HP launches a pre-integrated means to make network functions virtualisation (NFV) easier-- the HP NFV System, a system the company says allows communications service providers (CSPs) to accelerate NFV deployments.

The NFV System is pre-integrated with Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade, an open source-based cloud platform supporting CSP reliability, scalability and performance requirements.

It consists of a Starter Kit (an all-in-one compute node kit), Compute Kit (server nodes running VNF workloads), Control Kit (Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade VIM and PIM software) and Storage Kit (provides additional capacity for storage intensive applications).

Freescale Semiconductor teams up with ODM Advantech to combine the performance of traditional switches with the flexibility and manageability of network virtualisation technology in a switch as a white-box appliance.

The platform is designed to handle software-defined networking (SDN) and network-functions virtualisation (NFV). It features a Freescale 24-core server-class QorIQ T4240 processor inside standard ASIC devices complete with Linux OS, OpenDaylight datapath API and VortiQa SDN software (supports OpenFlow v. 1.3 with Layer 4 extensions and Layer 2/3 forwarding).

Freescale also promises "exceptional" virtualised environment security via integrated firewalling, intrusion detection and IPSEC over VxLAN.

A group of server, storage, networking and software companies led by QLogic announce the 2550100 Alliance, an organisation dedicated to bringing solutions based on 25Gb, 50Gb and 100Gb ethernet technology to market.

The alliance consists of 13 companies, including DataCore, Finisar, HDS, Huawei, Lenovo, SuSE, QLogic (of course), X-IO and Zadara. Big industry names, such as Broadcom, Brocade and Cisco, are noticeable in their absence.

“25Gb, 50Gb and 100Gb represents multiple breakthroughs for the Ethernet industry," 25501000 says. "25Gb brings economy to high-performance networking, 100Gb puts Ethernet at parity with InfiniBand, while the underlying chips and protocol stack are designed to meet the needs of both hyperscale and enterprise customers."

Microsoft unites 14 datacentre vendors in the Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO), an alliance with plans to develop interconnect standards for optical communications used in server and switch motherboards.

The other alliance members are Cisco, Dell, Intel, Broadcom, Juniper, Arista Networks, Coriant, Finisar, Inphi, JDSU, Luxtera, Mellanox, Oclaro, RANOVUS, Source Photonics and TE Connectivity.

According to the press announcement COBO will “define electrical interfaces, management interfaces, thermal requirements and pin-outs…[for] optical modules that can be mounted or socketed on a network switch or adapter motherboard,” with an initial focus on 100 and 400G links.