Saturday, June 13, 2020

Money Moves: May 2020

Here are some of the most prominent venture capital and merger and acquisition news items from the past month. If you’d like SDxCentral to report on your company’s VC or M&A activity in our monthly Money Moves section, or if you have any tips on that activity, please send the information to Sydney Sawaya (ssawaya@sdxcentral.com).

Friday, June 12, 2020

Integration Woes Throw Monkey Wrench Into Open RAN

Integrating and achieving interoperability among various components that make up a traditional network configuration is no small feat, but it’s a relative walk in the park compared to the challenges encountered in an open radio access network (RAN).

Has fixed wireless finally found its success story?

Wireless internet service providers (WISPs) have long offered fixed wireless broadband services in rural areas where cable or wireline broadband is lacking. But now fixed wireless is seeing a bit of a revival in some urban markets thanks to Verizon’s 5G Home service and newcomer Starry’s fixed wireless 802.11-based service.

Wireline embraces open source slower than wireless

For the most part wireless operators have embraced the move to virtualized networks and away from closed proprietary systems because they realize it’s necessary if they want to stay competitive, keep their costs in check, and be able to deploy new services rapidly. But many of their wireline counterparts in the telecom world are moving at a slower pace.

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Daily Roundup: Cryptominers Attack Azure

In case you’ve been stuck in video conference meetings all day, here are today’s top stories from SDxCentral. Also, make sure to subscribe to our daily newsletter to get these stories in your inbox.

Top 3 Pandemic Security Lessons Learned (So Far)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a boon to cybercriminals, who are having a heyday exploiting people’s fears about the virus and the vulnerabilities in work-from-home (WFH) networks. It exposes major gaps in enterprises’ business continuity plans and network security as CISOs scrambled to accommodate their newly remote workforce in just a matter of weeks. The silver lining here, should CISOs choose to take a glass-half-full approach, is that business can learn from the pandemic, beef up their security posture and employees’ security readiness, and be ready for the next big event, whatever that may be.

Top 5 Cloud Security Posture Management Deals

Although a relatively new class of technology, cloud security posture management (CSPM) brings a welcomed source of confidence in public cloud migrations by targeting two increasingly important business concerns: cloud security and data compliance.

Cloud-Native Security Remains a Complex Organism

The cloud-native ecosystem continues to blossom as enterprises increasingly look toward taking greater advantage of their cloud infrastructure to speed up their internal operations and support for external services. However, that bloom has been impacted by the cloud of security concerns tied to nascent cloud-native technologies.

Managed SD-WAN isn’t for everyone: Special Report

The software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) has moved from being the new kid on the block to a relatively mature networking technology in a matter of a few short years. And telcos have swiftly embraced the technology to offer it as a managed service to their enterprise customers. The topic will be discussed Monday, June 15 during a free FierceTelecom virtual event "Strategies for SD-WAN 2.0."

Nokia names new CFO

Continuing along its period of transition, Nokia has tapped Marco Wirén as the vendor’s new finance chief, effective September 1.

OnGo’s outlook for private LTE deployments in the CBRS band

Over the past four years, our members have contributed incredible amounts of time, energy and innovation to develop reliable, secure and cost-effective wireless services for the 3.5 GHz CBRS band. In January, this all culminated in the FCC’s authorization of full commercial deployments (FCD) – ushering in a new era of wireless services and opportunities.

Google ties into Spain's Telefónica for cloud and edge use cases

Move over Microsoft, Google Cloud is elbowing its way into Spain via a new partnership with Telefónica. In February, Microsoft announced it would open a new data center region in Spain by working with Telefónica, but on Thursday Google Cloud announced it would launch a new cloud region in Spain by using Telefónica's Madrid infrastructure.

It's a long and winding road for Frontier's Chapter 11 filing

Frontier Communications is working its way through a maze of red tape as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. On Wednesday, the Public Service Commission of South Carolina approved Frontier’s application for the transfer of ownership related to its Chapter 11 filing, but the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) in Connecticut delayed its decision on Tuesday.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Microsoft Joins Amazon, IBM With Facial Recognition Ban

Microsoft has joined technology rivals Amazon and IBM in stating that it will not sell facial recognition technology to police departments in the U.S., adding that it does not sell that technology today and is in favor of a national law to oversee the control of the technology.

