Ericsson and Telstra achieve container-based commercial Evolved Packet Core milestone

Ericsson and Australian communications service provider Telstra have deployed the industry’s first live cloud-native container-based Evolved Packet Core for 4G and 5G services. The achievement is a significant milestone in network orchestration and automation.

The cloud-native container-based Evolved Packet Core has been deployed in Telstra’s production Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVi), provided by Ericsson. It is fully integrated into Telstra’s mobile core network and is carrying live 4G and 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) traffic.

Telstra’s cloud-native Evolved Packet Core includes Ericsson Packet Core Controller and Ericsson Packet Core Gateway products. They support 4G and 5G Non-standalone (NSA) control and user plane functions in both a centralized configuration and edge-breakout configurations.

As part of this deployment, Ericsson’s Packet Core Controller is deployed as a cloud-native container-based Mobility Management Entity (MME) in an existing MME pool.

Both the Ericsson Packet Core Controller and Packet Core gateway are designed from the ground up to be fully cloud-native container-based solutions. They run on Ericsson’s Cloud Container Distribution (CCD) that is part of Ericsson’s NFVI solution or on other Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) aligned distributions.

Ericsson CCD provides container management and orchestration for the latest Ericsson cloud native applications. CCD can be run on bare metal or within a Virtual Machine in an OpenStack deployment.

Ericsson and Telstra have a long history of partnering in industry innovation. In May 2019 Telstra launched 5G commercial services using Ericsson solutions.  

This achievement is a key step in Telstra’s goal to build a web-scale core network and deliver the full power of 5G to consumers and enterprise customers. The containerization of core network functions will move communication service providers such as Telstra towards greater orchestration and automation of their networks. This in turn will help them to create and deliver new services such as enhanced mobile broadband, network slicing, mobile edge computing, mission critical vertical industry support and advanced enterprise services.

Containerized technologies are also designed to improve network resilience and software upgrade techniques to increase overall network availability for Telstra’s customers and services.

“Telstra and Ericsson are leading the mobile industry with this first container-based cloud-native Evolved Packet Core in Telstra’s production environment and carrying live traffic. This is an important step towards fundamentally changing the way both companies deploy and operate mobile core networks,” said Emilio Romeo, head of Ericsson Australia and New Zealand. “Core networks will become much more flexible and agile, allowing operators such as Telstra to quickly create and deploy compelling new services for their customers. This in turn helps operators build new revenues.”

“Through the T22 initiative, Telstra’s business is being transformed to improve service delivery and provide customers with enhanced experiences. To achieve this transformation, Telstra’s network needs to become more flexible and efficient, and cloud-native container-based applications such as Ericsson’s containerized Evolved Packet Core are a key element of this,” said Shailin Sehgal, product enablement technology executive, Telstra. “This is key to cost effectively scaling and automating our network and speeding up the delivery of innovative new services that are essential in a 5G world. We are pleased to be working with Ericsson to deliver innovation into our network that will assist Telstra maintain its industry leadership.”

Agero supports nearly half of passenger vehicles on the road with Oracle SD-WAN

Agero is using Oracle enterprise communications technologies to safeguard drivers in more than 115 million vehicles in the U.S. When a driver is stranded roadside, time is of the essence. With Oracle, the company has achieved continuous contact center uptime, so customers can get the assistance they need and are back on the road as quickly as possible.

For 45 years, Agero has provided smart solutions for its clients and their drivers. Currently, Agero’s  roadside assistance, accident management and consumer affairs services are leveraged in the U.S. by drivers in two-thirds of new passenger vehicles, policyholders from nine of the top 15 auto insurance carriers and customers of a variety of other diversified clients. 

Oracle SD-WAN was created to solve the ongoing IT challenges network managers face every day—from expensive, sluggish, inflexible WANs to difficulties deploying new office WAN links and accessing cloud services. 

With Oracle SD-WAN, enterprises can benefit from internet economics, leverage high-bandwidth and inexpensive Internet connections, and safely migrate applications to the public cloud and SaaS at their own pace – without sacrificing the high availability and predictable application performance they expect from their MPLS-only WANs..

