• With the money from this round, NetBox Labs will be able to scale the creation of NetBox and NetBox Cloud, two open-source products.
• The platform has gained over 12,000 stars on GitHub, thousands of enterprise installations, and hundreds of technology integrations, proving to be a huge success.

NetBox Labs Inc., a network management and automation startup, aims to take off after closing a USD 20 million round of funding recently.

Raj Dutt, the CEO of Grafana Labs Inc., Mango Capital, IBM Corp., Two Sigma Ventures, the Founder Collective, and Entrée Capital all contributed to the Series A round, which Flybridge Capital organized.

The open-source NetBox platform, developed by NetBox Labs, is intended for infrastructure resource management and modern network automation. It provides feature-rich and API functionality for managing IP addresses, data center infrastructure, and other networking tasks. The more than seven-year-old project provides the building blocks for automated testing, monitor updates, drive device provisioning, and more while assisting businesses in reducing their reliance on jumbled spreadsheets.

The platform has gained over 12,000 stars on GitHub, thousands of enterprise installations, and hundreds of technology integrations, proving to be a huge success. Numerous users and businesses, including Dartmouth College and Chewy Inc., use it as a “network source of truth” to power automation.

NS1 Inc., a networking company that IBM recently acquired, was spun off into NetBox Labs, which recently debuted as a standalone business. Kris Beever, the past CEO of NS1, has taken over the same position at NetBox Labs, that he had co-founded with Jeremy Stretch, the chief maintainer. In order to reduce the administrative burden of hosting and managing NetBox instances, it has developed the NetBox Cloud platform, a managed version of NetBox. It also boasts additional compliance, dependability, and security features.

Stretch said, “NetBox has become a linchpin technology enabling organizations to accelerate their automation journeys and take back control of their networks.”

Beevers added, “NetBox is unequivocally the dominant network source of truth on the market today, and we are committed to making sure it’s the first choice for every networking professional on the planet, whether they are an open source or commercial user.”

It’s encouraging to see NetBox Labs attracting funding, according to Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc., as networking continues to be one of the areas with the highest business costs. “With layers and layers of networking technologies and infrastructure baked over each other, the cleanup is risky and offers little reward. New solutions that can reduce complexity, lower the cost of operations and reduce the operational management burden are key, and it’s no surprise that the innovation here is coming from startups.” He said.

With the money from this round, NetBox Labs will be able to scale the creation of NetBox and NetBox Cloud, two of its open-source products.

A company whose technology has such wide adoption even before it has raised Series A funding, according to David Aronoff, general partner of Flybridge Capital, presents a rare opportunity. He said, “NetBox Labs is such a company. We believe its role as a network source of truth is critical to the future of network automation and will fundamentally change the industry.”

• The new data center accelerator can process four times as many simultaneous 1080p video streams, totaling 32, while consuming less energy.
• The majority of the computational capacity of the Alveo MA35D is provided by two onboard chips that AMD refers to as VPUs.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. unveiled a new data center accelerator, the Alveo MA35D, enabling businesses such as streaming service providers to process video more efficiently.

The MA35D is the successor to a product formerly known as the Alveo U30. It can process four times as many as 1080p video streams simultaneously, totaling 32 while consuming less energy. According to internal AMD experiments, the MA35D has 66% lower “typical power consumption” than the Alveo U30.

Streaming services do not deliver video content to customers in original form but in a compressed file format. Video in compressed formats require less storage space. As a result, data may be transmitted over the network more bandwidth-efficiently, lowering expenses.

Encoding is the process of altering the file format of a video stream. AMD’s new MA35D accelerator was created exclusively for encoding. It can also decode, converting a video stream into its original file format.

A computing module that packs one or multiple chips into a chassis that is smaller than a standard server is known as an accelerator card. AMD claims that a standard one-rack-unit server can accommodate eight MA35D cards. A computer with eight MA35D accelerators can manage up to 256 video streams in parallel.

Much of the processing power of the Alveo MA35D is provided by two onboard chips that AMD refers to as VPUs. A five-nanometer process was used to manufacture these application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). An ASIC is a custom-built chip designed to handle a particular workload.

Optimizing a processor for a particular workload increases its performance. Engineers can construct a chip with many multiplication-optimized circuits if an application performs multiplications frequently. These chips are known to be more efficient than a general-purpose processor with fewer specialized circuits.

