Software is becoming an increasingly important part of telecommunication networks and deployments as both wired and wireless carriers look to add functionality to operations while increasing simplicity and reducing costs. RCR Wireless News is keeping an eye on recent developments through its weekly “Software” wrap up.
Computing giant Cisco Systems has been on a shopping spree, snatching up a pair of privately held companies in a move to bolster its cloud and network virtualization presence.
Cisco earlier this week announced plans to purchase Metacloud in a move to strengthen Cisco’s “Intercloud” strategy and target the growing “Internet of Things” market. Metacloud currently offers private cloud solutions using an OpenStack-as-a-service model designed to provide remote operations for private clouds in a customer’s data center.
Cisco said its Intercloud program, which the company launched earlier this year, has made progress in gaining technology partners working through its OpenStack-based Cloud Services architecture for building private and public clouds. The OpenStack platform is seen as central to Cisco’s cloud plans, with Metacloud’s offering allowing service providers to “combine their public cloud deployments with remotely managed OpenStack private clouds, and to deliver unique Intercloud offerings to their customers.”
Financial details of the transaction were not released, though Cisco said that Metacloud employees would join its Cloud Infrastructure and Managed Services organization.
Analysts noted the Metacloud deal is a strong step by Cisco in boosting its Intercloud initiative.
“Time will tell how seamless and robust the OpenStack additions to the Intercloud portfolio will be. Customers will decide,” said Paul Parker-Johnson from ACG Research. “However, if one were looking for signs that the Intercloud fabric might have the versatility and flexibility in deployment options the cloud computing community so highly values, the Metacloud acquisition would appear to be a compelling signal heading in that direction.”
Cisco also announced plans to acquire Memoir Systems, which develops semiconductor memory intellectual property and tools to allow ASIC vendors to build “programmable network switches with increasing speeds.” Cisco noted Memoir’s IP is targeted at improving memory access in situations where data center density is increasing due to the use of non-virtualized big data applications like Hadoop.
“This technology allows the development of switch and router ASICs with speeds, feeds and costs typically not possible with traditional physical memory design techniques,” Cisco noted in a statement. “This differentiation is critically important as port densities and port speeds move from 10G to 40/100G.”
The Memoir Systems deal is expected to close during Cisco’s first fiscal quarter of 2015, with the Memoir team to be folded into Cisco’s Insieme Business Unit.
Cisco recently invested in ItsOn’s second round of financing, which ItsOn said it plans to use for sales expansion outside the United States. Sprint earlier this year announced a deal with ItsOn to use its cloud-based virtual network platform to power “personalized services,” that eventually was announced as a new offering from prepaid provider Virgin Mobile USA.
—Meru Networks unveiled its Collaborator offering, which is designed to allow its Wi-Fi users to optimize performance for Microsoft Lync user over multivendor networks. Meru said the platform is built on top of an OpenDaylight software-defined networking controller and designed to work with any OpenFlow-enabled wired or wireless network.
Meru earlier this year garnered a conformance certificate from the Open Networking Foundation, citing Meru’s use of SDN and OpenFlow to allow for third-party control out to the access point.
—Brocade said it has acquired network visibility and analytics technology assets from Vistapointe in an all-cash transaction. Financial details on the acquisition were not released.
Vistapointe’s software-based technologies are targeted at mobile operators looking to deploy network function virtualization architectures. Brocade said the deal will allow the company to offer services to mobile network operators and complements its existing MLX-based IP telemetry solution. The Vistapointe assets are set to be integrated into Brocade’s Network Visibility Analytics group, with Vistapointe CEO Ravi Medikonda joining Brocade as VP of that group and the hiring of Vistapointe’s development team.
“The Vistapointe acquisition affirms our commitment to SDN and NFV as a means to disrupt the status quo of the networking industry,” said Ken Cheng, CTO and VP of corporate development at Brocade. “We will continue to execute against a focused strategy that leverages M&A, strategic partnerships, open source communities and organic innovation to deliver next-generation networking solutions that are open, virtual and simple.”
Brocade recently announced a partnership with telecommunications giant Telefónica that included setting up NFV “benchmarks” within Telefónica’s NFV Reference Lab framework. Through that partnership, Telefónica claims tests using Brocade’s Vyatta 5600 VRouter hit data speeds of 80 gigabits per second using an “off-the-shelf” Intel-based x86 server.
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