -- which in July launched a Network Functions on Demand service -- and Verizon, which soon followed up with its competing counterpart, Virtual Network Services. Meanwhile, technology giants such as Google are hopping on the NFV/SDN bandwagon, with the company announcing in July that it was joining the CORD (Central Office Re-architected as a Data Center) project, formed by Open Networking Lab (ON.Lab) and The Linux Foundation, who are building out the fledgling CORD initiative -- conceived to bring "datacenter economics and cloud flexibility to the telco central office and to the entire access network" -- into a separate open source project with independent governance, partners, collaborators and contributors. To compete with the big boys, smaller companies such NEC and Juniper announced NFV partnerships. And on the open source front, the OPNFV Project for Network Functions Virtualization was last year deemed "lab ready" in its second release. Announcements such as these, along with many others, support Reed's prediction of an emerging enterprise role for NFV in the year ahead.

https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2017/01/03/cisco-predictions.aspx?m=1

Equinix to buy 29 Verizon data centers for $3.6B

#Verizon is selling its data center business to #Equinix in a $3.6 billion cash deal as the communications giant focuses on digital transformation for its customers, the companies announced Tuesday.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/12/06/equinix-buy-29-verizon-data-centers-36b/95033260/

Riverbed & Verizon Team Up to Deliver an AWS Bundle

Application performance monitoring company #Riverbed announced today that it is joining forces with #Verizon ’s Enterprise Solutions unit to deliver an #Amazon Web Services ( #AWS ) Direct Connect Bundle for hybrid enterprise architecture deployments. The bundle, being announced to coincide with the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, aims to help customers connect branch offices and data centers to AWS environments through managed network services. The bundle combines Riverbed’s wide area network ( #WAN ) optimization, Verizon’s Secure Cloud Interconnect and Virtual Network Services ( #VNS ), and AWS Direct Connect into a single system. While none of these products are new individually, combined they create new capabilities. Verizon’s VNS and Secure Cloud Interconnect system allows enterprise customers to use universal customer premises equipment to provide connectivity to employees. Riverbed’s WAN optimization is implemented within Verizon’s VNS as a virtual network function (VNF) to accelerate application performance in the cloud — specifically addressing bandwidth and latency. It also accelerates the migration to the cloud. All of this lies on the AWS Direct Connect Converged Infrastructure, which helps businesses use the same storage and network management tools used in private clouds as they migrate to public or hybrid architectures. Verizon isn’t the only network provider working with AWS Direct Connect. AT&T NetBond, for instance, has a similar offering called the SaaS Architecture Direct Connect Bundle. It is also worth noting that Riverbed’s application performance monitoring system is powered by its own software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) offering. These capabilities come from the company’s acquisition of Aternity, which gathers data from app servers, application code, UC systems, LANs, WANs, browsers, and end-user devices.

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/news/riverbed-verizon-team-deliver-aws-bundle/2016/11/

Verizon acquires SocialRadar to buff up MapQuest’s location data

We got word earlier today that Verizon had acquired #SocialRadar, a mapping startup founded by Blackboard co-founder Michael Chasen that promises to provide its users with far more accurate location data for businesses — down to where exactly a door is. Reached by phone, Chasen confirmed the acquisition. #Verizon, the corporate parent of TechCrunch and #AOL, will use SocialRadar’s technology in #MapQuest. While you may not spend a lot of time thinking about MapQuest these days (or print out its directions to take on road trips), it’s still one of the biggest online and mobile mapping services on the market. Beside its consumer tools, it has a thriving B2B business and a very large number of developers who use its data in their apps. As Chasen, who sadly declined to divulge the purchase price, told me, the company talked to a number of potential acquirers after it launched its mapping SDK earlier this year. One of those companies was Verizon/MapQuest, but early on, the conversations mostly focused around licensing.  Washington, DC-based SocialRadar will keep its existing offices, but the team is already working closely together with the MapQuest team in Denver and other AOL offices to integrate its data and services with MapQuest’s existing tools. Chasen told me he is especially excited about getting his service into the hands of millions of consumers and developers. He also noted that MapQuest’s reach into the developer community will mean that many mobile apps will soon be able to offer far more accurate and responsive location-based features. “We always wanted our tech to be used by as many people as possible,” Chasen said. SocialRadar previously raised $12.5 million in a Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates and Growth Tech Ventures. At the time it raised this money, though, SocialRadar was still focused on building a location-based app. As the team built that service, though, it realized how bad the existing location data was. Using street-level imagery, some human interaction and proprietary algorithms, SocialRadar can pinpoint exactly where a business is located (so your Uber driver doesn’t try to drop you off in the alleyway behind TechCrunch’s offices, for example). At the time of the acquisition, SocialRadar had six employees. They are all moving to Verizon now.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/16/verizon-acquires-socialradar-to-buff-up-mapquests-location-data/

Verizon Says Yahoo Hack Could Reopen $4.8 Billion Deal Talks

SAN FRANCISCO — #Verizon Communications may seek to renegotiate its $4.8 billion purchase of #Yahoo ’s operating business, dealing another blow to the struggling internet company. Verizon’s top lawyer said on Thursday that his company thought that the hacking of 500 million Yahoo email accounts in 2014 — disclosed last month, well after the deal was announced — had materially diminished the value of Yahoo, potentially allowing Verizon to reopen the sale discussions. “I think we have a reasonable basis to believe right now that the impact is material, and we’re looking to Yahoo to demonstrate to us the full impact,” Craig Silliman, Verizon’s general counsel, told reporters in Washington. “If they believe that it’s not, then they’ll need to show us that.” The data breach, most likely the largest ever at a private company, is still under investigation by the companies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. F.B.I. officials have confirmed that the Yahoo breach has the hallmarks of a state-sponsored attack, but they also say it is too early to say which country was behind it, according to two people who with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In a statement on Thursday, Yahoo said, “We are confident in Yahoo’s value and we continue to work towards integration with Verizon.” The transaction is expected to close by early next year.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/business/dealbook/verizon-says-yahoo-hack-could-reopen-4-8-billion-deal-talks.html?_r=0&referer=https://www.google.com/

Oracle and Verizon announce latest cloud partnership with SDN at forefront

#Oracle and #Verizon have announced a new partnership which aims to ‘make the move to cloud easier for global organisations.’ The deal combines Verizon’s Secure Cloud Interconnect services, which utilises Verizon’s network to transfer data and apps securely to cloud service providers, to create the snappily-titled Verizon Secure Cloud Interconnect for Oracle FastConnect. The combination of software defined networking ( #SDN ) from the Verizon side and in-region connectivity from Oracle is what the two companies are hoping will make it a winner for customers. “Verizon Secure Cloud Interconnect for Oracle FastConnect allows users to connect to applications simply, securely and reliably,” said Shawn Hakl, Verizon vice president of enterprise networking and innovation in a statement. “With SDN at the heart of our Secure Cloud Interconnect solution, Oracle customers will find it can deliver an unbeatable combination of performance, control and efficiency to enable their digital transformation.” Diby Malakar, Oracle VP product management, added: “With Verizon’s leading Secure Cloud Interconnect service, Oracle customers can benefit from the latest in networking technology as they continually groom their networks to handle the demands of their business.” Verizon offers partnerships with eight other cloud vendors through this service, including #Amazon Web Services ( #AWS ), #Google Cloud Platform, and #IBM #SoftLayer, while Oracle and Verizon have a cloudy partnership stretching back to 2014.

http://www.cloudcomputing-news.net/news/2016/oct/11/oracle-and-verizon-announce-latest-cloud-partnership-sdn-forefront/