ASICs, such as the VPUs that enable AMD’s new accelerator, are purpose-built for a specific workload. They can be more closely matched to an application’s requirements than FPGAs, another type of chip commonly used for such tasks. The AMD MA35D accelerator is entirely ASIC-based, whereas its predecessor, the Alveo U30, also contained inferior FPGA components.

Dan Gibbons, General Manager of AMD’s AECG Data Center Group said, “We worked closely with our customers and partners to understand not just their technical requirements but their infrastructure challenges in deploying high-volume, interactive streaming services profitably. We developed the Alveo MA35D with an ASIC architecture tailored to meet the bespoke needs of these providers to reduce both capital and operating expenses.”

In addition to its two ASIC-powered VPUs, the MA35D includes additional compute modules. There is also an artificial intelligence engine capable of 22 trillion operations per second. According to AMD, the engine executes AI models that automatically enhance video stream quality and compress them to conserve bandwidth.

The chip manufacturer is presently providing MA35D samples to early customers. In the third quarter, AMD company intends to commence high-volume shipments.

• Users can connect through a VPN to encrypt network traffic between them and their internet service provider to protect their privacy.
• Tracking is still possible through cookies, scripts, and something called “fingerprinting,” so using a VPN or Tor is not sufficient to stop all surveillance.

The nonprofit Tor Project Inc., which created the anonymity-preserving Tor Browser, joined forces with business virtual private network provider Mullvad VPN AB to introduce the private Mullvad Browser.

According to a recent announcement, the Tor team created a new browser based on the Tor browser to reduce user tracking and fingerprint right out of the box.

Users can connect through a VPN to encrypt network traffic between them and their internet service provider to protect their privacy. The fact that services only see the VPN’s exit address enables them to conceal their IP address from those services when they connect.

The Tor Project also created the Tor Network, which uses relays to encrypt internet traffic as an additional choice. Users can join the network using the Tor Browser, which routes their traffic through several servers before it exits, hiding their origin from prying eyes.

Tracking is still possible through cookies, scripts, and something called “fingerprinting,” so using a VPN or Tor is insufficient to stop all surveillance. The device the user’s browser is running on, the window’s shape, and the installed fonts can all be used to create a user’s fingerprint.

Mullvad VPN Chief Executive Jan Jonsson said, “The mass surveillance of today is absurd — both from commercial actors like big tech companies and from governments. We want to free the internet from mass surveillance, and a VPN alone is not enough to achieve privacy.”

Because some users might want to obtain the best privacy experience possible without connecting through the Tor Network and using a VPN in its place, Mullvad looked to Tor to create a privacy-focused browser. As a result, the Mullvad Browser can be compared to the Tor Browser in that it offers privacy protections without using Tor.

Jonsson said, “From our perspective, there has been a gap in the market for those who want to run a privacy-focused browser as good as the Tor Project’s but with a VPN instead of the Tor Network.”

Mullvad’s service and any VPN can be used with the browser. However, a reliable VPN service is strongly advised if a user wants to achieve the highest level of privacy.

The Tor team helped Mullvad create a browser with the best anti-fingerprinting suppression possible by including fingerprints that make all its browsers resemble one another. The group refers to it as a “hide-in-the-crowd” strategy. In essence, the browser works to make every user’s configurations and data that could be exposed to scripts and other monitoring tools appear as generic as possible, making it challenging to identify individual users.

The Mullvad browser also comes pre-configured with a private mode, blocks all third-party tracking cookies, and makes it simple to delete cookies when browsing websites. Additionally, the browser respects its users’ privacy by not collecting any information.

Isabela Fernandes, Executive Director of the Tor Project, “Developing this browser with Mullvad is about providing people with more privacy options for everyday browsing and to challenge the current business model of exploiting people’s behavioral data. It demonstrates that you can develop free technology with mass-appeal and privacy in mind.”

Other browsers prioritize privacy, such as the Brave browser, which advertised at launch that it had built-in ad blocking and other cutting-edge privacy protection features. Additionally, it blocks cross-site cookies and trackers and makes fingerprinting challenging.

Users are more concerned with their privacy than ever because almost every website tracks visitors, and advertisements are getting more invasive and invasive. Internet users frequently download more privacy plugins and extensions, which raises the possibility that they may unintentionally expose themselves to security risks.