Google Taps Telefónica for Telco Cloud Edge Expansion

Google Cloud and Spain-based telecom giant Telefónica signed a deal that will see Google open a new cloud region in Spain that will tap into Telefónica’s Madrid-region infrastructure. The new setup will also have Telefónica use Google Cloud to bolster its own services and target 5G deployments using the public cloud provider’s Mobile Edge Computing platform.

SonicWall Adds SD-Branch Functionality, Switches

SonicWall today rolled out SD-branch functionality to its security-centric SD-WAN offering alongside a new line of multi-gigabit switches. It’s part of a push by SonicWall to extend stronger management and provisioning tools to distributed enterprises and channel partners.

Juniper CTO Dishes Edge Cloud Strategy

A trio of trends — increased migration to public clouds, the emergence of 5G infrastructure, and new applications fueled by artificial intelligence and data analytics — are converging and heralding the need for edge cloud, according to Juniper Networks CTO Raj Yavatkar.

Broadcom backs out of MoCA

As Intel nears the sale of its home connectivity unit to MaxLinear, the coax-focused organization could find itself with a sole chipmaker left on its membership rolls along with more questions about its long-term fate.

GSMA cuts 20% of staff – report

The GSMA has cut 20% of its workforce following the cancellation of its flagship MWC Barcelona and MWC Shanghai conference earlier this year, in an unfortunate example of how impacts related to the coronavirus pandemic continue to weigh on the global mobile industry’s trade body.  

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

Rancher Labs Longhorn Ropes Kubernetes Storage Challenge

Amidst all of the controversies and atrocities plaguing the world right now, Kubernetes has carried on trailblazing the ever evolving technology landscape, As a result, customers are running more and more stateful workloads on Kubernetes clusters, Rancher Labs CEO Sheng Liang told SDxCentral. 

Nokia Mellows 5G Outlook for 2020

The COVID-19 crisis has, to varying extents, impacted research and development, supply chains, and the tempo of mobile network operator activities, Nokia executives said today during a media briefing.

Versa SASE Play Tackles Remote Workers

Versa became the latest SD-WAN vendor to embrace the secure access service edge (SASE) architecture with a new platform aimed at addressing the challenges faced by remote workers.

Coronavirus Claims 200 Jobs at GSMA

The COVID-19 crisis this week claimed about 200 jobs at GSMA, the telecommunications industry’s largest and most consequential body. Massive job cuts, which impacted about a fifth of the association’s workforce, hit four months after the group canceled its flagship annual conference in Barcelona.

Cable sets the stage for DOCSIS 4.0

There's no imminent need for DOCSIS 4.0, but operators are already exploring early, incremental moves to prepare their networks as new technologies and products based on the new CableLabs specs develop.

Daily Roundup: Coronavirus Claims GSMA Jobs

In case you’ve been stuck in video conference meetings all day, here are today’s top stories from SDxCentral. Also, make sure to subscribe to our daily newsletter to get these stories in your inbox.

HPE Primera, Nimble Storage Get Smarter, Faster

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) updated its Primera and Nimble Storage with new automation capabilities that use artificial intelligence (AI) so they can act on insight from operations to optimize the performance of those systems. The updates are targeted at bridging the gap between the agility of public cloud-based storage platforms and the reliability of on-premises storage.

FCC’s 5G Upgrade order passes 3-2

The FCC voted 3-2 to adopt a declaratory ruling that will streamline how 5G gets deployed in the U.S., but the two dissenting commissioners said it’s the wrong time—when local governments have the least amount of time and resources as they struggle with COVID-19 and protests on their streets.

SCTE: The (virtual) Expo show must go on

After the cancellation of the live event in May, the SCTE•ISBE Cable-Tec Expo 2020 conference is now a virtual event Oct. 12-16. The first virtual iteration of the cable industry's flagship event is also free thanks to sponsorship from Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications and the SCTE Foundation.

