Cloud Network Architect | Cloud Networking | THE CLOUD NETWORK

Ericsson's Network-enabled Cloud meets needs of the Networked Society

Cloud Network Architect — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:43:20 GMT

Ericsson's Network-enabled Cloud meets needs of the Networked Society

Sun Feb 26, 2012 6:11am EST @PR2WEB

Ericsson announces its Network-enabled Cloud concept, a business platform that enables operators to drive new revenues and evolve network capabilities

The Network-Enabled Cloud builds on computing power in today's telecom assets to both embed enhanced functionality and to expose network capabilities for new service creation

Ericsson takes a 5C approach to the Network-enabled Cloud: connect, control, compute, create and customize

Consumers, enterprises and society in general are increasingly becoming networked, driven by smart connected devices, broadband networks and cloud-based services. Quality of experience, new revenue models and optimal usage of computing resources are a necessity to serve these needs in an efficient manner. To meet these needs and continuously build and sustain the Networked Society, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) is developing the concept of a Network-enabled Cloud. It is Ericsson's comprehensive effort to simultaneously evolve cloud computing and telecom network technologies.

In an Ericsson business user study, 78 percent of the respondents say they work more efficiently when they have access to mobile broadband and 92 percent say they need access to mobile broadband everywhere.

Ericsson's Network-enabled Cloud builds on and combines today's telecom assets and delivers dramatically improved quality of experience, new business opportunities, faster time-to-market and reduced cost for operators. In this way, it is creating a platform for innovation that will help realize the Networked Society.

Ericsson's executives will outline the thinking and use cases of the Network-enabled Cloud at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2012).

Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, says: "The Network-enabled Cloud provides a roadmap for the evolution of today's telecom business by addressing the need for new business opportunities while leveraging telecom operators' core capabilities."

Ericsson takes a 5C approach to the Network-enabled Cloud:

Connect: Anytime, anywhere connectivity and a high-quality experience thanks to high-quality, high-capacity networks

Control: Efficient operations through integrated management of networks and the cloud for reliable service-level agreement (SLA) implementation

Compute: Embedded capabilities that can be activated dynamically thanks to high-performance, telecom-grade infrastructure

Create: Unified communications, enterprise software as a service, service enablement and accelerated business growth through the facilitation of rapid service creation

Customize: Architect, build, optimize and operate complete professional services.

Development of the Network-enabled Cloud will progress in several parallel flows. One starting point is today's emerging content delivery networks, which benefit from Ericsson's approach to cloud acceleration. Another starting point is for operators to dedicate one or more telecom-grade cloud data center(s) to enhancing the level of quality and security for the applications they offer, such as unified communications and enterprise applications.

In recent years, Ericsson has assembled a unique set of capabilities and experiences by delivering a variety of solutions and services to the market, all connected to the 5C cloud strategy, including:

Connect

50% of the world's smartphone traffic goes through Ericsson network

Mobile Cloud Acceleration in partnership with Akamai

Control

800 Operations Support Systems

Charging & Billing solutions serving 1.6 billion users

Compute

Unparalleled footprint in mobile network nodes, from core network to RAN, forming the basis for a future conversion to embedded cloud-computing nodes in the Network-Enabled Cloud

Create

Device Connection Platform for M2M communication

In-game communications for an enhanced gaming experience based on improved voice communication

Service Delivery Platform and Composition Engine for Service Enablement

mCommerce Interconnect to link mWallet companies to operators

An array of enterprise offerings to help operators build an as-a-Service business

Business Communication Suite for unified communications

Visual Communications HD video collaboration

PC-as-a-Service; a PC in the cloud

Cooperation with salesforce.com in CRM systems

Customize

900 million subscribers in Ericsson managed networks

Consolidation of data centers for operators with several customer references

Ericsson will also deliver an integrated Cloud and Network Management suite that facilitates the end-to-end implementation of SLAs resulting from service exposure through application programming interfaces (APIs). An early version of this unique capability is on display at our stand in Hall 6.

Our multimedia content is available at the broadcast room: www.ericsson.com/broadcast_room

Ericsson is the world's leading provider of communications technology and services. We are enabling the Networked Society with efficient real-time solutions that allow us all to study, work and live our lives more freely, in sustainable societies around the world.

Our offering comprises services, software and infrastructure within Information and Communications Technology for telecom operators and other industries. Today more than 40 percent of the world's mobile traffic goes through Ericsson networks and we support customers' networks servicing more than 2 billion subscribers.