Users have privacy turned on by default with the new Mullvad browser because it is a crucial feature. It is open source, cost-free, and compatible with many operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Now it can be downloaded from Mullvad’s website.

Fernandes stated, “When we collaborate, we want to drive change and raise people’s awareness that digital rights are human rights. We hope to inspire others to consider privacy a ‘feature’ at the core of tech innovation, a building block designed to enhance user experience.”

• Samsung and VMware are working together to make the evolution of 5G Open RAN networks enabled by a cloud-native architecture and simpler for CSPs.
• The VMware Telco Cloud Platform is also being improved to provide carrier-grade intelligent networking and lateral security features like intrusion detection, prevention, and distributed firewalls.

VMware Inc. recently started expanding its line of products for communication service providers and opened a service management and orchestration framework that obeys the O-RAN Alliance’s guidelines for automating and simplifying radio access networks with their applications.

A radio access network (RAN) is a cellular network’s radio element that joins wireless devices to transceivers and, finally, to the core network that connects to the internet. RANs have usually been proprietary because of their speed and low latency requirement. The O-RAN alliance is championing an open standard that would grow the number of players in the RAN ecosystem.

RAN Goals

Sanjay Uppal, senior vice president and general manager of the service provider and edge business unit at VMware, said, “We think you will see that VMware is at the forefront of getting deployed in telcos both in the RAN as well as in the core. We are extending our leadership, bringing the enterprise data center learning and SD-WAN [software-defined wide-area network] learning together to become the de facto standard in the RAN.”

VMware also declares a technical preview that will empower communication service providers. They can run virtualized and disaggregated RAN functions directly with VMware Tanzu on a bare metal server without an installed operating system. Project Kauai is aimed at telecom providers that require flexibility in deploying edge devices.

Uppal added, “It will be the VMware cloud platform deployed so customers can choose whether they want a hypervisor or bare metal and have the same automation assurance they get from running VMware in the control plane. You can have a cloud-native containerized application running on bare metal.”

Carrier-grade Features for Telco Cloud

The VMware Telco Cloud Platform is also being enhanced to provide lateral security features like intrusion detection and amp; prevention, distributed firewall, carrier-grade intelligence networking, and support in improving the energy efficiency application scenarios for 4G and 5G core load balancing.

Data processing unit-based acceleration capabilities, declared last summer, help enable this. It assists in security and networking functions to be offloaded from an application host server onto dedicated DPUs. The result is accelerated networking and security performance for cloud-native network functions and virtual network functions, together with enhanced network observability and more host resources being made accessible to applications.

SD-WAN and 5G

VMware provides new and advanced remote device/worker connectivity and brilliant wireless capabilities to its SD-WAN. It secures access to service edge or SASE products for its enterprise users. It is also broadening collaboration with Intel Corp. aimed at furnishing new edge appliances depending on 5G connectivity that help SD-WAN use cases involving the “internet of things” and mobile devices.

Utilizing a virtual overlay network on top of the underlying transport, VMware SD-WAN boosts application reliability by replying to wireless or wired network issues in milliseconds, according to the company. SASE and SD-WAN services support a vast range of transport, consisting of satellite transport, LTE/3G, and wired transport options like broadband and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS).

The company said its SD-WAN could deliver a more than 40% improvement in customer experience quality for video and voice applications while using LTE and satellite. The platform also empowers higher network utilization through adaptive thresholds drafted from experience gleaned from the more than 100,000 satellites and cellular connections that have been in use recently by VMware customers.

These advancements are a precursor to incorporating VMware’s SASE platform and SD-WAN with carriers’ management plane application programming interfaces and AIOps practices. The goal is to leverage 5G for modern service customizations using RAN intelligent controller and network slicing integration. Sequentially, service providers can finely address the enterprise WAN market. VMware asks selected partners and customers to analyze the VMware SD-WAN Client across the edge device and remote user use cases.

Linked Up with Samsung, Intel

The partnership with Intel is focused on assisting enterprises in moving more confidently towards wireless networks as a replacement or augmentation for current wired connections while also allowing for additional use cases of SD-WAN that include automated teller machines, IoT devices, and vehicles. The first in a row of new devices will be a unit for small branches that utilizes low-power Intel Atom C-series processors.

