Alcatel-Lucent dismisses Nokia rumours as it launches NFV ecosystem

Michel Combes, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, on a visit to Israel, talks Nokia, The Shift Plan and why service providers are set to regain the initiative.

Michel Combes, CEO. Photo: Kobi Kantor.

The CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, Michel Combes, has brushed off rumours of a tie-up with Nokia, after reports surfaced last week that Nokia's board was considering the move as a strategy option.

"You will have to ask Nokia," said Combes. "I'm fully focussed on the Shift Plan, it is the right plan [for the company]; I don't want to be distracted by anything else."

Combes was speaking at the opening of Alcatel-Lucent's cloud R&D centre in Kfar Saba, Israel, where the company's internal start-up CloudBand is developing cloud technology for carriers.

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Coriant adds optical control to SDN framework

Coriant's CTO, Uwe Fischer, explains its Intelligent Optical Control and how the system will complement Transport SDN.

"You either master all that complexity at once, or you find the right entry point and provide value for each concrete challenge, and extend step-by-step from there" 

Uwe Fischer, CTO of Coriant

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OIF defines carrier requirements for SDN

The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) has achieved its first milestone in defining the carrier requirements for software-defined networking (SDN).

"The orchestration layer will coordinate the data centre and transport network activities and give ... easy access to new applications"

Hans-Martin Foisel, OIF

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Ciena and partners build SDN testbed for carriers

Ciena, working with partners, is building a network to enable the development of software-defined networking (SDN) applied to the wide area network (WAN). The motivation in creating the testbed network is to boost carrier confidence in SDN while aiding its development.

 "When you get very serious vice presidents in tier-one carriers saying, 'This [SDN] is the biggest change in my career', there is something to it."

Chris Janz, Ciena

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60-second interview with Michael Howard

Infonetics Research has interviewed global service providers regarding their plans for software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualisation (NFV). Gazettabyte asked Michael Howard, co-founder and principal analyst, carrier networks, about Infonetics' findings.

"Data centres are simple when compared to carrier networks"

Michael Howard, Infonetics Research

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Arista Networks embeds optics to boost 100 Gig port density

Arista Networks' latest 7500E switch is designed to improve the economics of building large-scale cloud networks.

The platform packs 30 Terabit-per-second (Tbps) of switching capacity in an 11 rack unit (RU) chassis, the same chassis as Arista's existing 7500 switch that, when launched in 2010, was described as capable of supporting several generations of switch design.   

"The CFP2 is becoming available such that by the end of this year there might be supply for board vendors to think about releasing them in 2014. That is too far off."

Martin Hull, Arista Networks

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Nuage Networks uses SDN to tackle data centre networking bottlenecks

Three planes of the network that host Nuage's .Virtualised Services Platform (VSP). Source: Nuage Networks

Alcatel-Lucent has set up Nuage Networks, a business venture addressing data centre networking bottlenecks. Nuage claims to have simplified network connectivity within and between data centres.

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