HP has entered into an arrangement with Arista Networks to market Arista’s data center switches along with HP converged IT infrastructure products.In accounts where Arista is the preferred networking supplier, HP will offer the switches along with its Converged Architecture portfolio, which includes HP servers and storage, including HP 3PAR StoreServ flash storage and the HP OneView management system.Speculation has it that HP will also offer Arista’s EOS operating system on its merchant silicon-based switching hardware as part of a disaggregated offering similar to HP’s arrangement with Cumulus Networks. HP is offering Cumulus Linux as an operating system option on some new Accton-based branded white box switches, which through support of the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) can run various third-party operating systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco’s most recent Visual Networking Index (VNI), the ongoing report of Internet and IP trends and statistics, finds that more than half of the world’s population will be Internet users by 2019. Also, the number of machine-to-machine (M2M) interconnections – the underpinning of the Internet of Things/Everything – will triple by then.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HP this week signed a definitive agreement to acquire ConteXtream, a provider of OpenDaylight-based SDNs for service providers.Terms of the deal were not disclosed.ConteXtream develops an SDN controller for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), software-based services that replace hardware-dependent Layer 4-7 functions, like load balancing and firewalls. ConteXtream’s products enable carriers to use existing standard server hardware to virtualize functions and services for subscribers, and to chain services across servers and subscribers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HP this week signed a definitive agreement to acquire ConteXtream, a provider of OpenDaylight-based SDNs for service providers.Terms of the deal were not disclosed.ConteXtream develops an SDN controller for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), software-based services that replace hardware-dependent Layer 4-7 functions, like load balancing and firewalls. ConteXtream’s products enable carriers to use existing standard server hardware to virtualize functions and services for subscribers, and to chain services across servers and subscribers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Geeky platesThe geeky license plates continue to pop up as those who are not afraid to proclaim their nerdiness on their car. Here are the latest and greatest. Send any entries you might have to [email protected]: The world's geekiest license plates To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet of Things/Everything can serve as a potentially lifesaving tool. Sensor-based wearable technology can monitor bodily vitals to determine if any health risks are imminent.Cisco and customer Cyrcadia Health are involved in the development of what it calls an iTBra to monitor a woman’s body temperature to determine if she is at risk for breast cancer. The iTBra is a personal screening tool intended as an intelligent monthly breast health monitor.The iTBra is made up of patches placed under a normal bra that collect up to 12 hours of normal and abnormal cellular activity associated with breast cancer. The iTBra bra is designed to take tissue density, a gating factor in the accuracy of mammography screening, out of the detection equation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco reportedly skirted sanctions in order to sell networking equipment to Russia’s military.In an investigative piece published this week, Buzzfeed alleges Cisco knowingly sold gear through straw companies fronting for Russian government and military institutions in violation of American sanctions. Cisco denies any wrongdoing and any knowledge of the scheme, allegedly perpetrated by its Russian operations, according to Buzzfeed.Cisco says some of the bogus customer names were errors, Buzzfeed reports.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Alcatel-Lucent this week extended its carrier SDN product line with an automation and network control system designed to accelerate service provisioning from multivendor IP and optical infrastructure.The company’s Network Services Platform combines Alcatel-Lucent’s SDN-based software with its 5260 service-aware management system, Service Router operating system and the 1830 Photonic Service Switch GMPLS routing engine algorithms from Bell Labs. It also has a REST API interface to the Nuage Networks Virtual Services Platform SDN controller for data center networks so the IP/MPLS/optical network can be quickly provisioned based on the needs of data center interconnection and virtual machine mobility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Alcatel-Lucent this week extended its carrier SDN product line with an automation and network control system designed to accelerate service provisioning from multivendor IP and optical infrastructure.The company’s Network Services Platform combines Alcatel-Lucent’s SDN-based software with its 5260 service-aware management system, Service Router operating system and the 1830 Photonic Service Switch GMPLS routing engine algorithms from Bell Labs. It also has a REST API interface to the Nuage Networks Virtual Services Platform SDN controller for data center networks so the IP/MPLS/optical network can be quickly provisioned based on the needs of data center interconnection and virtual machine mobility.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Reports surfaced last week that Cisco may be close to buying hyperconvergence start-up Nutanix.The speculation is based on an article in Storage Newsletter by Jared Rinderer, an analyst at Equity Capital Research Group. In it, Rinderer says outgoing Cisco CEO John Chambers is looking to leave with a bang – one last big acquisition to stick it to partners-turned rivals EMC and VMware.Nutanix makes integrated compute/storage, networking, virtualization and management products for the data center that run on x86 hardware. The privately held company is recognized as the leader in the hyperconverged infrastructure market, which was recently entered by VMware with its EVO:RAIL product.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
John Chambers’ last quarterly conference call as Cisco CEO this week was as bullish as it’s ever been, especially on switching. Chambers left little doubt what he thought about prognostications that software-defined networking and whitebox switching would ultimately kill Cisco’s switching dominance:
So all this garbage about new players coming in and software coming in and white label killing our approach was entirely wrong… We are beating our competitors that you all were worried about.