At last, VMware said it is widening its collaboration with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. for integrating Samsung’s Open RAN-compliant virtualized RAN products with the VMware Telco Cloud Platform as part of a 5G network buildout by Dish Network Inc.

The topology is not only tested but also fully interoperable. It can assist CSPs to streamline and accelerate Open RAN deployments at a larger scale while lowering network costs, according to VMware. The company is also making business collaborations with Samsung on the VMware Telco Cloud Platform to support for 5G Core. It is also accountable for crucial functions within a mobile network, like network slicing selection, session management, user plane, and access and mobility.

• Intel Corporation announced two lines of processors meant to power workstations, which are high-end Windows computers used for simulations and data research software.
• The W9-3495X is the fastest processor introduced by Intel recently. It contains up to 56 cores with a maximum clock speed of 4.8 gigahertz.

Recently, Intel Corporation announced two lines of processors meant to power workstations. These are high-end Windows computers used for simulations and data research software.

The Xeon W-2400 series is the first processor series from the recent launch. It consists of eight chips intended to power ordinary workstations. Intel is also releasing the more powerful Xeon W-3400 series, composed of seven chips designed for high-end workstations.

Roger Chandler, vice president and general manager of creator and workstation solutions at Intel, said, “Our new Intel Xeon desktop workstation platform is uniquely designed to unleash the innovation and creativity of professional creators, artists, engineers, designers, data scientists, and power users – built to tackle both today’s most demanding workloads as well as the professional workloads of the future.”

The W9-3495X is the fastest processor introduced by Intel. It contains up to 56 cores with a maximum clock speed of 4.8 gigahertz. Compared to Intel’s previous workstation silicon, the W9-3495X performs single-thread workloads up to 28% faster and multithread apps 120% faster.

The W9-3495X consists of four chiplets or computation modules with several cores apiece. Using a method called EMIB, Intel makes the chiplets independently and then combine them into a single CPU. EMIB helps Intel to manufacture CPUs at a lower cost than competing technology on the market.

The chiplets in a central processing unit must be able to share data to perform computations. Typically, manufacturers meet this need by mounting chips on an interposer, a rectangular piece of silicon. It comprises wires via which data may be exchanged between the various modules of a CPU.

Interposers allow rapid data transmission rates, which enhances the performance of processors. However, they may be difficult and expensive to produce. Intel’s new W9-3495X flagship workstation processor incorporates EMIB technology to alleviate this restriction.

EMIB features a small interposer that is easier to fabricate than conventional versions of the technology. According to Intel, the consequence is decreased production complexity and expense.

The four chiplets that make up the Intel W9-3495X chip are positioned atop an EMIB-powered base layer. The base layer incorporates a tiny interposer that enables data transfer between chiplets. It comprises the cables that deliver power from the motherboard to the CPU.

Intel’s EMIB technology, which was purportedly unavailable in the company’s older workstation CPUs, is only one factor in the W9- 3495X’s performance. Intel has also made a variety of other enhancements to the chip.

The W9-3495X has a 105-megabyte L3 cache that stores data near the chip’s logic circuitry, reducing data travel times. The outcome is a performance improvement. The chip also has Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which directs demanding programs to the processor’s fastest cores.

Several of the other processors introduced by Intel recently also include EBIM technology. Others support overclocking, which boosts a processor’s frequency over its default maximum speed. Additionally, some of the chips may overclock the RAM of the machine in which they are placed, enhancing performance even further.

The seven processors of the W-3400 series, the faster of the two processor lineups for workstations introduced by Intel recently, include between 12 and 56 cores. In contrast, the W-2400 series consists of eight chips with six to 24 cores.

Many workstations have graphics and central processing units to accelerate rendering and machine-learning applications. Intel chips are typically paired with Nvidia Corporation GPUs. Nvidia recently stated that several computer manufacturers want to introduce workstations that use Intel’s newly announced CPUs with its RTX 6000 graphics card.

The RTX 6000 contains 18,176 CUDA cores, which function similarly to CPU processing cores. The chip also has circuits tuned for running ray tracing rendering algorithms. Tensor Cores, a third class of specialized circuits, can accelerate artificial intelligence applications.

Nvidia asserts that specific workstations can integrate the RTX 6000 with its ConnectX-6 Dx SmartNIC chip. The chip is utilized for networking functions, including data transfer between computers. According to the corporation, workstation users could download and exchange complicated datasets faster.

