NETWORKS EUROPE The magazine for network and data centre professionals IN THIS ISSUE: GAINING A COMPETITIVE EDGE EDGE TO CORE TO CLOUD THE IIoT JOURNEY STARTS WITH TELEMETRY March/April 2021 SECURITY, SUSTAINABILITY AND EFFICIENCY WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN BUILDING A NETWORK DATA SECURITY IN THE NEW BUSINESS WORLD HAVE BUSINESS CONTINUITY MEASURES PUT DATA AT RISK? WHERE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CAN HAVE THE MOST IMPACT WHAT IT NETWORKS NEED TO MAXIMISE EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITYNew & Powerful What’s Their Edge? Vertiv.com/NetworksEurope Vertiv Edge Line- Interactive UPS The Vertiv™ Edge line interactive UPS family is intended for distributed IT and edge applications that require reliable, e icient power protection for server and networking equipment. It comes in mini-tower, rack tower and rack-mount form factors, with capacities ranging from 500VA to 3000VA. Each model has a 0.9 output power factor (PF), enabling them to protect larger loads than competing models of the same capacity. • E icient & Green • Maximise Power Protection • Flexibility and Manageability • 2-year standard warranty * * A standard 2-year warranty for both electronics and batteries protects your UPS investment © 2021 Vertiv Group Corp. All rights reserved. Vertiv™ and the Vertiv logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Vertiv Group Corp. All other names and logos referred to are trade names, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.www.networkseuropemagazine.com 03 40 50 50 05 Editor's Note 06 News The news desk highlights some of the industry stories. 16 Gaining a competitive edge in 2021 Brian Johnson, ABB looks at how colocation and multi-tenant data centres are the future when it comes to speed and efficiency. 20 Top three methods to protect your corporate network Rich Turner, CyberArk, discusses why of all victim types, large firms are the most frequent target of cyber-attacks 24 Data security in the new business world Andrea Babbs, VIPRE Security Ltd asks if business continuity pressures have potentially put organisational data at significant risk. 26 Take care near the Edge Darren Anstee, NETSCOUT suggests that ISPs will need a new chapter in their security strategy for 2021. 30 It’s raining malware Daniel Warelow, Giacom and Kelvin Murray, Webroot explain how to be cyber resilient in the face of malware. 34 Keeping networks safe and secure with an independent management plane Steve Cummins, Opengear takes a look at why engineers are increasingly using a separate, secure management plane. 38 Security, sustainability and efficiency Oliver Goodman, Telehouse, breaks down the three main areas where AI can be most impactful within data centres 40 Successfully implementing Edge solutions Carsten Ludwig, Reichle & De-Massari looks at how data transmission and processing is driving the creation of edge infrastructures. 44 Edge to core to cloud Stephane Cardot, Quantum investigates how to strike the right data storage balance. 48 Top factors businesses need to consider when building a network Alan Hayward, SEH Technology looks at how IT networks need to meet the needs of their business to maximise efficiency and productivity. 50 Preparing for a better future Darren Watkins, VIRTUS Data Centres discusses how to improve datacentre efficiency and performance. 54 Smart FM know-how Matthew Margetts, Smarter Technologies identifies five steps towards environmental compliance in your facility. 56 The IIoT journey starts with remote telemetry Craig Abbot, Ovarro, explains why remote telemetry units (RTU) are vital for minimising congestion. 58 Movers and shakers We take a quick look at some of the industry's movers and shakers, including new appointments, promotions and personnel changes. www.networkseuropemagazine.com CONTENTS 03 20 NETWORKS EUROPE 1 Tudor Business Centre, Waterhouse Lane, Kingswood KT20 6EN www.networkseuropemagazine.com Published by: Abacus Communications Limited Publisher: Greg Ward Editor: Laura Vallis Sales Executive: Keith Foster The views expressed in the articles and technical papers are those of the authors and are not endorsed by the publishers. The author and publisher, and its officers and employees, do not accept any liability for any errors that may have occurred, or for any reliance on their contents. All trademarks and brandnames are respected within our publication. However, the publishers accept no responsibility for any inadvertent misuse that may occur. This publication is protected by copyright © 2020 and accordingly must not be reproduced in any medium. All rights reserved. Networks Europe stories, news, know-how? Please submit to editor.networks@abacus-comms.co.uk including high resolution (300dpi+ CMYK) images.UPS Service and Maintenance • Battery Replacements • Impedance Testing • Emergency Call-out • Capacitor Replacements • Fan Replacements • Preventative Maintenance .co.ukEditor's Note The first anniversary of the pandemic has now passed and while this is no celebratory achievement, maybe we should consider it a time of reflection on just how far we have come. While we don't know for sure if the pandemic has transformed things for good, the last year has seen some major reshaping that the datacentre industry has had to consider. Has technology's sharp learning curve seen a shift of priorities? And most importantly, have cyber attacks and malware outbreaks capitalised on these changes? In this issue we take a look at protection and security with articles from Rich Turner at CyberArk, Andrea Babbs at VIPRE Security Ltd, Daniel Warelow, Giacom and Kelvin Murray, Webroot, and Steve Cummins at Opengear, who all explore how to respond to ever- increasing cyberattack and malware issues. Investment and security in the Edge is also covered in editorial pieces from Carsten Ludwig, Reichle & De-Massari and Stephane Cardot of Quantum, while we also take a look at AI’s impact in data centres with a feature from Oliver Goodman at Telehouse. Just because we've transformed so much over the course of the past twelve months doesn't mean we should rest on our laurels. We need to continue to plan for the future. We look at colocation and multi-tenant data centres in a feature from Brian Johnson at ABB, while Alan Hayward of SEH Technology looks at the top factors that businesses need to consider when building a network in order to maximise efficiency and productivity. Darren Watkins of VIRTUS Data Centres also considers the optimisation of the datacentre and how to prepare for an environmentally responsible future and Matthew Margetts, Smarter Technologies points out five steps towards environmental compliance. But that's not all. Craig Abbot of Ovarro explains why remote telemetry units (RTU) are vital for minimising congestion in intelligent power, utility, broadcast and transport. We continue the subject matter of sustainability in our next issue, due out in early June. If you would like to contribute feature articles on sustainability or on our other focus themes of UPS/power and structured cabling systems, then please don't hesitate to get in touch. Until next time, continue to stay safe and well. Laura Vallis Editor Networks Europe magazine FOREWORD www.networkseuropemagazine.com 05 www.networkseuropemagazine.com 05www.networkseuropemagazine.com NEWS IN BRIEF www.networkseuropemagazine.com 06 Delta’s Ultron DPS UPS offers reliability with high power density for MW Scale data centres Delta Electronics has added the Ultron DPS model to its family of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), which now offers capacities ranging from 300-1200 kVA. This latest Ultron online UPS is rated at 1000-1200 kVA megawatt-scale performance with an extremely small footprint that makes the Ultron DPS UPS ideally suited for use in large and colocation data centres, where high-density performance and the associated space savings are essential for profitable operations. The Ultron DPS series is a next-generation monoblock UPS system, designed with enhanced availability, performance and manageability. Compared with similar products on the market, the new DPS series UPS is an exceptionally competitive product with the highest power density and the smallest footprint, addressing the increasing requirements of colocation and cloud service providers. In addition, it offers a LiB ready solution that saves space and reduces risk throughout the lifecycle of the uninterruptible power system. Up to eight Ultron DPS series UPSs can be paralleled to provide up to 9.6MW of power capacity to support power expansion or N+X redundancies. Featuring high power capacity and high energy efficiency, the Ultron DPS is up to 96% efficient at light load conditions and achieves up to 96.5% in online mode. The Ultron DPS series offers proactive intelligence to warn IT managers of impending failures before they occur. This reduces the risk of downtime as well as the time and expense that maintenance work involves. Advanced event analysis includes up to 10,000 event logs, and waveform capturing allows the detection of external conditions to ensure high availability. Organisations around the world have adopted Delta’s Ultron DPS UPS for power backup and data centre applications across industries such as colocation, manufacturing, semiconductors and others. Drawing on over 40 years of R&D and manufacturing experience in power and thermal management, Delta continues to provide large data centres and mission-critical facilities with highly efficient and reliable UPS and data centre solutions. n Wireless Logic expands global footprint Wireless Logic has strengthened its global presence and market position with the expansion of low power wide area network (LPWAN) services across Europe, Asia and North America. The expansion comes as a direct result of new mobile operator partnerships and the recent acquisition of