Tag: Networking

Partners make money living on the edge

edge 620_1Aruba Networks founder and president Keerti Melkote told the assembled throngs at Aruba Atmosphere in Las Vegas that partners who have been given a good kicking from the move to the cloud are seeing a new opportunity for cloud-based profits.

Melkote said that there had been a timeline in the networking trends biz from centralised with the mainframe from 1960 to 1970, distributed with client-server from 1980 to 2000, centralised with mobile and cloud starting in 2005 and distributed with edge intelligence beginning in 2020.

The market’s next step is a return to the edge, where the client-server architecture needs to be reimagined in the context of the Internet of Things, where devices, like self-driving cars, function in constrained environments lacking elastic compute and storage.

Melkote said that the investments that everybody is making in Silicon Valley and beyond is going into building this next-generation architecture that is edge-centric. “And the edge and the cloud are going to be cooperating and working together to enable this next level of intelligence in our infrastructure.”

But while this may present solution providers opportunity, Melkote stressed they would also need technical skills to integrate services to solve customer’s business problems, as well as expertise in edge computing, security and software.

Over the next year Aruba will look to evolve from a provider of wireless networking to a more holistic provider of edge infrastructure – wireless, wired, compute and storage delivered through software-defined architectures. This will be combined with more software and services-centric approach, as opposed to hardware.

ADVA Optical Networking sees revenue drop

651d40634c7c4346f3f104a1ff612807_XLADVA Optical Networking saw its third quarter revenue drop 22.9 percent from the second quarter to £99 Million.

In the second quarter ADVA made £128.72 in Q2 2017. This marks a decrease of 30.3 percent year-on-year but is about what was expected as the outfit has been doing some serious restructuring. It has also consolidated its product portfolios

ADVA Optical Networking CEO Brian Protiva said that the third quarter was one of the most challenging in the company’s history.

“We had to lower our guidance within a financial quarterly period for the first time since Q2, 2008. Nevertheless, the integration of MRV Communications is progressing very well. We have implemented much of the planned restructuring measures, updated our roadmaps and aligned our product portfolios, development teams and sales focus. All this provides us with a solid basis for a return to growth and profitability in 2018.”

ADVA Optical Networking CFO Uli Dopfer said that the company had also suffered from the drop-in revenues from two major customers during the acquisition process of MRV.

“However, we responded at once and adjusted our cost structure to the current sales level without jeopardizing any activities that are important for our future

In Q4 2017, ADVA Optical Networking expects revenues to range between £102 million and £116 million and anticipates a pro forma operating income of not very much at all.

Cisco using intuitive switches in compute space push

Cisco Kid Networking giant Cisco is having a crack at pushing itself into the compute space with “intuitive” boxes which can analyse and control network traffic.

The new Catalyst 9000 series switches are shipping with a management platform called “DNA Centre”, and the aim is to make the switches better able to apply security policies and controls for devices on a network.

The control centre can manage access policies and privileges for devices and apply specific security controls via the Talos security tools.

According to Cisco, the tools can analyse traffic and recognize things like malware infections based on the way they move packets over the network.

Meanwhile, Cisco claims machine learning components in DNA Centre will let the switches change policies to recognize devices and users.

All this means is that Cisco partners can push its gear deeper into IT management, letting the network hardware handle things like managing cloud apps and keeping access policies for mobile devices and guest connections.

CEO Chuck Robbins said that the gear can translate their business intent into the network.

The switches are based on custom ASICs from Cisco that will be customisable and reprogrammable to use with private clouds or specific applications and stacks. The 9000 series comes in three models for enterprises: the 9300, 9400, and 9500. The smaller 9300 and 9500 switches are shipping this month, while the larger 9400 switches will be making their way to customers in July.

The 9000 series uses subscription services. Cisco says that from now on, customers will have to agree to a package of either pre-bundled Cisco ONE software tools or as packages with the DNA Centre software.

This is all part of Cisco’s long-term goal to turn from a network hardware outfit into an IT management vendor.

HP announces open SDN app store

HPHP has announced what it calls the first enterprise class software-defined networking (SDN) open ecosystem, with the HP SDN Developer Kit (SDK) and the HP SDN App Store.

HP boasts the emergence of SDN should do away with fiddling around with legacy network gear and epic customisation projects, instead automating network operations. But an open SDN ecosystem, HP argues, will encourage collobration and innovation to improve the technology, compared to closed, proprietary SDN.

The HP SDN dev kit is up for grabs in November this year, and includes all the necessary stuff for building SDN apps. HP hopes this will bolster its position in the market as well as complement support services. On the app store, customers can browse, search, buy and download SDN apps onto their virtual application networks SDN controller.

HP partners and indie software developers will be able to develop, simulate and validate enterprise level SDN apps to then sell on HP’s app store. Developers will have access to API documentation, developer guides and sample code, as well as the ability to test app functionality and interoperability that can simulate user conditions, using the SDN sim suite and HP SDN Virtual Lab.

Partners registered for HP SDN developer kit include Citrix, F5, Infoblox, Intel, Microsoft, Mitel, Riverbed, Shoretel, Samsung, SAP, Tech Mahindra, VMware, Websense, and more.