• Extreme Networks Inc. recently added network fabric features to its ExtremeCloud SD-WAN, allowing users to securely extend the network fabric across data centers, campus networks, and branch sites.
• The integration of Extreme’s Fabric Connect with SD-WAN simplifies the detection and configuration of fabric-enabled switches and wireless access points.

Extreme Networks Inc. recently announced that it has integrated network fabric capabilities into its ExtremeCloud SD-WAN or software-defined wide-area network, allowing customers to securely extend the network fabric across the end-to-end network, which includes data centers, campus networks, and branch locations.

Extreme obtained its fabric as a data center solution by acquiring Avaya’s networking company. The corporation then expanded it to the campus and wide area networks (WAN).

The fabric is built on industry-standard shortest-path bridging and eliminates the requirement for protocols such as PIM, BPG, MPLS, 802.1, and VLANs. If communication between two points has to be established, it may be done using a simple graphical user interface, in this instance ExtremeCloud IQ. The technology functions as a genuine overlay “fabric” in which every point is securely linked to every other point.

In storage networking, where downtime is undesirable, and performance must be assured, the notion of the fabric has been adopted, whereas data networks have historically relied on “best effort” capabilities. Given the network’s significance today, a fabric’s features are now crucial to the operations of a corporation.

With this release, customers can now extend network fabric natively to branch locations while enjoying all the application performance advantages of an SD-WAN. The enhanced solution features automated workflows with a streamlined user interface and experience and direct connectivity to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud platforms. Extreme users can manage and provide everything in a single location, which is one of the company’s primary features.

Dan DeBacker, senior vice president of products at Extreme, said, “The idea is to bring one network to life through fabric. We initially extended fabric to the wiring closet, and now we’re extending fabric from the campus to the branch. We’re not doing a fabric attach or tunneling or going through a VPN. The fabric connects users to applications, so whether that user is on the campus or in the branch, it’s the same fabric connecting the same application all the way across.”

This is essential for user experience, as application performance depends on network connectivity from the user’s device to the cloud. Historically, network operations teams have controlled each network subdomain separately, including the WAN, campus, and data center. This made it logical from an organizational standpoint but made network troubleshooting difficult. With an end-to-end fabric, network-wide administration, visibility, and security are achieved, as opposed to for specific domains.

ExtremeCloud SD-WAN utilizes technology bought in 2022 from Ipanema. The system includes appliances, an operating and orchestration platform, maintenance and support, and security. ExtremeCloud IQ, which employs artificial intelligence for information technology operations across wired, wireless, and SD-WAN networks, manages it centrally.

The integration of Extreme’s Fabric Connect with SD-WAN simplifies the detection and configuration of fabric-enabled switches and wireless access points. Extreme deploys fabric Connect through an SD-WAN to branch sites with fabric-enabled switches that connect to the data center and campus. Because the same fabric is utilized throughout, clients may expand the connection to additional sites without compromising security or application performance.

Dan DeBacker said, “We’ve also enhanced zero-touch fabric provisioning, so there’s nothing for customers to plug in. We want to continue evolving the fabric everywhere concept with one network, so that customers will be able to easily provision their SD-WAN infrastructure and get all the benefits.”

According to DeBacker, although the target market is Extreme’s current client base, many businesses require this connectivity, such as a K-12 school that wants to onboard all of its switches or a healthcare provider that wishes to set up many remote clinics. Using the fabric capabilities, both businesses may control their networks as one. This should help Extreme attract new clients to its WAN solution, something it has not achieved thus far.

This year, Extreme is also planning to expand its native Wi-Fi 7 support to the network fabric. Wi-Fi 7 will enable new enterprise-grade services, such as multilink operation, where numerous Wi-Fi connections may be used to reduce latency, enhance reliability, and boost throughput, according to the manufacturer. Wi-Fi 7 devices will also utilize the 6-gigahertz band spectrum to create a seven-lane motorway for Wi-Fi consumers.

In the past six months, several suppliers in the IT industry have laid off double-digit percentages of their workforce. Networking has been one of the few bright spots throughout this period. The enterprise businesses of Extreme, Arista Networks Inc., Juniper Networks Inc., and Cisco Systems Inc. have all experienced robust growth.