international businesses, including Arkessa, Com4, New Line IoT and Datamobile AG. LPWANs are a group of low/medium bandwidth wireless technologies used to efficiently deliver IoT connectivity to large numbers of devices over wide geographic areas. Depending on the frequency and the amount of data transmitted, LPWAN compatible devices are able to securely operate with long battery life and have low peak power requirements when compared to other LTE services. As a result of these enhanced capabilities and the impending sunset of global 3G networks, Wireless Logic is seeing increasing demand for cellular LPWAN services (NB IoT and LTE-M) across a wide range of use cases, from smart metering and energy management to asset tracking and sensor-driven applications. Matthew Tate, CCO at Wireless Logic, says: “When it comes to IoT connectivity, NB IoT and LTE-M services represent low cost, low power solutions that are highly reliable and can stay in the field for multiple years. As a result of recent expansion, we are in a strong position to offer customers the local LPWAN services that they are asking for with direct access to 75 cellular LPWAN networks in 45 countries across three continents through SIMPro, our operator and technology agnostic platform.” He continues: “Although mobile networks are continuing to roll-out these services across the globe, customers are now actively looking to future proof their deployments and take advantage of cellular LPWAN where it is available.". As part of its LPWAN offering, Wireless Logic will provide both LTE-M and NB IoT services for IoT applications across the globe. n Gigamon launches Hawk and Partners with AWS to simplify and secure cloud adoption IT complexity, which grew exponentially following the recent acceleration of digital transformation, has led to a foundational gap in visibility across the underlying hybrid infrastructure. The gap exists because network tools lack visibility into cloud traffic, and cloud tools lack critical network visibility because they rely solely on application-level telemetry. Additionally, traditional visibility solutions cannot be automated to elastically scale across a dynamic hybrid infrastructure. This cloud visibility gap has made it extremely challenging for IT teams to effectively manage digital infrastructure, leading to a poor customer experience, blind spots in security and compliance and challenges in cloud adoption. To close this critical cloud visibility gap, Gigamon is launching Hawk, the industry’s first elastic visibility and analytics fabric for all data-in-motion across any cloud network. Gigamon Hawk simplifies hybrid infrastructure, eliminates security and compliance holes and provides IT teams full visibility of their cloud environments at scale. “Helping our customers derive value from their cloud investment and solutions is the most important aspect of our work at AWS. As organisations move workloads to the cloud, they want to ensure that they have clear visibility around potential vulnerabilities in their environment. "Using AWS with Gigamon Hawk, for example by leveraging Amazon Athena to analyse application metadata collected by Hawk in S3 buckets, customers can gain the visibility they need across their hybrid – or pure cloud – infrastructure to be confident in its security, performance and scalability,” commented Scott Ward, Principal Solutions Architect at AWS. “We are seeing most of our clients accelerate the movement of their mission-critical apps and workloads to the cloud, resulting in increasingly complex hybrid cloud infrastructures and interactions. This rising complexity challenges IT and InfoSec teams to provide the comprehensive traffic visibility and control that has become the hallmark of optimised and secure networks required to deliver the best user experience." said Mark Leary, Research Director with IDC. nNEWS IN BRIEF www.networkseuropemagazine.com 07 www.networkseuropemagazine.com 07 If you have news to share, contact the editor at: editor@networkseuropemagazine.com Arcserve and StorageCraft sign merge agreement Arcserve, a data and ransomware protection provider, and StorageCraft, whose mission is to protect all data, have announced that they have signed an agreement to merge. The merger will form a comprehensive global provider of data management and protection solutions for organisations, spanning from SMB’s to the Fortune 50. It will solve the growing market need for a single source to manage and protect workloads throughout the data centre, cloud, SaaS applications and at the edge. With expanded geographic reach, a broad product portfolio, flexible business models and a magnified innovation footprint, the merged companies will bring extensive market and revenue opportunities for MSPs, VARs and distributors. As two, 100% channel-focused organisations come together, the merger will create new revenue opportunities for partners worldwide. The expanded portfolio will simplify