Given the burgeoning market for SD-WAN solutions, Cisco and the way of the router has been looking like yesterday’s news, but they announced this week that they have invested in VeloCloud’s SD-WAN solution. According to VeloCloud, Cisco is integrating its intelligent Wan SD-WAN product with VeloCloud’s technology to help them adapt in this new router-less market.
Cisco and VeloCloud take two different approaches to SD-WAN—Cisco with their all-in-one appliances at the branch offices, as opposed to VeloCloud and their controller in the cloud. This integration could position both companies at the head of the SD-WAN market, as competition for the best SD-WAN solution continues to heat up amongst the major players. We’ll have to wait and see what products they develop given this new technological partnership.
Dell Announces New Linux-based Switch OS
Dell recently announced a new switch OS that has the potential to become the software foundation across the company’s portfolio of data center infrastructure. Dell is adding the OS to the choices they offer to tech buyers for their vender switches, which can be purchased with an NOS from Big Switch Networks, Cumulus Networks, IP Infusion or Pluribus Networks. This news comes after the partnership between Dell and VMware, who is expected to use the new OS on their hyper-converged systems. Currently, Cumulus OS on Dell switches is looking to take the hardest hit from the inception of this new OS as they share the most compatible features.
Qwilt and three6five Help Operators in Africa with Streaming Video Traffic
Qwilt, a provider of online video delivery and video caching solutions, announced a technology partnership with three6five, an IP networking service integrator in South Africa whose goal is to improve OTT streaming video strategies for service providers in Africa. The partnership will help three6five to offer service providers in the region with open cache solutions to address the growing demand in the region.
The recent launch of new video streaming services throughout Africa has lead to increased traffic across networks with massive bandwidth demands for service providers who must find a cost effective way to scale their networks. Officials from Qwilt comment that “it won’t take long before streaming traffic in Africa accounts for 60 percent or more of a service provider’s downstream network traffic at peak—as we now see in Europe and the USA.”
Ericsson, TeliaSonera Go 5G
In partnership, Ericsson and TeliaSonera have decided to jointly develop and test selected 5G use-cases and services available in 2018 with Stockholm being the first city to receive the service. Officials from their team state that they are hopeful that by the end of 2021 there will be approximately 150 million subscriptions for this new 5G network. This partnership taps into both companies’ strength in innovation and technology, as they plan to develop 5G for both communication and Internet of Things (IoT) services to help support new business growth and opportunities. Sweden has long been a pioneer ICT-nation with Ericsson and TeliaSonera having launched the first 4G network in Sweden in 2009.
FireEye Acquires iSIGHT Partners
FireEye, a cyber-security firm, announced that they have acquired iSIGHT Partners, a cyber threat intelligence provider for global enterprises. FireEye hopes to create a more advanced and comprehensive private cyber threat intelligence operation, with customers benefiting from lower business risks through higher fidelity alerts, context to prioritize threats, and the strategic insights to help prepare for threats that might target their industry or region.
Together, these companies hope to lead the industry with intelligence-led security model that other companies don’t offer. In the growing world of cyber-security, we’re seeing more and more partnerships like this to help keep our industry leaders evolving, which is the best-case scenario we have to help combat new, adapting threats.
Proofpoint Detects the Largest Sustained Dridex Campaign on Record
On Friday, Proofpoint reported the largest sustained Dridex campaign on record, which clocked in at nearly 66 percent greater than the previous high. Attackers leveraged tens of thousands of different IP addresses, accounting for roughly 10 percent of all the inbound business email traffic Proofpoint monitors. Dridex attackers hide malicious macros in e-mail attachment, specifically word docs, to access systems. Proofpoint successfully halted the threats against their customers and continues to watch for new Dridex campaigns flooding the network.
Incapsula Chosen by Biomedical Science Publisher
Karger, a medical and scientific publishing company that publishes a substantial catalogue of scientific journal and supplemental materials electronically each year chose Imperva Incapsula to provide their website security. This follows Karger’s DDoS attack in June of last year, when the company experienced a major attack that shut down their services, crippling their site. Incapsula was able to stabilize and secure their website, immediately noticing a sharp drop in unwanted traffic.
Before choosing Incapsula, Karger couldn’t stop the user-agent attacks without affecting their customers’ ongoing needs to access critical information, but after hiring Incapsula for their web application firewall they quickly solved that issue. Karger also uses Incapsula CDN and Optimizer to help provide dynamic content to their subscribers.
CloudFlare Launches New Data Centers in Oslo and Minneapolis
With four thousand miles separating them, Oslo and Minneapolis mark the 75th and 76th data centers for CloudFlare, respectively. The Oslo data center joins their facilities in Stockholm and Copenhagen, catering to Norwegian Internet users, which accounts for nearly 95 percent of the country. The Minnesota data center will help to serve traffic to the Midwest Internet Cooperative Exchange (MICE), a grouping of data centers spanning the Midwest of America.
Since December of 2015, only a month ago, Cloudflare has announced new data centers in Hamburg, Germany, Sofia, Bulgaria, and Cairo, Egypt, all in addition to these two new centers announced this week. Cloudflare isn’t holding back when it comes to expansion, localizing the European Internet market, while still managing to expand their influence globally. They’re starting off 2016 strong, and it’ll be interesting to see how much more expansion they have in stock for the rest of the year.
Level 3 Expands Global Network in Brazil
Level 3 announced that they are increasing capacity on their fiber-optic network in Southern Brazil, from Porto Alegre to Curitiba, providing higher availability, lower latency and higher resiliency to the region. This will provide the region with Level 3’s enhanced network of data, security, video, voice and unified communications solutions to support emerging technology in South America. Customers will benefit from cost-effective, alternative options to route traffic and the ability to connect Brazil with business centers around the globe.