We operate in 180 countries and employ more than 100,000 people. Founded in 1876, Ericsson is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2011 the company had revenues of SEK 226,9 billion (USD 35.0 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ, New York stock exchanges.

www.ericsson.com
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www.youtube.com/ericssonpress

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT

Ericsson Corporate Public & Media Relations
Phone: +46 10 719 69 92
E-mail: media.relations@ericsson.com

Ericsson Investor Relations
Phone: +46 10 719 00 00
E-mail: investor.relations@ericsson.com

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

Huawei Delivers Middle East Enterprise Forecast: Sunny With Strong Outlook for Cloud

Cloud Network Architect — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:17:55 GMT

Huawei Delivers Middle East Enterprise Forecast: Sunny With Strong Outlook for Cloud

ICT leader addresses how cloud drives business success at IDC CIO Summit, UAE

Dubai, February 15 2012 – @PR2WEB - Huawei, a leading global information and communication technology (ICT) solutions provider, is set to outline what the next decade holds for cloud and ICT in enterprises at the IDC CIO Summit, Fujairah, UAE, 20-21 February. Ronald Raffensperger, director of cloud computing marketing, Huawei Global Markets, will deliver a presentation entitled Voice and Video Multiply Cloud Benefits at 10.00 on the second day.

Now in its fifth year, IDC’s Middle East CIO Summit brings together the region’s top 100 CIOs and focuses on the role of IT in driving business growth. Businesses are recognising that cloud technologies can accelerate their growth by saving time and money, but Huawei Enterprise Business believes most discussion of cloud today is mainly focused on meeting the needs of IT. In only seeing how cloud can improve IT’s real estate and cost footprint, or reduce space taken up by data centres and server racks, businesses are missing a major opportunity to transform their whole enterprise from top to bottom.

Ronald Raffensperger commented: “The cloud model means business users can access systems anytime and anywhere, with greater security and improved reliability. Including voice, video and multimedia in cloud computing architectures might not be simple, but it sets businesses up for the challenges of the next decade. While many businesses see cloud as the preserve of the IT department, keeping it within those bounds limits its true potential to help the business transform and grow.”

"Cloud computing and unified communication and collaboration solutions should no longer be viewed as the sole domain of IT professionals as they have a direct impact on business processes and the interaction between staff and customers," says Jyoti Lalchandani, Vice President and Managing Director of IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. "Our aim at the fifth annual Middle East CIO Summit is to address the ICT strategies that CIOs and businesses should consider as they strive to increase the profile and adoption of ICT solutions throughout the entire organization. As such, we are looking forward to hearing from industry leaders such as Huawei on how cloud computing and unified communication and collaboration solutions can be better integrated into businesses throughout the region and demonstrate their true ROI potential."

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. According to IDC, the public cloud segment is set to flourish with cloud servers expected to grow from an $8.4bn market opportunity in 2010 to $12.6bn by 2014. Huawei believes the Middle East region will claim a large part of this global market growth.

Ron Raffensperger added: “I tell the CEOs and CIOs we work with that ICT has become the foundation of how our digital society operates. The next 10 years will see explosive growth in mobile broadband. The value chain has shifted from the communications pipe itself to the content delivered through it. Media in the traditional sense will disappear, replaced by networked content. By 2020, there will be over 50 billion connected devices on our planet. All of this means that we are beginning to use IT services in a similar fashion to how we use telecommunications services, paying for usage instead of a fixed cost. Cloud computing gives enterprises the freedom and flexibility they’ve never yet had to harness IT for growth.”

Ronald Raffensperger is responsible for the marketing of Huawei’s cloud computing solutions. He collaborates closely with customers to demonstrate how IT can leverage cloud computing and advances in mobile communications to become leaner, faster and more agile, improving not only employee productivity but also the operation of the entire organisation.

While consolidating its leading position within the telecom market, Huawei is growing rapidly in the enterprise market; specifically in the government, oil and gas, banking and finance, transportation, power and utilities sectors.

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Huawei Technologies

Huawei is a leading ICT solutions provider. Through continuous customer-centric innovation, we have established end-to-end advantages in ICT network infrastructure, Application & Software, Professional Services and Devices. With comprehensive strengths in wireline, wireless and IP technologies, Huawei has gained a leading position in the all-IP convergence age. Our products and solutions have been deployed in over 140 countries and have served 45 of the world's top 50 telecom operators, as well as one third of the world's population. The company is committed to providing innovative and customized products, services and solutions to create long-term value and growth potential for its customers.

Huawei is privately held and is 100% owned by its employees. As a progressive organization, Huawei undertakes management transformation, benchmarked against industry best practices. Since 1997, IBM, Hay Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Accenture have served as Huawei's consultants in such areas as corporate management, human resources management, employee shareholding plans, financial management and quality control.

