HP Acquires Aruba Wireless Infrastructure

[HP Logo, Courtesy Wikipedia.org]

Abstract: 
Hewlett-Packard Company, created in a garage by two electrical engineers in Palo Alto, California, started their company through the creation of superior test equipment. Through organic and acquisition means, HP had grown into consumer and enterprise markets, ranging from printers, to PC's, to mini-computers, networking equipment, and software. They are preparing to split into two different companies, one based upon consumer equipment and another based upon enterprise equipment. Prior the split, HP is filling gaps in their networking portfolio.

[Huawei-3Com Partnership Logo]

Road to Aruba:
On September 26, 2014, HP announced the launch of a Software Defined Networking Application Store.  acquisition of a Software Defined Network company. October 5, 2014 marks when HP announced the split between HP, Inc (for printers & desktops) and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (for networking, server, and software.) Just days later, October 26, 2014,  HP decided to find a buyer for H3C, the networking partnership between Chinese based Huawei and U.S. based 3Com which HP received when 3Com was acquired in 2010. Clearly, HP is committed to filling out their networking portfolio in the Enterprise company while culling some partnerships..

[Aruba Networks logo, courtesy Wikipedia]

Aruba Not Soon Enough:
March 2015, HP announces the acquisition of Aruba, wireless network provider, filling a gap in their Networking portfolio, prior their corporate split between Desktop/Printer and Enterprise. Hewlett-Packard's networking division was experiencing some pain, according to The Register.

The deal will form a welcome plug to HP's sliding network biz, which fell 10.8 per cent to $562m (£365m) in the company's first quarter results last week.

Aruba posted sales of $729m (£473m) for its full year results in 2014. In its second quarter numbers last week, revenue rose 21 per cent to $212.9m (£138m) and net profit came in at $5.6m versus a net loss of $10.7m in the same quarter a year earlier.

With larger quantities of networking moving from wired to wireless, the new growth area must be accounted for in Hewlett-Packard's portfolio. The Aruba Networking acquisition is expected to be complete in Hewlett-Packard's second quarter.

[HP Split Image, courtesy Anandtech]

Divide and Conquer:
This is not the first split, for HP - Agilent Technologies was created when the Test Equipment division was spun-off 1999. The split of Printers and PC's, to form HP, Inc., should complete in October 2015. The PC and Enterprise markets are very different, requiring significant management style differences... the former requiring very short innovation cycles while the later demands long-term viability of a product with significant investment with close attention to security. Aruba should make an excellent contribution to the portfolio.

Conclusions:
Hewlett-Packard Company was also famous for Network Management products, such as the formerly branded OpenView suite, which dominated the market during the 1990 as the Internet was aggressively expanding. HP's former OpenView suite consolidated into HP Software Division will find a very good home, in the new Hewlett-Packard Enterprise with Network Equipment vendors like Aruba. The combined 3Com, HP Networking, and Aruba portfolio will offer a reasonable platform for the Enterprise company, while the existing established Network and Systems Management suites will provide a software layer to unify the equipment for basic Fault, Performance, and Configuration Management in the Managed Services arena.

Wireless Network Carrier Updates: Clearwire, Sprint, DISH, and SoftBank

[Sprint storefront photo, courtesy Reuters]

SoftBank, Dish, Sprint, Clearwire

Abstract:In the area of network, there are 3 major modes of communication: satellite, tower, and wired infrastructure. The first two require finite shared resources referred to as spectrum. The final requires expensive infrastructure to be dug into the ground or strung along poles. In order for companies to compete effectively in a nation's network, infrstructure must be built or acquired. The process of acquiring or merging of assets with smaller network players is always going on, but this latest battle has been somewhat interesting.

[Disk logo, courtesy The Verge]

Background:
Clearwire, an early 4G U.S. network provider, is in talks to be acquired by two different domestic companies: Sprint (wireless provider) and Dish Networks (satellite provider.) Foreign SoftBank is interested in buying Sprint, at the same time, adding tremendous uncertainty to the mix.


[Charles W. Ergen, Dish Network’s chairman, courtesy NYTimes]

The Time Line: In October 2012, Japanese SoftBank tried to acquire the third largest U.S. network provider: Sprint. In December 2012, Sprint bought for itself a little Christmas present - Clearwire: a 4G network service provider. In January 2013, Dish made an unsolicited bid to purchase Clearwire, even though Sprint was in process of buying it. In March 2013, foreign SoftBank tries to aleviate security concerns in the U.S. by indicating Chinese equipment maker Huawei will be ejected from the network. In April 2013, domestic Dish offers to purchase Sprint to build a combined satellite and tower based wireless infrastructure. In May 2013, SoftBank agrees to U.S. government veto power over board of director appointments. Also in May 2013, Sprint increases their bid for Clearwire, to get their wireless spectrum.