According to discussions with IT professionals, businesses had now realized the value the network can provide to digital projects, necessitating investment in network modernization. Extreme’s portfolio lacked the WAN until 2022, when it was added to its offerings. The length of the fabric offers a compelling tale from beginning to end for the firm.

• Intelligent bare-metal automation software company MetalSoft Cloud Inc. is now on the radar of corporations after announcing a $16 million Series A fundraising round headed by DNS Capital.
• The broad features of MetalSoft’s software include automatic server management for the deployment and configuration of operating system software, Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), and redundant array of cheap disc (RAID) systems, as well as firmware upgrade management.

Intelligent bare-metal automation software company MetalSoft Cloud Inc. is now on the radar of corporations after announcing a $16 million Series A fundraising round headed by DNS Capital.

In 2023, MetalSoft, a four-year-old firm, aims to capitalize on the current reverse cloud trend, which has seen some organizations reassess their public cloud plans and relocate some types of workloads back to their own IT infrastructure.

Intelligent bare metal server automation software developed by the business is used to manage internal data centres and multivendor hardware. The programme may be deployed to a single rack of servers and expanded to encompass numerous global data centre sites.

Similar to how the public cloud operates, it makes all of a company’s server resources available for consumption on-demand by different users and applications. MetalSoft asserts that it can effectively “cloudify” on-premises data centres.

This enables companies to automate the management of their on-premises data centre resources while enabling users to build, deploy and run their own bare-metal infrastructure via a straightforward user interface or application programming interface.

The wide features of MetalSoft’s software include automatic server management for the deployment and configuration of operating system software, Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), and redundant array of cheap disc (RAID) systems, as well as firmware upgrade management.

MetalSoft automates network administration in additional areas, such as network topology tracking, the tuning of operating system internet protocols, and the establishment of virtual local area networks. The setting of storage volumes, allocation of IP addresses to storage pools, storage-related operating system network configuration, and snapshots are all components of the software’s automatic storage management.

Lucas Roh, MetalSoft Founder and Chief Executive said, “Our capability to fully automate hardware, including switches, servers, and storage across multiple vendors and data centers and then ‘cloudify’ them is unparalleled. DNS Capital shares our vision that every company can utilize our software platform to become more efficient while delivering cloud capabilities to their end users.”

According to the business, MetalSoft gives users a single design that specifies their whole global IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, and networking, therefore simplifying and expanding their flexibility.

According to MetalSoft, the primary benefit of utilizing its software is the ability for businesses to move workloads back from the public cloud and run them on customised infrastructure in-house, where they can operate much more effectively. MetalSoft asserts that their software has found a receptive audience, with many undisclosed Fortune 500 organisations adopting it to run their on-premises data centres.

Antin Infrastructure Partners and OpticalTel announced jointly that Antin has acquired a majority stake in OpticalTel, Florida’s premier fiber broadband provider!

Antin Infrastructure Partners and OpticalTel announced that Antin has acquired a majority stake in OpticalTel, Florida’s premier fiber broadband provider. This is Antin’s sixth investment via its mid-cap fund.

OpticalTel, founded in 2004 by Mario Bustamante, is a rapidly expanding provider of essential high-speed internet and telecommunication services, focusing on residential bulk contracts with homeowners and condo-owners associations. Antin’s investment will support the next phase of OpticalTel’s growth as the company strengthens its customer relationships in existing markets, expands its geographic footprint throughout the region and continues to provide exceptional customer service.

Mr. Bustamante will retain a stake in OpticalTel and continue to serve on the Board of Directors. The company will continue to be led by Luis Rodriguez, CEO and President, with the assistance of its seasoned management team. Antin, a seasoned fiber investor, will utilize its knowledge to support OpticalTel’s business plan.

Lazard and RBC Capital Markets advised OpticalTel on financial matters, while Latham and amp; Watkins advised on legal issues. Antin’s financial advisor was TD Securities, while Greenberg Traurig was the legal advisor. Citizens (administrative agent), CIT (a branch of First Citizens Bank) and TD Securities arranged debt financing.

The Expert’s Take

Kevin Genieser, the Senior Partner at Antin, stated, “We see this partnership with the OpticalTel team as an immense growth opportunity. Fiber is at the core of modern infrastructure, providing mission-critical, low-latency bandwidth services to a customer base that has increasing demand for data. We believe OpticalTel is well-positioned to meet this need in the fast-growing Florida market.”