the selling process with solutions, services and support from one vendor, while also providing diversification to help partners expand addressable market share, scale revenue and create margin opportunities. Flexible perpetual license and subscription business models will further optimise market and revenue opportunities and enable friction- free commerce. Arcserve and StorageCraft will continue to fully support and invest in their existing solutions. In addition, both companies will increase investments in R&D and combined IP, which will strengthen both companies’ product portfolios. Channel partners and end-users alike will see rapid innovation for continuous data availability across every platform and location. This will enable a seamless evolution from current to next-generation infrastructures and data workloads, including hyper- converged, multi-cloud, containers, edge infrastructures, and next-generation cloud data centres. Following the merger, StorageCraft will be branded 'StorageCraft, an Arcserve Company,’ and the merged company will be united under the leadership of the current CEO of Arcserve, Tom Signorello, and the current president of StorageCraft, Douglas Brockett. n Schools, care homes, leisure centres and council offices are among those being transformed into smart buildings across the Scottish Highlands, as part of a new £400k project between Highland Council and North, IoT service and solutions provider. The project will use Scotland’s National IoT network, IoT Scotland, along with smart IoT sensors to collect data and gain insights on council buildings including CO2 levels, temperature and humidity, ventilation, electricity consumption and light levels. The data will be used by the council within its data analytics platform to reduce costs and carbon emissions, whilst improving the environment for young people, elderly care home residents, members of the local community and council staff. Serving a third of Scotland’s total land area, Highland Council is responsible for a large number of remote buildings which can now be monitored from a centralised point across the IoT network – reducing unnecessary journeys and enabling better use of resources. North is delivering the project across all Highland Council buildings, with the council able to self-install pre-configured IoT sensors to monitor and gather data on building and room usage. North has supplied its data enablement platform which decodes, stores, visualises and shares information from the sensors, providing the council and its partners with a rich set of data, enabling them to better model building use, identify issues and deliver a more comfortable environment whilst controlling costs. The council buildings will now benefit from having CO2 levels measured which provides an indication of air quality within a building or room. The new sensor technology will allow carbon dioxide levels to be regularly monitored and reported, enabling the council to make any changes required to address this. Additionally, sensors will inform the council on the usage pattern of each building and its rooms, enabling a more tailored and accurate remote control over maintenance, increasing efficiency, saving money on utilities and reducing carbon emissions. Temperature and humidity sensors will allow the council to improve the environment within each building and increase comfort for users, prevent frost damage during winter and detect conditions that could cause damp and mould. Alasdair Rettie, Group Technical Director at North, said: “This project is an excellent example of the ways in which IoT technology can transform how we live and work. The Highland Council smart buildings project will not only offer benefits in terms of cost savings and a more sustainable way of working but will enable the council to provide the public with a better experience whilst gathering real-time data to maintain a healthy and pleasant environment. “There are distant council buildings across the Scottish Highlands which can now be brought together through remote connectivity and control, using smart data to provide exceptional service to all destinations no matter how isolated they may be.” The Highland Council’s Chair of the Economy and Infrastructure Committee and Chair of the Council’s Climate Change Working Group, Cllr Trish Robertson said: “North has supplied us with a large number of monitoring devices which will allow us to monitor activity in our large estate, and inform decisions on how to manage our buildings in a more energy- efficient way.” n Smart IoT technology to bring reduced costs and carbon footprint across the Scottish Highlandswww.networkseuropemagazine.com 08 NEWS IN BRIEF Next generation of Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse Oracle has announced a set of innovative enhancements to Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse, the self-driving cloud data warehouse. With this latest release, Oracle transforms