Huawei Enterprise Business Group

The Enterprise Business Group service offerings focus on the enterprise infrastructure, enterprise communications, data centers, and industry applications. To support the cloud computing era and innovative new business models, the Enterprise Business Group also provides cloud computing-based data center and enterprise applications. The Enterprise Business Group has set up departmental organizations in over 100 countries and regions.

By leveraging its years of technical expertise and unmatched R&D capabilities, the Enterprise Business group is well-positioned to grow together with customers and partners for the future cloud computing and ICT convergence era.

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/huawei_EB_ME and for global news on www.twitter.com/huaweipress

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/HuaweiPress

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

F5 Networks Acquires Traffix Systems

Cloud Network Architect — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:00:09 GMT

F5 Networks Acquires Traffix Systems

Extends leadership in Mobile Data with leading Diameter signaling provider for 4G/LTE Networks

SEATTLE, February 20, 2012 – @PR2WEB

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced that it has agreed to acquire Traffix Systems, the leading provider of 4G Diameter signaling products for telecommunications service providers. The Diameter protocol has gained industry-wide acceptance by the 3GPP and GSMA as the standard for network signaling in all 4G/LTE networks.

“Leading industry experts and service providers recognize the need for converged and unified IP solutions across carriers’ control, data, and application planes, which scale, secure, and optimize 3G, 4G/LTE, and IMS traffic,” said John McAdam, President and CEO of F5 Networks. “The result is a dramatic reduction of complexity and costs, making service provider networks more agile. With this move, F5 continues to execute on the company’s vision of delivering an adaptable architecture to enable its customers to create a smart, converged carrier IP infrastructure.”

Mobile data traffic is increasing at an enormous rate, driving many mobile operators to switch from a 3G network to all-internet protocol (IP) network, such as LTE, to manage the high volume of traffic and provide a high quality customer experience. The Diameter protocol plays a vital role in the management of 4G LTE and IMS networks and 3G charging and policy deployments. Diameter control via routing, load balancing and gateway solutions are critical to effectively building and monetizing networks by enabling them to offer advanced 4G services. Furthermore, service providers need deployment strategies based on robust, telco-grade Diameter routing for the deluge of signaling messages in their network.

“Diameter traffic is mission critical for any carrier moving to 4G/LTE and IMS architectures. It enables billing, subscriber management, and interoperability between core IP systems and between carriers themselves,” said John Byrne, Research Director Wireless and Mobile Infrastructure service at IDC. “With the load and complexity of mobile data network traffic growing dramatically, mobile operators require expertise in the data and application plane, in the form of converged IP services, and in the control plane with advanced Diameter routing, load balancing and gateway capabilities.”

“Bringing together F5’s superior expertise in IP for applications and data with Traffix’s industry leadership in Diameter and signaling for the control plane, F5 has the unique depth and breadth to make the transition from 3G to 4G and IMS much simpler, cost effective, and non-disruptive for carriers,” said Ben Volkow, CEO of Traffix Systems.

Traffix Systems’ team is one of the most advanced with their depth of talent in understanding how to manage, scale, secure, integrate and apply Diameter services within legacy and next generation networks. Traffix’s trajectory began back in 2006 with the development of Diameter protocol products. Traffix’s solutions have been adopted by some of the industry’s largest network vendors. Building on that success and filing several patents, Traffix’s next significant milestone occurred in 2009, with the introduction of the industry’s first Diameter Routing Agent (DRA), followed by the Signaling Delivery Controller (SDC), a single solution for Diameter routing, load balancing and gateway connectivity in 2011. Traffix’s SDC is 3GPP and 3GPP2 compliant, uniquely supporting over 50 related RFCs and standards. No other vendor in the market has as wide and rich a functionality to simplify and enable the next generation Diameter signaling infrastructure.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions and is not expected to have a material impact on the company’s operating results.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks, Inc., the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), helps the world’s largest enterprises and service providers realize the full value of virtualization, cloud computing, and on-demand IT. F5® solutions help integrate disparate technologies to provide greater control of the infrastructure, improve application delivery and data management, and give users seamless, secure, and accelerated access to applications from their corporate desktops and smart devices. An open architectural framework enables F5 customers to apply business policies at “strategic points of control” across the IT infrastructure and into the public cloud. F5 products give customers the agility they need to align IT with changing business conditions, deploy scalable solutions on demand, and manage mobile access to data and services. Enterprises, service and cloud providers, and leading online companies worldwide rely on F5 to optimize their IT investments and drive business forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

You can also follow @f5networks on Twitter or visit us on Facebook for more information about F5, its partners, and technology. For a complete listing of F5 community sites, please visit www.f5.com/news-press-events/web-media/community.html.