[Sprint and Clearwire logos, courtesy Engaget]

What They Want & Need:
SoftBank owns about 1/3rd of Chinese electronic commerce company Alibabba, and wants a foothold in the U.S. market but has regulatory issues to overcome. (SoftBank uses primarily Chinese equipment.) Sprint needs to upgrade to 4G networking and find additional sources of revenue. Clear has wireless spectrum, but their gamble on early 4G WiMAX has not turned out to be the standard once hoped for, and needs to upgrade it's 4G network. Intel Corporation used to be a WiMAX advocate, Clearwire uses Huawei equipment. SoftBank uses the same cell phone wireless spectrum that Clearwire owns, making the purchase of Sprint (who is purchasing Clearwire) a very good investment - one phone, one infrastructure, multiple nations. Intel, a SoftBank partner, is pushing for SoftBank's acquisition of Sprint (and Clearwire) - possibly because of new promised equipment sales. Dish needs to expand it's market from Satellite television, provide content through wireless towers to cell phones, and add voice to their television service.

Ironies of Irony:
A foreign owned communication company wants to buy its way in the U.S. telecommunications market and pledges not to expel foreign equipment. A domestic owned communications company wants to expand it's U.S. telecommunications market but will not pledge to expel foreign equipment. Which is more secure, from a U.S. governmental perspective? Japanese SoftBank appears to be bending-over-backwards to make their acquisition happen.

Free 4G Wireless Internet

Free 4G Wireless Internet?

Abstract:
Wireless cellular or packet protocols are typically described by different categories, the higher the category the faster the performance. The categories are loosely defined by the International Telecommunications Union-Radio communications sector (ITU-R) and organized by Generation. The first vendor has appeared on the market to support free 4G.


Wireless History:

New wireless generations seem to be appearing regularly every 10 years since the 1980's, with the latest being 4G.
0G - Mobile Radio Telephone, appearing in 1946
1G - Analog, 22kb/s-56kb/s, appearing in 1981
2G - Digital, 56kb/s-236.8 kbit/s, appearing in 1992
3G - Multi-Media, 200kbp/s peak rate, appearing in 2001
4G - Packet based Internet Protocol, 1 gigabit peak rate, 2010-2011

It should be noted: there is a wide gap between 3G and 4G, as far as capacity is concerned. There are many intermediate steps, which vendors have branded 3.5G, 3.75G, or even as 4G (if the technology has on it's "roadmap" the ability to meet 4G specifications, as WiMAX has done.)


Internet Access:

The Internet was a term coined with access to the U.S. Military Department of Defense's TCP/IP network. Early on, this was done through cooperation between different U.S. government organizations as well as through the public and private university systems within the United States.

Regular public American citizenry started gaining access to The Internet in the 1990's via dial-up access, providing 300b/s-56kb/s. Various corporations managed to raise enough investment resources to provide this access. In the late 1990's, free dial-up internet services started to become available, through corporations like: NetZero and FreeServe. As users started to migrate from dial-up to broardband (see later), lawsuits started to be filed between major players in a shrinking market (like NetZero and Juno) resulting in consolidation and creation of United Online (NetZero and Juno created the second largest internet access provider.) Towards the end of popular dialup access the internet, major providers included: AOL, United Online, MSN, Earthlink, AT&T Worldnet.

Performance was enhanced in the 2000's via broadband or high-speed access, commonly via DSL, Satellite, and Cable. The telco market was regulated, forcing them to allow access from third-party internet service providers (ISP's.) In order to encourage quicker adoption of faster technology, the regulations were loosened, consolidating internet access to several cable, several telco, and several satellite providers. Free service broadband providers never were able to be profitable.


Internet Access and Wireless Convergence:

Internet access became possible via diverse wireless telco networks, as the wireless telephone companies became more diverse, wiress data access became more desirable, and the back-haul links to the cell towers became more robust. Internet access based upon cellular networks started becoming more competitive.


Free Internet Access over Wireless:

The local area network WiFi protocol has become nearly ubiqutous, with locations offering free internet access via WiFi in hotels, coffee shops, book stores, and even automobile service stations.