Luis Rodriguez, CEO and President of OpticalTel, commented, “We are thrilled to be partnering with Antin as we enter the next chapter of OpticalTel’s journey. The strength of our relationships in the region speaks to our ability to deliver best-in-class technology and connectivity to our customers. With Antin’s support, we are excited to scale and continue executing at the highest level for those we serve.”

Mario Bustamante, Founder of OpticalTel, said, “Since founding OpticalTel 18 years ago, I have sought to provide essential connectivity services to those in my community. I am grateful to all those that helped build OpticalTel over the years and for Antin’s commitment to support the team going forward.”

• Nvidia Corporation is expanding its product line with new software capabilities and a high-performance computing platform that scientists can use to expedite their research.
• During SC22, Nvidia will also detail its collaboration with Lockheed Martin Corporation to develop a system for visualizing geophysics data such as sea temperature measurements.

Nvidia Corporation is adding new software features and a high-performance computing platform that scientists can use to speed up their research.

The updates were scheduled to debut at the Supercomputing 2022 event. During SC22, Nvidia will also detail its collaboration with Lockheed Martin Corporation to develop a system for displaying geophysical information, such as readings of sea temperature measurements.

Digital twin collaboration

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States has chosen Nvidia and Lockheed Martin to construct a new computing system known as the Earth Observation Digital Twin or EODT. The system will be able to process multiple types of geophysical data, including sea temperature measurements and solar wind data. Climate and weather visualizations will be created using these data to support research initiatives.

EOTD will operate on cloud instances from Amazon Web Services Inc. equipped with graphics processing units. In addition, it will perform some computing tasks using systems from the DGX and OVX data center appliance product lines by Nvidia. The appliances include GPUs optimized for artificial intelligence applications and other workloads.

According to Nvidia, the system’s software architecture consists of multiple components.

The OpenRosetta3D application from Lockheed Martin will collect the geophysics data that EOTD will process. Once collected, the data will be processed into the Omniverse Nucleus database. Another system component is Lockheed Martin’s Agatha software tool, which makes it easier for researchers to interact with geophysics data gathered from multiple sources.

The first demonstration of EOTD’s capabilities is scheduled for September next year. According to Nvidia, the initial prototype of the system will be created to display data regarding the sea surface temperature.

New edge platform 

Nvidia also intends to unveil several new product enhancements during SC22. The first feature is a platform that will facilitate the transfer of scientific data across geographically distant computers and other systems.

There are several circumstances in which researchers must be able to transmit data over extensive distances. For instance, a university may desire to share measurements from research equipment in one facility with a supercomputer hosted on another facility. Similarly, researchers may want to communicate simulation findings with many supercomputers operating in separate locations.

Senior Product Manager Geetika Gupta stated, “To overcome this problem, Nvidia has introduced a high-performance computing platform that combines edge computing and AI to capture and consolidate streaming data from scientific edge instruments and then allow devices to talk to each other over long distances.”

The platform is based on three Nvidia chip technologies: MetroX-3, Holoscan, and BlueField-3.

MetroX-3 is a soon-to-be-introduced technology that can significantly expand the reach of a data center network. With this technology, a data center can connect to IT infrastructure over 25 miles away. Researchers can transfer scientific data between servers located in different facilities using MetroX-3 network links.

The new platform from Nvidia also includes Holoscan and BlueField-3 chips. Researchers may utilize Holoscan to process data from medical devices. BlueField-3 chips from Nvidia are specialized processors optimized for network traffic coordination between servers.

Software upgrades

Omniverse is a software development platform offered by Nvidia to create digital twins and simulations. Recently at SC22, Nvidia was scheduled to unveil an update to Omniverse that makes it easier for scientists to use the platform for research projects.

Omniverse can now execute batch workloads on systems powered by Nvidia’s H100 and A100 graphics cards in data centers. Batch workloads are applications, such as physics simulators, that do not require user input to perform calculations.

As part of the update, Nvidia is also integrating popular scientific applications into Omniverse. The applications include the scientific data visualization tools ParaView, IndeX, and NeuralVDB. Modulus, a software tool for building neural networks that automatically perform physics calculations, is now compatible with Omniverse.