To maximize the quality of its customers’ experiences and to eliminate communication failures or downtime, Agero needed predictable enterprise communications performance and real-time application support. Agero selected Oracle for the failsafe reliability, security and interoperability.

“When drivers are stranded on the road in the winter, creating not only an uncomfortable situation but also a health and safety issue, it is crucial for our customers to get directly in contact with an agent,” said Robert Sullivan, vice president, technology and shared services, Agero. “Oracle has the best of breed technology in the Oracle SD-WAN and Enterprise Session Border Controllers, which have helped us to deliver high availability, reliability and quality of experience for our customers.”

Since working with Oracle and Presidio to implement the Oracle SD-WAN solution, Agero has reduced downtime and created special routing situations for sites without substantial circuit diversity. This advanced, “always-on performance” is invaluable to Agero as the company processes more than 12 million roadside and emergency support requests per year.

“Agero is reinventing how driver assistance is delivered, while elevating the consumer experience in often dire scenarios,” said Andrew Morawski, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications - Networks. “As enterprises demand flexible WAN solutions supporting shifting business requirements, Oracle is increasing and leveraging bandwidth for affordable and trusted WAN connectivity, anywhere and whenever it’s needed.”

In addition to the Oracle SD-WAN, Agero deployed Oracle 1100 Enterprise Session Border Controller (E-SBC) Oracle 3900 E-SBC and the Oracle Communications Converged Application Server (OCCAS) to protect its network and contact center from external threats.

Lightbits Labs debuts initial NVMe/TCP clustered storage offering that helps protect against data loss and service interruption at scale

Lightbits Labs, provider of NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP) software-defined disaggregated storage, advanced  on Wednesday its software solution, LightOS, to deliver the first NVMe/TCP clustered storage solution.

With more companies moving away from direct attached storage (DAS), and with storage requirements typically growing far faster than compute requirements, both public-cloud providers and private-cloud builders are looking for ways to separate storage and compute so each can scale separately. 

One of the limiting factors to scaling disaggregated storage, however, is the need for high availability across clusters of storage and compute. Lightbits LightOS delivers the availability, flexibility and efficiency of hyperscale cloud infrastructure to on-premise data centers.

LightOS provides software-defined disaggregated storage for cloud data centers delivering similar performance as direct-attached NVMe SSDs and up to a 50 percent reduction in tail latency; independent scaling of storage and compute, driving better infrastructure utilization and efficiency and providing unparalleled flexibility; and standards-based NVMe/TCP block storage access protocol for application servers to storage servers communication

LightOS clusters leverage standard NVMe 1.4 multipathing and offers data replications on storage target side, which provides transparency to the client with quick failover. It also includes distributed and durable cluster management with fast failover handling; no single point of failure in data and control paths, and allows multiple LightOS clusters can exist in the same cloud data center and can be aggregated and managed as one large cloud-scale block storage solution.

LightOS is now the first NVMe/TCP storage solution that protects against data loss and avoids service interruptions at scale. In the presence of server, storage, or network failures, LightOS maximizes operational efficiency, ensuring applications continue working in the presence of failures, and failover is handled automatically, keeping data fully consistent and available.

The average cost of IT downtime is enormous. According to Gartner, the average loss is $5,600 per minute. This can add up to more than half a million dollars lost per hour at the higher end.

“At cloud scale, everything fails, so we built LightOS to capture all the benefits of disaggregated storage while providing exceptional durability and availability to prevent service disruption,” said Kam Eshghi, chief strategy officer at Lightbits Labs.

For cloud-native applications, access to available, performant and deployable infrastructure is key to business agility and application experience, at any scale - regardless of whether deployed as five nodes, five hundred nodes, or thousands of nodes.

Installed on commodity servers in large-scale data centers, LightOS is optimized for I/O intensive compute clusters, such as Cassandra, MySQL, MongoDB, and time series databases. With end-to-end NVMe, LightOS delivers high performance and consistently low latency. The result is a 10 times increase in storage reliability and 50 percent decrease in total cost of ownership (TCO). 

As a standard-based, target-only solution that does not require installing any proprietary software on the client side, the ease of deployment at scale is unmatched. LightOS is built to run in existing data center, requiring no changes to application servers or network infrastructure, so that deploying it at scale is a breeze.