The drawback to this methodology is that people must remain in a fairly confined area. This restriction has been pretty reasonable for many people, just as "free beer" may only be available at a frat house.


Free internet access provider, Net Zero, helped to pave the way for free internet in the dial-up. United Online is now prepared to offer free ineternet access over 4G via it's NetZero subsidiary - with the purchase of equipment and for a period of 1 year (for 200MBytes of data.) After the first year, the $9.95 plan must be purchased, providing for 500MBytes of data. Using WiMAX technology, now being billed as a 4G technology, people can walk or drive around and have access to the internet.

The drawback is clear: with the purchase of the hotspot or USB dongle, Internet is only free for 1 year. No one has a right to complain how long something is free, the consumer just needs to decide how good of a deal it is for them.

Network Management Connection:
With the rapid expansion of wireless as an access mode and the rapid cost reduction in internet access for wireless devices, inexpensive and massively scalable network management tools will become a requirement.

Mobile Update: Android and Windows

Mobile Update: Android and Windows

Abstract:

Developers in an ecosystem will often foretell adoption by creating content to drive demand for a product. The mobile market has been gauged by this same phenomenon.

Developers and Android:

While the chart is not linear (a mistake, not to create this as a time-series graph), it seems to show some very interesting trends. Developer interest in Android has appeared to have peaked and declining under both phones and tablets; interest in iPhone development is showing an ever so slight decline; iPad holding steady; interest in Windows mobile is inclining; BlackBerry dropping like a proverbial stone.


People have been commenting that the wrong statistics are getting followed, it is not happening, marketshare is not accurate, etc. - but there seems to be a slight discontent with the Android market from a developer's standpoint.

This is not the entire story - Android has a terrific price point, marketshare grows for Android at an astounding rate (as we will see shortly.) There is still some level of comfort that developers and consumers have with iOS, but one can never know how long that will last for - the marketplace is fickle.

Windows Clunky & Crashy:

While Windows for mobile devices seems to be catching more developers market share, it still looks very clunky, during various demonstrations. Note the multiple [thick] cabling hanging off of the tablet on the left, one with what seems to be an ugly adapter... one would not be surprised if all those cables place a great deal of strain on the tablet connectors and reduce longevity. They certainly reduce the ability to use the tablet in a free-flowing way. If I was presenting at Convergence 2012, I would not want to use that device.


The worst possible thing happened (again) when Microsoft was presenting at Convergence 2012 - a crash and burn of their new tablet.

You've got to hand it to Kirill Tatarinov, the head of Microsoft's ERP division. The Russian Rocket was cool as a cucumber on Monday when a demo of the Windows 8 Metro UI running on a touch-screen tablet crashed and burned during the opening keynote of Convergence 2012.

Sometimes, one has to feel bad for these presenters. having done multiple demos in the past, it is not very fun to have something like this happen, but it is not uncommon for Microsoft. It does not get any better, once you have a conference facility filled with people, networking at it's capacity peak, and power being drawn on a massive scale.


Windows Sinking, Android Skyrocketing:

Last year, this time, Microsoft mobile handset users experienced crashing on a massive scale, with a patch. Under 1 year later, mobile Windows handset sales collapsed while Android skyrocketed with what appears to be brand-new marketshare. Apple continued to make measured, but modest gains.

Network Management Connection:

Wired infrastructure is critical, but it seems to quickly becoming relegated to back-office. Front-office work moved towards laptops (which started outselling PC's in 2003, 2005, 2008), which often had wireless built-in for mobility. The trend continues to move mobile with smart phones and tablets. The previous Gartner marketshare chart (not the percentages) tells all: increase in overall units from 81 million units sold to 115 million units sold in 1 year in the 3rd quarter!

Wireless is THE PLACE to be, in the network management world. If you do not have a grasp on your wireless network, you need to figure out how to do so. People are clearly becoming unteathered, regardless of what the Microsoft Mobile presenters are doing, with their tethered and crashing tablets.

Wireless Breakthroughs: Full Duplex and Unlimited Channels

[TheRegister's article on new antenna technology]
Wireless Breakthroughs: Full Duplex and Unlimited Channels

Abstract:
Wired communication had traditionally been more point-to-point communication through technologies such as POTS (Plain Old Telephone System), ISDN, TCP/IP., etc. Wireless communication had traditionally been more point-to-multipoint through broadcast technologies such as radio, television, and satellite. With the convergence of technologies, wireless and wired have been competing with one another in all markets, but wireless had traditionally been saddled by short-comings conquered in wireless communications such as half-duplex and limited frequencies in bandwidth spectrum. These challenges have been getting addressed in wireless.