One of the areas in which the company’s GPUs are used to support research initiatives is quantum computing. To facilitate the work of scientists, Nvidia is releasing two new features dedicated to quantum computing.

The first functionality is being rolled out for the CUDA Toolkit of the firm. This is a collection of software components for developing apps compatible with Nvidia graphics cards. The purpose of the new functionality is to enhance the performance of scientific apps that do quantum mechanical computations.

Nvidia is concurrently improving its cuQuantum framework. Researchers utilize the architecture to mimic quantum computers on conventional computing gear. cuQuantum now enables the simulation of quantum computers with up to tens of thousands of qubits due to the upgrade introduced.

• Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s 4th Generation EPYC Genoa central processor units will power a refreshed portfolio of PowerEdge servers from Dell Technologies Inc.
• The new servers are anticipated to pack a punch since AMD’s most recent processors are built on an innovative five-nanometer technology that increases both density and power efficiency.

Dell Technologies Inc. has revealed a refreshed portfolio of PowerEdge servers powered by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s 4th Generation EPYC Genoa central processing units.

The most recent generation of AMD’s EPYC chips was revealed today, and Dell lost no time demonstrating how it plans to incorporate the new silicon into its flagship server lineup.

According to Dell, the updated PowerEdge server lineup is meant to fuel compute-intensive tasks such as data analytics more effectively. The servers use their own Smart Cooling technology to cut carbon dioxide emissions, while its cyber-resilient architecture contributes to increasing security.

Moreover, the new servers are anticipated to pack a punch since AMD’s most recent processors are built on an innovative five-nanometer process that increases both density and power efficiency. Additionally, the new Genoa EPYC server CPUs are the first to support PCIe 5.0 connectivity, Compute Express Link 1.1 standards, and DDR5 memory.

Dell’s redesigned PowerEdge server portfolio is offered in one- and two-socket configurations and supports up to 50% more processor cores than last year’s versions. The business also claims the highest-ever performance for PowerEdge systems powered by AMD, with 33% more front drives for 2U servers, 121% boost over the previous generation, and 60% more front-drive count for 1U servers.

The flagship Dell PowerEdge R7625 is the leading solution of the lineup, which significantly increases application performance and data storage. Designed to act as the data center’s backbone, this two-socket, 2U platform has been demonstrated to boost in-memory database performance by 72%, outperforming other similarly configured servers. Dell stated that it will be available in limited configurations later this month, with total worldwide availability expected for February 2023.

Customers may also choose the PowerEdge R7615, a 2U, a one-socket variant with increased memory bandwidth, an enhanced hard drive, and reduced latency. According to Dell, it can concurrently accomplish many tasks with a smaller footprint than equivalent servers from past generations.

The range is completed by the two-socket, 1U PowerEdge R6625, and the one-socket, 1U R6615 systems, which are stated to offer an optimal blend of performance, flexibility, and density. Dell noted that all three models would be commercially available in February.

Rajesh Pohani, vice president of portfolio and product management for PowerEdge, HPC, and Core Compute at Dell Technologies, said, “Customers demand uncompromising compute performance delivered in the most sustainable manner possible. Our latest PowerEdge servers are purpose-built to meet the needs of today’s demanding workloads with efficiency and resiliency.”

Regarding sustainability, the new servers have design advancements with Smart Cooling technology that permits increased circulation through the systems, allowing them to stay cooler for extended periods. Dell stated that this would decrease the amount of heat generated and energy consumed by the customer’s data center operations. Compared to the previous generation of PowerEdge servers, it claims a 55% improvement in CPU performance efficiency.

In addition, the new PowerEdge systems are manufactured from recycled plastic and can be sent in large quantities through Dell’s multipack option, lowering their total environmental effect.

Dell emphasized that the new systems are supported by a “cyber resilient architecture” that includes system lockdown, drift detection, multifactor authentication, and support for confidential computing, in which data is encrypted as it is processed. This contributes to a more secure and robust operation with “data center safety at its core.”

Analyst Kuba Stolarski of International Data Corp. praised the new PowerEdge systems, citing the importance of continuous innovation in corporate server performance.

Stolarski said, “With advanced security features designed directly into the platform, Dell’s new PowerEdge servers can help organizations keep pace with data proliferation in a growing threat environment. The improvements in performance can enable customers to implement AI, HPC, and other modern workloads to extract the most value from their data and IT investment.”