F5, F5 Networks, and DevCentral are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

Alcatel-Lucent helps enterprises fully embrace the cloud

Cloud Network Architect — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:46:00 GMT

Alcatel-Lucent helps enterprises fully embrace the cloud

Addition to company’s enterprise solutions portfolio improves the performance of corporate data center networks and helps open up the path to businesses adopting cloud services

Paris, December 14, 2011 – @PR2WEB - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is taking a key step forward in its strategy to support the delivery of secure, reliable and high-performance cloud services by introducing a major new capability to its portfolio of enterprise solutions.

Businesses are increasingly looking to the cloud to give them more flexibility and greater control over costs, but until now many have been reluctant to fully embrace cloud services due to concerns about the availability, security and performance of their mission-critical applications and data.

Alcatel-Lucent is helping enterprises prepare for the cloud evolution with the introduction of a new high-capacity 40 gigabit Ethernet (GigE) switching module for the company’s widely deployed OmniSwitch™ 6900 enterprise network switch, dramatically increasing the data capacity, speed and performance of corporate data center networks. This will lay the groundwork for enterprises to enjoy the same quality of experience with cloud services as with applications deployed in their own data centers.

This new module enables multiple switches to be linked together to create the 40 GigE Pod, which will help enterprises prepare their data center networks for the emerging ‘carrier cloud’ category of services, offering better control of bandwidth and the ability to provide a guaranteed quality of service.In addition to establishing the extremely low-latency, high-capacity links between servers needed to introduce carrier cloud services, the 40 GigE Pod also dramatically increases the ability of enterprises to support a wide array of high-bandwidth services such as video, transfers of large files, real-time collaboration and business productivity tools and more within their own network.

The 40 GigE Pod represents a significant evolution of the Alcatel-Lucent Mesh, an award-winning solution that brings together the best of the cloud with enterprise data center networks.

Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research and Yankee Group Affiliate said: “Enterprises need to be able to choose which applications they maintain in their own data center and which they can source from the cloud. As importantly, their data center fabric needs to be flexible enough to take advantage of all the capabilities of the cloud, while supporting seamless interactions between the cloud and applications hosted on their own network. Alcatel-Lucent is bringing a real-world practicality to data center fabrics, both in terms of affordability and scalability for enterprises both large and small. With this solution, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise provides a safe place to do business … whether it’s in the enterprise data center or the cloud.”

Building the enterprise cloud ecosystem

Coupled with the launch of the 40 GigE module, the company has expanded its ‘Data Center Switching Partner’ ecosystem with companies including Emulex, NetApp and VMware, to make it easier for customers to deploy more affordable, best-of-breed data center solutions. This highlights the company’s commitment to open standards, by ensuring that Alcatel-Lucent’s equipment works smoothly and seamlessly with that of other industry leaders.

Shaun Walsh, vice president of marketing, Emulex said: “We are committed to helping our customers prepare their infrastructures for the future. This focus marries well with Alcatel-Lucent’s approach to its new Enterprise Data Center Switching Partner ecosystem. We are proud to be a charter member of the ecosystem program, which will give customers the confidence to deploy fully interoperable joint solutions.”

Contributions of data center switching partners

Integration testing is complete between Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniSwitch and Emulex OneConnect™ 10 GigE Network Interface Cards (NICs), ensuring low risk deployments of the Alcatel-Lucent Pod and Mesh with different servers.

Verification testing concerning the use of Alcatel-Lucent’s vNP for automated virtual machine (VM) movement with VMware’s vCenter has been completed and integration between Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniVista 2500 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) and VMware hypervisor architecture has been demonstrated for VMware vMotion®, dashboard and provisioning.

A test bed is being developed combining the Mesh and NetApp storage arrays with Virtual Desktop Applications.

Alcatel-Lucent recently participated in an IEEE sponsored multi-vendor interoperability test of Shortest Path Bridging (SPB).

About the 40GigE Module and the 40GigE Pod

With this new 40GigE module for the OmniSwitch 6900, Alcatel-Lucent continues to deliver on its ‘Application Fluent’ approach which enables a high-quality experience for employees with real-time applications and reduced complexity for IT and network managers. This is achieved through simplified, resilient and low-latency network architecture with built-in security. The 40GigE Pod is a highly dense, any-to-any interconnection of OmniSwitch Top-of-Rack switches that delivers high performance, with best-in-class capacity and low latency server-to-server bandwidth (under 2 microseconds with no oversubscription). The new OmniSwitch 6900 40GigE module scored high in the Lippis Open Industry Network Performance & Power evaluation of data center switches for use in public and private data center cloud computing applications.