The company wheeled out IDC network infrastructure veep Rohit Mehra, who pointed out it will be the apps that will bring SDN technology to the forefront of mainstream networking.

“The catch 22 is that to innovate through applications requires a large investment in infrastructure to develope, which becomes prohibitive,” Mehra said. “The advent of an SDN app store and developer kit makes this an accessible alternative for developers”.

Clearly there is value for HP, too, which has a wide range of products and software that fit in with SDN. In addition, the company added OpenFlow support to 10 new routers in HP FlexNetwork.

SDN certification will be available December 2013, while the SDN app store should be ready in the first half of 2014, along with apps services and support, and services and support for HP OpenFlow. Developer support is available in November this year.

As part of the HP ExpertOne program, those interested in learning more can sign up to the cheerily named “SDN Learning Journey” course.

Senior veep and GM for networking at HP, Bethany Mayer, said the networking industry should leap on the disruptions offered by SDN.

“HP has created the industry’s most comprehensive SDN product portfolio as well as an open SDN ecosystem, which offers an environment for enterprises and partners to rapidly tune the network to their business and application needs,” Mayer said.

Dell’Oro predicts further growth in WLAN

onedollarNetworking and telco analyst house the Dell’Oro Group believes Wireless LAN market revenues could be worth as much as $12 billion in 2017.

The figure is 50 percent larger than revenues for 2012. Key drivers will be deployment of Service Provider Wi-Fi, 802.11ac, cloud managed WLAN, plus additional growth in consumer video using wi-fi and Bring Your Own Device.

Companies such as Cisco, understanding that new LTE networks may be under a great deal of strain in the near future, are also strongly pushing wi-fi to ease the burden.

Dell’Oro group veep Chris DePuy noted that enterprises understand wireless LAN access is critical, however, in the past they have been installing wireless as an overly network, separate from the ethernet network.

When faster 802.11ac wireless systems are installed, DePuy expects there will be an increased understanding that the interaction between ethernet edge switches and enterprise WLAN is worth looking at. So there’s cash to be made for enterprise edge vendors.

The claims are from a recent Dell’Oro report, which also looks specifically at future revenues for cloud managed equipment and services.

Ovum sees boost for optical components

rotsnakeThe optical component market is going to grow to a  peak of $10 billion in 2018, according to the analyst outfit Ovum.

In a report, Ovum said that the optical components market will grow four percent in 2013 thanks mostly to WAN and datacom demand.

Between 2012 and 2018 the total optical component market will expand at an eight percent rate  to a new high of US$10.5billion.

In a forecast, the independent telecoms analyst firm identifies datacom, which constitutes components used in data centres and enterprise networks, as the fastest growing segment.

This will be pushed by a demand for 10G, 40G and 100G components to support server, switch and storage connectivity.

Daryl Inniss, Practice Leader of Components at Ovum and author of the forecast, said that demand to support data centres for cloud services is a large driver for datacom sales.

High-speed transceivers are needed to support this segment and this means that the datacom market will grow by 16 percent between 2012 and 2018.

The wide area network market is still experiencing annual double-digit traffic growth, leading to high demand for 100G ports.

It is not all great though. The access segment, which includes FTTx, CATV and optical transceivers to connect base stations to antennae is declining primarily due to maturing FTTx deployments.

“We expect stable performance from fronthaul and CATV throughout the forecast period, but the access segment as a whole is expected to decline at a seven percent due to contracting FTTx revenues,” Inniss said.

Optical component revenue growth might be slowed if too many equipment vendors make their own components.

Inniss added:  “Datacom has depended on component vendors delivering standards-compliant products, but equipment vendors are now developing their own components.”

Component suppliers are now competing with their own customers, he said.

Optical component revenue depends on OC suppliers’ ability to drive out cost and deliver products at scale fairly quickly.

“While excellent OC execution minimises the impact of vendors’ captive supply, poor execution reduces the OC vendor revenue opportunity,” Inniss said.

Huawei expands into Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq

huawei-liveHuawei is moving to make money in war torn countries.

The Chinese behemoth has appointed  regional value added IT distie Optimus to distribute its enterprise product range for networking, unified communications and security.

Under the deal Optimus will aim to grow Huawei’s channel network across Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq where it will also undertake regular marketing and channel development activities to help increase the vendor’s market share and reach in the region.

Meera Kaul, managing director of Optimus Technology and Telecommunications said the partnership was “very important” and would help it offer customers a “omplete range of technology.”

She added that the company also planned to take Huawei’s enterprise products including  cloud computing, enterprise networking and wireless, as well as Unified Communication & Collaboration (UC&C), video conference and telepresence products, and partner them with
other vendors.

Optimus also claims it will promote this product range through focused channel development activities, which include training, certifications, skills development and consultancy services to help them sell the productsbetter.

“Over the last few years, our Enterprise Business division has been investing heavily in developing our Middle East customer base,” said Dong Wu, vice president, Huawei, Enterprise Business, Middle East.

He added Huawei would continue to invest in training, motivating and incentivising partners.