As LightOS provides highly available, flexible, and efficient disaggregated storage, application teams can focus their efforts on developing new services to achieve their business goals, while lowering spend and delivering high performance.

Abside Networks debuts new private LTE user device powered by Sequans’ Cassiopeia LTE-advanced chip platform

Sequans Communications announced that Abside Networks has introduced its second end user device based on Sequans’ Cassiopeia LTE-advanced technology.  The Ravelin Gen3 uE is a Class 1 FR1 uE designed to operate in specialized, non-3GPP frequency LTE networks and Sequans modified its Cassiopeia technology to allow operation on non-standard frequencies. 

The rugged design of the Ravelin Gen3 uE combined with the customizations of Sequans have resulted in a high-performance solution that is now available to Abside’s private LTE customers. The Ravelin Gen3 uE is a highly integrated, multi-band product designed to replace the non-homogenous technologies currently used in defense, PMR, and private network ecosystems.

The Abside Networks’ Ravelin Gen3 uE is the second device to come to mass market via the Abside/Sequans collaboration. The Ravelin Gen3 a high power (+1Watt / +30 dBm) ruggedized IP54, extended temperature (70℃) uE operating across multiple non-3GPP bands in either FDD or TDD modes and supporting LTE standard bandwidths of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz. Ravelin Gen3 is also designed to counter interferences from challenging radio environments. 

In addition, Ravelin Gen3 is fully interoperable with Bastion, the Abside eNodeB infrastructure that also supports non-3GPP LTE frequency ranges of 1780 to 1850 MHz, 2200 to 2300 MHz, and 4400 to 5000 MHz for a combination of more than 760 MHz of total addressable spectrum across 16 LTE bands. 

The Ravelin Gen3 peak data rates are DL 150 Mbps with 2X2 MIMO, and UL 50 Mbps with 1X2 MIMO. The Ravelin Gen3 is 73mm x 34mm x 148mm and ~750 gr.

The Ravelin-G is based on Sequans’ Cassiopeia LTE Cat 6 Platform, a member of Sequans’ StreamrichLTE product family for high performance devices. The work with Abside is one of the development Sequans has undertaken as part of its Custom Technology Solutions initiative where Sequans experts have addressed some difficult communications challenges. 

In addition to private network LTE, Sequans has adapted its technology for projects in aviation, transportation, satellite, and government.

Nokia Bell Labs prize awarded to new processor technology, pioneered by student and professor team from University of California at Berkeley

Nokia announced this year’s Nokia Bell Labs Prize, the global competition to recognize game-changing innovations that attracted more than 250 applications from 31 countries around the world. The 2019 prize has been awarded to a student and Professor team from the University of California at Berkeley. 

PhD student Tianshi Wang and Prof. Jaijeet Roychowdhury received US$100,000 for winning the competition, and the opportunity to pursue an expanded collaboration with Nokia Bell Labs. 

The pair won the prize for their work on “A Classic Spin on Quantum Computing." Their innovation is in a new type of processor element that will be significantly more efficient in computing the answers to discrete optimization problems. Their innovation will complement conventional digital processors (CPUs and GPUs) by tackling a variety of computationally hard problems of importance in many diverse areas, including 5G communication systems; complex tasks in planning, scheduling and control; and even the discovery of new drugs.

“The Bell Labs Prize is a unique opportunity for innovators around the world to collaborate with Bell Labs researchers to expand the potential of their innovations,” said Marcus Weldon, Nokia Corporate CTO and president of Nokia Bell Labs. “The competition is highly competitive, reducing more than 250 applicants to 5 finalists, who must convince their Bell Labs mentors and the judging panel that their innovation has the potential to change the world. This year’s winners have certainly met that criteria, by pioneering a new processor technology that will allow a large set of complex optimization problems to be solved with unprecedented efficiency and at low cost. It is truly impressive work and we will be closely collaborating with the team to help them realize this potential.”