About Alcatel-Lucent in the Cloud

The launch of the 40 GigE Module is the latest development in the advancement of Alcatel-Lucent’s cloud strategy. On November 17 the company launched a new solution, called CloudBand, which brings together the computing power and flexibility of the cloud with the high performance, reliability and security of communications networks. On December 1 the company introduced the new HP and Alcatel-Lucent Data Center Network Connect (DCNC) integrated architecture that brings together the strengths of data center technology with high-performance communications networks to offer enterprises the same levels of reliability, speed and capacity that are available on telecommunication service provider networks.

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

Vordel Delivers Hype-free Application Gateway Buyer's Guide

Cloud Network Architect — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:03:19 GMT

Vordel Delivers Hype-free Application Gateway Buyer's Guide

What to look for when buying Application/ XML / SOA Gateway

Boston, MA- December 12, 2011 @PR2WEB - Vordel, a provider of gateways for SOA and Cloud Computing today announced the availability of its Application Gateway Buyer's Guide. The purpose of the Buyer's Guide is to provide hype-free information to help IT professionals evaluate an application gateway (also known as XML gateway, SOA application gateway, and SOA appliance). This guide assesses important technology, product, deployment, and cost considerations that may not be obvious to buyers of application gateways. The goal of the Buyer's Guide is to enable potential customers ask the right questions during the evaluation process. The Guide does not contain any Vordel product information.

The buyer's guide examines Application Gateway basics including integration, security, control, and acceleration functions. It also analyzes architecture and product design elements including connectors/adaptors, development tools, policy models and the gateway as a platform among others. Additionally, it highlights performance and scalability options, while also examining form factor, extensibility, clustering models, certifications and standards support.

"The white noise surrounding the Application Gateway is distracting users from maximizing its potential. At the moment, the application gateway has evolved into a core enterprise infrastructure technology playing a critical role in connecting enterprise applications across network boundaries to Cloud, mobile, and SOA-based applications. Selecting an application gateway is a big responsibility and the considerations outlined in the Vordel Buyer's Guide enables a thorough objective analysis and informed decision-making," said Hugh Carroll, VP Marketing, Vordel. "

Application Gateway 101
Application Gateways provide integration, security, control and acceleration technologies. They enable applications to work across network boundaries enabling enterprises to deploy applications anywhere, including on-premise, in the Cloud, at partners, or on mobile devices. In effect, the Application Gateway enables users to access applications and data from any device, anywhere. Additionally, Application Gateways enforce access control for SOAP, Web Services Services and REST APIs, including authentication, authorization and auditing.

The Core Technology
At its technology core, an application gateway is a general purpose, policy driven, application level message input-output device. The gateway is deployed in-line of application communications. The "application" referenced here can be a:

Traditional server application, custom or commercial

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) products like an Enterprise Service Bus

Client application, including light, rich, or thick clients

Mobile application, such as an iOS or Android app

Cloud based service

Another application gateway or specialty gateway, such as a B2B gateway, Cloud

Gateway, or client-side gateway
Careful selection of an application gateway technology and vendor can pay great dividends both immediately and in the long run. By incorporating the considerations outlined in the Vordel Buyer's Guide into an evaluation project allows a user to perform a thorough analysis and make an informed decision.

About Vordel
Vordel delivers fast, safe, connectivity for SOA and Cloud Services. Vordel Gateway provides integration, security, governance, and acceleration for enterprise applications and Cloud based services. Vordel Gateway enables Fortune 5000 enterprises and government agencies to extend their enterprise applications and SOA infrastructure beyond the perimeter to enable Cloud based services and mobile computing. Vordel makes it possible to deliver and consume "Applications Anywhere" with IT's existing applications and infrastructure, without costly upgrades and rewrites. To learn more and obtain a free evaluation of Vordel's products, go to: www.vordel.com and follow us on twitter and our Blogs

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

Alcatel-Lucent connects Communications Networks and the Cloud

Cloud Network Architect — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:19:04 GMT

Alcatel-Lucent connects Communications Networks and the Cloud

New CloudBand ‘carrier cloud’ solution brings the reliability, security and high performance of communications networks to the cloud services market

Paris - November 17, 2011 – @PR2WEB - Today Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is introducing a new solution, called CloudBand, which brings together the computing power and flexibility of the cloud with the high performance, reliability and security of communications networks. CloudBand is the foundation for a new class of ‘carrier cloud’ services that will enable communications service providers to bring the benefits of the cloud to their own networks and business operations, and put them in an ideal position to offer a new range of high-performance cloud services to enterprises and consumers.

The public cloud model has transformed how we access applications and use computing power and data storage. Applications and data can now be accessed on-demand from data centers through the Internet. Some services, however, are dependent on levels of quality and performance that the public cloud is not able to provide.