In Cisco’s fiscal Q3, orders for the Nexus 9000 switch and APIC controller, the guts of its SDN – or SDN killing – offering grew sequentially 27%. As we reported earlier, APIC customers just about doubled and Nexus 9000 customers grew 56% since January.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nuage Networks this week released an application designed to better integrate physical and virtual networks.The company’s Virtualized Services Assurance Platform (VSAP) correlates the operation of virtual overlays and physical underlays in software defined networks on behalf of applications and workloads. Nuage says it employs standard protocols to achieve this instead of proprietary approaches offered by its SDN competitors that require specific hardware.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Alcatel-Lucent SDN company puts pedal to bare metal+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nuage Networks this week released an application designed to better integrate physical and virtual networks.The company’s Virtualized Services Assurance Platform (VSAP) correlates the operation of virtual overlays and physical underlays in software defined networks on behalf of applications and workloads. Nuage says it employs standard protocols to achieve this instead of proprietary approaches offered by its SDN competitors that require specific hardware.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Alcatel-Lucent SDN company puts pedal to bare metal+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Big Switch Networks rolled out new versions of its SDN-based cloud fabric and monitoring applications which feature tighter integration with VMware, among other enhancements.Big Cloud Fabric is a leaf/spine Clos fabric providing physical and virtual workload connectivity in data centers. Version 2.6 provides fabric automation and analytics for VMware vSphere environments.+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD:SDN start-up Big Switch bullish on new course +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Big Switch Networks rolled out new versions of its SDN-based cloud fabric and monitoring applications which feature tighter integration with VMware, among other enhancements.Big Cloud Fabric is a leaf/spine Clos fabric providing physical and virtual workload connectivity in data centers. Version 2.6 provides fabric automation and analytics for VMware vSphere environments.+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD:SDN start-up Big Switch bullish on new course +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While Cisco’s SDN customers are trending up, the TCO benefits of its solution are trending down. At its recent Cisco Partner Summit, Insieme SVP Soni Jiandani held up a slide that claimed over 2,655 customers for the Nexus 9000 switch and over 585 customers for the Application Centric Infrastructure APIC controller.The slide was tweeted by CEO-in-waiting Chuck Robbins:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
You don’t become one of the most admired and successful CEOs in Silicon Valley and in all of business by doing many things wrong.Sure, there were missteps along the way for Cisco during the 20 year leadership of John Chambers. But they are outnumbered by the successes and overshadowed by the company’s sustained growth over those two decades.“The growth of the company, from what it was to what it became,” will be the highlight of Chambers’ career, says Glenn O’Donnell, a Forrester Research analyst. “Cisco is one of the great success stories of Silicon Valley. That will be his legacy.”Chambers will step down on July 26. His successor is Chuck Robbins, a 17-year Cisco veteran and currently the senior vice president of worldwide operations, responsible for direct and indirect sales. That was the same role Chambers had in 1995 when he was named CEO, having come to Cisco from Wang Laboratories in 1991.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco next month will unveil an Ethernet switch designed for campus aggregation but in a space saving form factor that’s smaller than previous models.The Catalyst 6840-X is a 2RU device featuring up to 40 10G Ethernet ports and two 40G uplinks. It will include all of the software feature sets of the Catalyst 6800 line, which was introduced two years ago, and the 12+-year-old Catalyst 6500.
The Catalyst 6840-X comes in four configurations: 16x10G, 32x10G, 24x10G with two 40G uplinks, and 40x10G with two 40G uplinks. All switches are Layer 2/3 IPv4/v6 devices with MPLS, VPLS, 256K IPv4 routes, 512K NetFlow flows, large buffers, TrustSec Security Group Tags, MACSec, LISP and support for Catalyst 6800 Instant Access switch clients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco next month will unveil an Ethernet switch designed for campus aggregation but in a space saving form factor that’s smaller than previous models.The Catalyst 6840-X is a 2RU device featuring up to 40 10G Ethernet ports and two 40G uplinks. It will include all of the software feature sets of the Catalyst 6800 line, which was introduced two years ago, and the 12+-year-old Catalyst 6500.
The Catalyst 6840-X comes in four configurations: 16x10G, 32x10G, 24x10G with two 40G uplinks, and 40x10G with two 40G uplinks. All switches are Layer 2/3 IPv4/v6 devices with MPLS, VPLS, 256K IPv4 routes, 512K NetFlow flows, large buffers, TrustSec Security Group Tags, MACSec, LISP and support for Catalyst 6800 Instant Access switch clients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Three years into his two- to four-year window, John Chambers retired. And 16 months after a succession plan was disclosed, Chuck Robbins was tapped to replace him.Robbins, Cisco’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, will become the 31-year-old company’s fourth CEO on July 26 as Chambers steps aside after 20 years at the helm. Chambers will become executive chairman.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: New Cisco CEO: Meet the real Chuck Robbins; How Chambers kept a high profile+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Jim Duffy