Monday, June 08, 2020

Alibaba Cloud Kicks Off Hiring Surge

Alibaba Group plans to hire 5,000 people for its Alibaba Cloud operations, one of the ecommerce giant’s fastest growing business units, during the next 10 months. The workforce expansion comes less than two months after the company announced plans to invest $28 billion in its cloud platform during the next three years.

Aruba Assembles SDN Tech for Edge Services Platform

Aruba today announced its entry into the edge market with a new cloud-native platform that aims to automatically predict and fix issues at the network edge. Aruba Edge Services Platform (ESP) is comprised of 35 services, including a dozen new insights that were consolidated under Aruba Central, the company’s dashboard for network management.

IBM Stops Facial Recognition Support for Surveillance Activity

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna in a letter to the U.S. Congress said the tech giant is ditching its work with general purpose facial recognition or analysis software tied to the use of such technology for surveillance activity that can be used for racial profiling or to violate “basic human rights and freedoms.” The move comes as a number of technology companies have reacted to the recent murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department and subsequent protests against discrimination and police brutality.

TSMC Secures US Subsidies for Arizona Fab

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s (TSMC) planned $12 billion Arizona chip fab inched closer to reality Tuesday after Bloomberg reported the company has secured government subsidies.

Paolini: The long-term effects of US policies on Huawei

Much has been written about the impact that the U.S. Commerce Department sanctions announced on May 15, 2020 will have on Huawei. In the short term, they will blunt Huawei’s growth for sure. But the prevailing view among media and analysts is that the sanctions will not ultimately take the company out of business.

NATE: Mostly uneventful weekend on 5G protest front

While the nation continued to see massive protests across the country in support of Black Lives Matter, this past weekend was quiet and mostly uneventful on the 5G protest front according to NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association. NATE had heard that protests were planned for Saturday, June 6, associated with Global 5G Protest Day. Given that many of its member companies were expected to be working over the weekend, the organization wanted to get the word out.

Blaber: mmWave addresses growth, change in mobile traffic

The mobile industry has seen significant growth in recent years as the advent of 4G and now 5G has created new business models, engaging apps, facilitated new ways of working and transformed economies. This has led to an exponential growth in data usage. Ericsson states that global mobile traffic rose an enormous 49% in 2019. In recent months, operators have noted a surge in data consumption owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ericsson preps for temporary hit from China 5G contracts

Ericsson expanded its business in China, having secured 5G contracts with the country’s three major mobile operators, but on Monday said that a planned write-down of assets will result in a cost impact in the second quarter of about SEK 1 billion ($108.6 million).

Will COVID-19 Advance Plans for 5G Network Slicing?

In 2019, network slicing was actively pursued as a revolutionary new way to deliver customized service to separate verticals and use cases. Investments began increasing, and communication service providers (CSPs) were working on their plans to monetize 5G. 

How Viasat Ensures the Best Customer Experience

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Viasat has been working nonstop to manage the increased demands on its network. Now that more people are working and learning from home, Viasat has intelligently implemented systems to make sure that all customers can carry on with their jobs, educate their children, and stay connected to the latest news and their families.

Sunday, June 07, 2020

Real-Time Monitoring Critical to Service Assurance

Service providers are rapidly modernizing their networks in an effort to satiate enterprises’ growing appetites for higher performance and superior user experiences. However, as service providers adopt virtualization and SDN capabilities, they are being held back by monitoring techniques that can’t keep up,  a recent Analysys Mason white paper concluded.

Daily Roundup: AT&T First to Activate DSS

In case you’ve been stuck in video conference meetings all day, here are today’s top stories from SDxCentral. Also, make sure to subscribe to our daily newsletter to get these stories in your inbox.

Ericsson Burns Cash to Gain China 5G Deals

Pre-commercial 5G network equipment for the Chinese market is weighing Ericsson down to the tune of $108.5 million in the current quarter. The Swedish vendor today reported a write down related to those assets, making good on previous guidance about a profitability decline in the highly competitive Chinese market.

Chef Dishes Compliance, Desktop Automation

Chef launched a pair of new products designed to help enterprise IT departments manage the security of their diverse workforce from a single console. This angle is becoming increasingly important for organizations grappling with employees being forced to work remotely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

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