Recent Alcatel-Lucent research that surveyed nearly 3500 enterprise IT decision makers has found that their biggest concern by far about the cloud is performance, followed by security. CloudBand helps address these concerns by drawing on the unique strengths of communications service providers to create a new level of ‘business class’ cloud services that are delivered using secure, reliable, high-performance communications networks. This new level of service offers lower latency, better control of bandwidth and the ability to provide a guaranteed quality of service, all of which are necessary to meet the stringent performance demands of consumers and enterprises.

CloudBand is comprised of two distinct elements: the CloudBand Management System – which delivers orchestration and optimization of services between the communications network and the cloud; and the CloudBand Node, which provides the computing, storage and networking hardware and associated software to host a wide range of cloud services. CloudBand will be available for deployment in the first half of 2012.

Building the carrier cloud

CloudBand will enable communications service providers to deliver networking services from the cloud. By shifting to a cloud-based delivery model, service providers will be able to market and deliver new services to customers quickly, with improved quality of service and at lower cost. Using CloudBand, service providers can ‘virtualize’ many of the critical elements of their networks by converting them into software which is run in the cloud and accessed on demand as needed to address shifts in customer usage patterns.

Rather than having to install dedicated equipment for every communication service, such as SMS or video, service providers can instead draw from the carrier cloud to address demand. This approach offers service providers an enormous amount of ‘elasticity’, meaning they can expand or shrink particular elements of their service mix quickly as market demand dictate. It also means they can test out new services without having to make a massive investment, making it much easier to start small and grow as needed.

The biggest challenge in making the carrier cloud a reality is bringing the computing and communications network assets together. CloudBand, which features advanced algorithms developed by Bell Labs, orchestrates the network, computing and data storage elements distributed throughout the network. This approach results in the creation of a single, extremely powerful and flexible service delivery and computing platform that can support a wide range of services, eliminating the need for dedicated hardware platforms for each individual service. As importantly, this orchestration capability can be expanded beyond the service provider’s network to help manage access to a wide array of public and private clouds.

Adolfo Hernandez, President, of Alcatel-Lucent’s Software, Services & Solutions Group said: “From our research we know that performance is the highest concern of IT decision makers. We also know that they believe communications service providers are in the best position to deliver the quality and security they expect, making them the cloud provider of choice for the enterprise world.

Hernandez added: “The network makes the cloud, and communications service providers own the networks. That’s a very powerful combination.”

Informa telecommunications analyst Camille Mendler said: “Service providers’ cloud investments have already exceeded $11 billion in 2011, but financial rewards will only come if their computing and network assets are tightly integrated. Orchestration platforms like Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand support efficient consumption and control of diverse digital resources. Better control means better performance – and that’s absolutely critical to differentiate and win customers.”

Alcatel-Lucent’s global cloud initiative

CloudBand is a key element of the company’s cloud initiative, which supports the adoption and transformation of Alcatel-Lucent’s own platforms and applications to a cloud-based architecture. These applications are also offered as a service from Alcatel-Lucent’s cloud to carriers; 18 million subscribers are currently being served through this initiative.

Alcatel-Lucent is working with a number of partners to make this cloud vision a reality, most notably HP. The ten-year strategic global agreement with HP was formed to jointly develop a wide array of converged solutions for the information and communication technology (ICT) market and bridge the gap between the data center and the network.

Visit our website to learn more about CloudBand and our global cloud initiative. We also invite you to check out a video on Alcatel-Lucent’s vision for the carrier cloud.

About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU)

The long-trusted partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries and governments around the world, Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in mobile, fixed, IP and Optics technologies, and a pioneer in applications and services. Alcatel-Lucent includes Bell Labs, one of the world's foremost centres of research and innovation in communications technology.

With operations in more than 130 countries and one of the most experienced global services organizations in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach.

The Company achieved revenues of Euro 16 billion in 2010 and is incorporated in France and headquartered in Paris.

For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow the Company on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

Vordel and Perficient enter Strategic Partnership to Enable Enterprises to Connect SOA to Cloud & Mobile Applications

Cloud Network Architect — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:13:01 GMT

Vordel and Perficient enter Strategic Partnership to Enable Enterprises to Connect SOA to Cloud & Mobile Applications

Leader in Enterprise Application Integration Services Provides Implementation and Post-Deployment Services Around Vordel Application Gateway

Boston, MA - November 14, 2011 – @PR2WEB - Vordel, a provider of SOA and Cloud Gateways and Perficient, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRFT), a leading information technology consulting firm serving Global 2000 and other large enterprise customers throughout North America, today announced a partnership whereby Perficient will provide consulting services for the Vordel Application Gateway.