The 2019 Nokia Bell Labs Prize competition was launched in April. Proposals were reviewed by Nokia Bell Labs researchers and evaluated based on three criteria, including whether the idea has a "10X innovation potential" to change the world; the proposal's technical merit; and the overall feasibility of the proposed idea.

The proposals were narrowed down to a select group of outstanding candidates who were given the opportunity to partner with Nokia Bell Labs experts to help expand the impact of their proposals. Five finalists were invited to the final judging event held this week at Nokia Bell Labs headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey. 

The judging panel was comprised of Weldon, Nobel Laureate Robert Wilson, world-renowned computer scientist and Bell Labs alum Al Aho, as well as previous Nokia Bell Labs Prize winners Samory Kpotufe (2018) and Kaushik Sengupta (2017).

Second place and $50,000 went to Dr. Sheng Xu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Nanoengineering at University of California at San Diego for his submission, “There is plenty of room under the skin: A wearable’s perspective.” His team have developed an easy-to-use ultrasonic patch that can provide noninvasive, continuous and unobtrusive monitoring of deep tissues. This innovation will not only impact consumers, who will have access to data on their hearts, lungs, livers, and GI tracts, but also healthcare systems allowing non-invasive continuous patient monitoring and ultrasonic imaging.

Third place and $25,000 were presented to Maximilian Arnold, Sebastian Cammerer, Sebastian Dörner, Stephan ten Brink of Stuttgart University in Germany for their innovative work on “Leveraging 5G Infrastructure for a Robust Positioning System.” Their indoor positioning system uses existing wireless communications networks to determine location which will allow ubiquitous, low cost tracking of all things, with simpler calibration than existing systems, and therefore has the potential to become a foundational part of the next industrial revolution.

Ericsson Spectrum Sharing milestone links up continents, 5G live networks and 5G devices

The move toward commercial Ericsson Spectrum Sharing continues to gather pace with a 5G smartphone from Chinese manufacturer OPPO now added to its 5G ecosystem and successfully tested with a transglobal 5G data call in live commercial 5G networks. 

Ecosystem industry players Qualcomm Technologies, a subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc., Swisscom, and Telstra also played vital roles in the achievement, which underlined the value of dynamic spectrum sharing to the industry.

The November 29 data-call-first connected Bern, Switzerland and Gold Coast, Australia, with Ericsson Spectrum Sharing deployed in Swisscom and Telstra’s commercial 5G networks at the respective sites. The call was achieved using spectrum sharing on a 3GPP Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) band. 

Pre-commercial 5G smartphones from OPPO, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G Modem-RF System, were used on both ends of the call. OPPO is the first 5G device manufacturer to implement Ericsson Spectrum Sharing in its smartphones.  

The data call success validates the support for Ericsson Spectrum Sharing across its 5G ecosystem, from chipsets to 5G devices, and communication service providers’ network products and solutions. The strengthening of the ecosystem is also a step towards the commercial introduction of Ericsson Spectrum Sharing.

Ericsson Spectrum Sharing, part of Ericsson Radio System, is a complete dynamic spectrum sharing solution based on the 3GPP standard with additional intelligent scheduler algorithms. This allows the deployment of both 4G and 5G in the same band through a software upgrade, and dynamically allocates spectrum based on user demand. The switch between 4G and 5G carriers happens within milliseconds, minimizing spectrum wastage and enabling best user performance.

This Ericsson innovation will enable service providers to launch 5G services over a wide area and expand 5G coverage in a tailored way by re-using existing network infrastructure and taking advantage of previous spectrum investments. Communication service providers can therefore provide 5G commercial services and move towards standalone (SA) 5G without the need for blanket costly re-investment.

“This industry-first highlights the value that Ericsson Spectrum Sharing has to communication service providers as they roll-out and ramp-up 5G. With this milestone achieved with our 5G ecosystem partners OPPO, Qualcomm Technologies, and customers Swisscom and Telstra, we’ve shown that our unique solution will not only enable service providers to re-use their 4G spectrum assets for 5G but that it will also support all 5G devices,” said Fredrik Jejdling, executive vice president and head of networks, Ericsson. “It is the most economically feasible way to launch 5G on existing bands, enabling nationwide 5G coverage and helping make 5G accessible around the world.” 