[GizMag's article on full duplex radio]
Full Duplex Wireless Radio:
Full Duplex is the ability to transmit at the same time as receiving information. Around this time, last year, in 2011.

Stanford University researchers have found a way to double the capacity of wireless networks, while at the same time making them more reliable and efficient.

Full Duplex is important for such operations such as one person on a wireless phone to speak at the same time as another person on one or more other wireless phones.


Many Channels, One Radio Frequency:
Channels within a radio frequency provides the ability for multiple pieces of wireless equipment to share a piece of wireless spectrum. Traditionally, multiple channels can be bound together between devices to get more bandwidth or fewer channels can be used between devices to allow for more devices to use wireless spectrum. A new capability was recently demonstrated:

We have shown experimentally, in a real-world setting, that it is possible to use two beams of incoherent radio waves, transmitted on the same frequency but encoded in two different orbital angular momentum states, to simultaneously transmit two independent radio channels.

With the addition of this capability, more devices may be able to operate in the same area, and higher bandwidth communications (i.e. high definition video) may be able to easily function wirelessly.

Security Implications:
Wired infrastructure is generally more secure, being a point-to-point infrastructure with such technologies such as switches. When the movement from wired to wireless infrastructure occurs, encryption becomes ever more important, especially with management protocols.


[SPARCT4 Micrograph from NetMgt article]
Network Management Connection:
With the capabilities of wireless communication becoming more robust, the need to use wired communication to edge devices such as desktops in a business, may become a thing of the past. Network Managers need to take this into consideration when planning their next generation network management platforms.

If a network management platform is not running SNMPv3 and it is not running SSH or HTTPS for configuration - it is time for it to be thrown out. The vast majority of devices will all be connected wirelessly in the very near future - security is of the essence. Network Management platforms which support encryption, such as the SPARC T processor series, will become increasingly important when managing these wireless environments.

Technical Posts for 1H July

Some interesting articles that I passed over recently, which have interesting implications to Network and Systems Management:

• Seagate ships slim, fast Pulsar XT SSD
  Faster SSD's offer improvement opportunities for network management systems.
  Seagate is shipping its Pulsar XT.2 SSD with an SPC-1C benchmark rating, and has a second slower but higher capacity SSD coming soon. The 2.5-inch Pulsar XT.2 is available in up to 400GB capacities, has a 6Gbit/s SAS interface, and is built from fast single-level–cell flash.



• Energy scavenger eats leftover wireless signals
  Technology from GA-USA offers important possibilities for remore network probes.
  A group of researchers led by Manos Tentzeris at Georgia Tech are working on antennae that could scavenge stray wireless signals to power small sensors or microprocessors. If you’re close enough to a large radio transmitter, harvesting stray energy is pretty straightforward



• Cisco lays off 6,500 workers, execs; And sells off another 5,000 to Foxconn
  Network giant Cisco cutting staff indicates changes in the overall market.
  Networking giant Cisco Systems is going to get 11,500 employees smaller. After Wall Street closed today, Cisco said that it was going to cut 6,500 workers to get its costs more in line with its revenue streams, and added that it was selling off a set-top box manufacturing plant in Mexico with 5,000 employees to Chinese manufacturing Foxconn Technology Group.



• Ahead of Apple Q3 earnings, NPD expects near record Mac sales
  More Apple hardware means more diversity in the Network Management arena.
  According to numbers from the NPD Group, the answer is yes. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster reported on NPD's numbers in a note to investors on Monday (as seen by AppleInsider), noting that Mac sales were up by 12 percent year-over-year for every month in the quarter.



• New fuel discovered that reversibly stores solar energy
  Solar energy is important for remote Network probes.
  Alexie Kolpak and Jeffrey Grossman from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology propose a new type of solar thermal fuel that would be affordable, rechargeable, thermally stable, and more energy-dense than lithium-ion batteries. Their proposed design combines an organic photoactive molecule, azobenzene, with the ever-popular carbon nanotube.



• Oracle bestows SPARC T4 beta on 'select' customers
  The Gold-Standard platform in Network Management has received an upgrade.
  According to a blog post by Masood Heydari, vice president of hardware development at Oracle, the beta program will be available to a "select number of enterprises" – and as you might expect, the company is looking for enthusiastic shops that aim to use early access to Sparc T4 multi-core systems as a competitive advantage.

Enjoy the month!