Vordel Application Gateway is an integration and security gateway providing fast and secure connectivity across enterprise applications, SOA services and Cloud based services. As a result of this partnership, Vordel and Perficient enable enterprises to deploy applications beyond their network perimeter; consume Cloud Services in a controlled manner and secure application connections by using enterprise security infrastructure. Perficient also delivers consulting services around products complementary to Vordel from Microsoft, IBM Oracle and TIBCO.

"We're excited about our partnership with Vordel," said Jason Cardinal, Managing Director with Perficient. "Enterprises are increasingly looking for a more effective means to control their service integrations across SOA, Cloud and Mobile computing environments. Vordel's best of breed Application Gateway, coupled with Perficient's broad and deep experience in the integration market space, provides clients a compelling and comprehensive enterprise application integration and security solution."

"We're excited to see our partnership with Perficient continue to evolve," said Vic Morris. "Perficient has already proven to be a strategic and innovative services partner for Vordel in a number of industrial sectors, and we expect this to continue as enterprises increasingly implement the Vordel Application Gateway to secure and integrate applications that are located, quite literally, anywhere."

About Perficient
Perficient is a leading information technology consulting firm serving Global 2000 and enterprise customers throughout North America. Perficient's professionals serve clients from a network of 19 offices in North America and three offshore locations, in Eastern Europe, India and China. Perficient helps clients use Internet-based technologies to improve productivity and competitiveness, strengthen relationships with customers, suppliers and partners and reduce information technology costs. Perficient, traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market(SM), is a member of the Russell 2000® index and the S&P SmallCap 600 index. Perficient is an award-winning "Premier Level" IBM business partner, a TeamTIBCO partner, a Microsoft National Systems Integrator and Gold Certified Partner, a Documentum Select Services Team Partner and an Oracle Certified Partner. For more information, please visit www.perficient.com.

About Vordel
Vordel delivers fast, safe, connectivity for SOA and Cloud Services. Vordel Gateway provides integration, security, governance, and acceleration for enterprise applications and Cloud based services. Vordel Gateway enables Fortune 5000 enterprises and government agencies to extend their enterprise applications and SOA infrastructure beyond the perimeter to enable Cloud based services and mobile computing. Vordel makes it possible to deliver and consume “Applications Anywhere” with IT’s existing applications and infrastructure, without costly upgrades and rewrites. Vordel is an Oracle Platinum Certified Partner. Follow us on twitter and our Blogs

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

Arista Networks Expands Cloud Networking Portfolio

Cloud Network Architect — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:59:09 GMT

Arista Networks Expands Cloud Networking Portfolio

New 7050 and EOS^TM Solutions Maximize Uptime and Operational Capabilities

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—@PR2WEB - Arista Networks today announced four new switches to its 7050 Series family and Arista EOS software enhancements that address the most demanding needs in cloud computing environments. The products are an expansion of Arista’s cloud networking portfolio and provide the scalability, resilience and density customers with mission-critical data centers and cloud computing facilities require.

“The delivery of 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches, puts our customers in the unique position of building high density networks that scale for future growth, while integrating existing 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet solutions”

“The delivery of 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches, puts our customers in the unique position of building high density networks that scale for future growth, while integrating existing 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet solutions,” said Anshul Sadana, Vice President, Customer Engineering for Arista Networks.

The Arista 7050Q-16 provides 16 ports of 40 GbE as well as the capability to connect to eight ports of 1/10 GbE based on SFP+ interfaces. The built-in solid-state drive (SSD) for high performance logging and local storage and the latest in Intel microprocessor architecture, drives increased control throughput, giving customers an affordable, top-of-rack spine alternative.

The new 7050T-64 and 7050T-52 Series leaf switches provide 48 ports of 100/1000/10GBase-T to server and storage nodes, supporting existing cabling of distances up to 100 meters. This offers easy migration from existing 1/GbE to 10/GbE without intrusive upgrades. U.S. list price starts at $14,995 ($312/port) making this solution a compelling, cost-effective deployment of 1/GbE today that is 10/GbE ready.

In order to address the SFP direct-attached servers or for fiber aggregation, Arista is introducing the 7050S-52, providing 52 ports of GbE to complement the 7050S-64 announced earlier this year.

Arista EOS – Cloud Scale Resiliency

Arista’s advanced software continues to offer unprecedented features for cloud networks. Hitless Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation (MLAG) provides resiliency against any cable, transceiver or switch failure in a two-tier network with traffic loss under 50 milliseconds.

Enhancements to Arista’s leading Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) system creates the first stateless networking deployments for intelligent, multi-layer switches. With ZTP customers can automate the deployment, replacement and upgrading of a switch.

MLAG with In Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) allows for a network upgrade without any application downtime, boosting the overall availability of the network in a cloud data center.