“As a leading global tech company, OPPO proactively works to accelerate large-scale commercialization of 5G. Our cooperation with Ericsson, Qualcomm, Swisscom and Telstra to facilitate the commercial use of Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) technology is part of the in-depth collaborations among the five companies in the 5G era,” said Andy Wu, vice president and president of software engineering business unit, OPPO. “The 5G smartphones that support this technology will provide more stable, seamless, and speedy connections, and hence a better user experience in the future.”

“Coverage is the next 5G killer app and this is another significant milestone and steps towards ubiquitous 5G coverage,” said Enrico Salvatori, senior vice president and vice president, Qualcomm EMEA. “Dynamic spectrum sharing will bring key benefits to operators and consumers globally and our second-generation Snapdragon X55 5G Modem RF System is a comprehensive solution designed to allow OEMs to rapidly develop global 5G multimode devices for a new era of connected experiences.”

“This latest collaboration of industry partners is paving the way for the faster rollout of 5G by using existing spectrum holdings to serve the needs of 4G and 5G customers in the same location at the same time,” said Channa Seneviratne, Network and Engineering Infrastructure Executive, Telstra. “This collective implementation is yet another innovative example of how 5G technology continues to advance in a rapid fashion, and at Telstra we are pleased to bring that latest technology to Australians first.”

Ericsson has achieved multiple 5G landmarks with all the partners involved in the latest achievement.

Swisscom, with Ericsson as its sole 5G vendor, was the first communications service provider in Europe to launch commercial 5G services in April 2019 on the 3.6 GHz band. Swisscom is targeting 90 percent population coverage by the end of this year.

Telstra, with Ericsson as a key network partner, went live with 5G commercial services and four 5G devices in May 2019 on the 3.6 GHz band. Telstra now offers six 5G devices, and has some 5G sites in 25 metro and regional cities around Australia, with another 10 cities to be added by 30 June 2020.

Atos announces new Workplace as a Service offering for optimal employee experience with Google Cloud

Atos announces its new Workplace as a Service | Google Edition, part of its Atos Digital Workplace solutions, to provide enterprise customers with a way of enhancing the employee workplace experience, through greater choice for users and a boost to productivity. 

With Atos Digital Workspace, users combine skills, from advisory to consulting and design thinking through to business and vertical solutions, including applications to the digital workplace platform. It offers complete solution to customers, with its end-to-end workspace transformation, helping customers’ address their employees’ needs with no compromise on security.

As part of its partnership with Google Cloud, Atos is offering a unique integrated and secure package including the supply and support of Chromebooks with Atos’ Circuit software, as well as Google’s G Suite, supported with setup, migration and management services.

G Suite and Chromebooks, used together, provide an enhanced user experience, which is consistent across all devices and apps, enabling workforces to be more productive and engaged, while security and compliance are built-in and reinforced with a ‘zero trust’ security framework, which requires strict ID verification for every person and device trying to access resources, in order to prevent data breaches.

The offering is available in a subscription-based model, delivered by Atos, with self-service, automation and virtual agents embedded, so businesses can both optimize costs and at the same time transform the way people collaborate thereby increasing productivity.

G Suite is a set of apps such as Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, and Hangouts, which are designed with real-time collaboration and machine intelligence to bring people together and help them work smarter and safer.

Circuit, the Atos unified communications and collaboration cloud solution, provides easy-to-use, powerful team collaboration capabilities and can be used in combination with existing communication platforms and business apps, such as G Suite.

“At Atos, we’re proud to support our customers in providing a secure and innovative workplace environment in which people and businesses are engaged and effective,” said Eric Grall, senior executive vice president and head of global operations and infrastructure & data management at Atos. “Our new Workplace as a Service offering provides enterprise customers with greater choice and a complete package to deliver an optimal employee experience and enhanced productivity.” 

“The cloud can transform the way people collaborate and get work done,” said Kevin Ichhpurani, corporate vice president, global ecosystem at Google Cloud. “This new service from Atos provides customers with a streamlined path to adopt a cloud-native approach to collaboration and productivity with G Suite and Chromebooks. We are delighted to partner with Atos to bring these capabilities to customers.”