About Arista Networks

Arista Networks was founded to deliver cloud networking solutions for large data center and computing environments. Arista’s award-winning, best-of-breed 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches redefine scalability, robustness and price-performance. At the core of Arista’s platform is EOS, a groundbreaking, new software architecture. Arista Networks markets its products worldwide through distribution partners, systems integrators and resellers.

Arista EOS is a trademark of Arista Networks.

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

Standard Chartered Bank Adopts Juniper Networks Infrastructure

Cloud Network Architect — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:30:02 GMT

Standard Chartered Bank Adopts Juniper Networks Infrastructure

Juniper Networks EX Series Ethernet Switches and SRX Series Services Gateways Deliver Highly Scalable, Simplified Secure Network Architecture in Singapore, Beijing and New York

SINGAPORE—(@PR2WEB - October 19, 2011) -
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Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR), the industry leader in network innovation, today announced that it has become a strategic network provider to Standard Chartered Bank, an industry leader within emerging markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Juniper Networks® EX Series Ethernet Switches and SRX Series Services Gateways, which run the Junos® operating system, have been deployed to create a secure, high-performance, scalable core, access and data center network infrastructure at Standard Chartered sites in Singapore, Beijing and New York.
Standard Chartered has consolidated the majority of its business operations in Singapore into two new locations -- at Marina Bay Financial Center where the bank has its trading floor, the largest in Asia with 790 seats spanning over 65,000 square feet across three floors, and at Changi Business Park, which is a key location for the bank's Group Technology and Operations function. The consolidation strategy was the catalyst for the bank's decision to deploy a Juniper Networks' campus network solution, which includes the Juniper Networks EX Series Ethernet Switches, SRX Series Services Gateways and the management system NSM Central Manager.
Based on successful implementations in Singapore, Standard Chartered deployed similar systems at new sites in New York and Beijing.
Standard Chartered is utilizing Juniper's Virtual Chassis fabric technology, which enables up to 10 interconnected EX4200 switches to operate as a single, logical device, to grow its campus networks incrementally without incurring large up-front costs. These network access switches have duplexed uplinks Juniper Networks EX8208 core network switches, which form a 10 Gigabit Ethernet mesh that includes the bank's data center switches: EX8208 switches in Singapore with EX4200 switches deployed to support the Beijing and New York server farms.
The bank has also deployed Juniper Networks SRX1400, SRX3400 and SRX3600 Services Gateways within its campus, branch and data center networks as part of its security capability set. With Junos running as a single operating system on both the switches and gateways, Standard Chartered is able to employ a uniform, centrally-managed security policy framework that reduces complexity, risk and operating costs.
For a bank, system availability is absolutely critical to its operations. With Juniper Networks EX Series Ethernet Switches, Standard Chartered has been able to drive down the cost and complexity of managing its networks in these locations with a highly scalable, simplified, two-layer network architecture that delivers low-latency and is fully redundant down to the access layer.
"Standard Chartered Bank is a tier-one financial institution that depends on its information infrastructure to accommodate growth and maximize revenue," said Douglas Murray, senior vice president, Asia Pacific at Juniper Networks. "We are delighted that the Bank has selected Juniper Networks as a strategic network provider."
About Juniper Networks
Juniper Networks is in the business of network innovation. From devices to data centers, from consumers to cloud providers, Juniper Networks delivers the software, silicon and systems that transform the experience and economics of networking. Additional information can be found at Juniper Networks (www.juniper.net).
Juniper Networks and Junos are registered trademarks of Juniper Networks, Inc. in the United States and other countries. The Juniper Networks and Junos logos are trademarks of Juniper Networks, Inc. All other trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners.

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds

How to Maximize your Cloud Infrastructure Video by Juniper Networks

Cloud Network Architect — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:30:10 GMT

How to maximize your cloud infrastructure video

Cloud computing has transformed the data center and has the potential to achieve more by deploying intelligent networks. Traditional networks cannot scale and deliver the performance the data center needs and to overcome these challenges, Scalable and Juniper Networks have partnered, to show just how it’s possible to maximise the benefits of cloud computing. This video will take you through the steps needed to maximise the most from your cloud infrastructure in terms of simplifying, securing, and automating your network.

In the video Trevor Dearing, Head of Enterprise Marketing, EMEA, Juniper Networks looks at the technology behind the ideas; for example, how organisations can reduce their networks to two layers which improves performance between virtual machines and storage devices.

You can watch Trevor Dearing, Head of Enterprise Marketing, EMEA, Juniper Networks here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMSGypne76A&feature=channel_video_title talk about how to maximize your cloud infrastructure.

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For more information click here: http://www.juniper.net

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Gary E. Smith - Architect to the Clouds