cloud data warehousing from a complex ecosystem of products, tools and tasks that requires extensive technical expertise, time and money to perform data loading, data transformation and cleansing, business modelling and machine learning into an intuitive point-and-click, drag-and-drop experience for data analysts, citizen data scientists and business users. As a result, Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse empowers organisations to get more value from their data, achieve faster results, accelerate insights and improve productivity while lowering costs with zero administration. The latest enhancements to Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse provide a single data platform built for businesses to ingest, transform, store and govern all data to run diverse analytical workloads from any source, including departmental systems, enterprise data warehouses and data lakes. “Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse is the only fully self-driving cloud data warehouse today,” said Andrew Mendelsohn, executive vice president, database server technologies, Oracle. “With this next generation of Autonomous Data Warehouse, we provide a set of easy-to-use, no-code tools that uniquely empower business analysts to be citizen data scientists, data engineers and developers.” Citizen data scientists and analysts will also benefit from powerful new self-service graph modelling and graph analytics. Oracle offers Oracle APEX (Application Express) Application Development, a low-code application development tool built directly into its cloud data warehouse, as well as RESTful services, which makes it easy for any modern application to interact with warehouse data. n Siemon has announced its new LightWays fibre routing system. LightWays is a fully enclosed, flexible ducting system ideal for protecting, segregating and managing fibre optic cables in the data centre environment. Each component has been specifically designed to protect fibre cabling from dirt and dust and to maintain proper bend radius, which is imperative to maintaining network uptime, performance and reliability. Part of Siemon's WheelHouse advanced data centre solutions, LightWays comprises a wide variety of straight solid and slotted duct, elbows, tees, crosses, reducers and outlets available in four different sizes. The easy-to-assemble fibre routing system is highly flexible to custom design protective fibre pathways with any turn or transition to meet the needs of any data centre. LightWays features innovative toolless joiners that eliminate the need for other tools to connect or disconnect components. The joiners provide an audible click to ensure a secure connection and can be easily removed and reused throughout the system as needed. Easy- access covers and removable protective end caps allow fibre cables to be added or removed from any pathway section at any time, without the need to disconnect system components. The system’s low-profile Waterfall Outlet can be placed anywhere along the sidewall of straight sections to create vertical drop-offs with full bend radius control for safely routing fibre cables to and from data centre racks and cabinets. The Waterfall Outlet’s two-piece cover with hinged rear section makes it easy to access, add or remove fibres that bypass the outlet without disturbing those inside the outlet. “Fibre has become the de facto network infrastructure building block across any size or type of data centre, from large hyperscale and cloud data centres, to colocation and enterprise.” says Peter Thickett, product manager for Siemon. “LightWays makes it easier than ever to effectively manage and protect these critical links as they traverse between networking equipment, storage area networks and server clusters while ensuring the capacity to support continued growth.” n Siemon introduces toolless LightWays fibre routing system DatacentreSpeak launches digital transformation services for data centres DatacentreSpeak, a business development consultancy for the digital infrastructure sector, has announced the launch of a new service to help medium-sized companies identify and prioritise digitalisation opportunities and develop an effective strategy for program delivery. The new Digital Transformation (DX) service offering is focused on optimising the operational agility of digital infrastructure, from multi-tenanted facilities and globally connected hybrid infrastructure to wholly owned and operated, private data centres. DatacentreSpeak offers to support companies to align their digital infrastructure with the evolving requirements of the business as well as its customer needs. “Analysts have emphasised the advantage that digitally transformed businesses will be at as they emerge from the pandemic,” says Michael Adams, CEO of DatacentreSpeak. “The challenge for smaller enterprises and colocation service providers is knowing where to start. They typically lack the budget or appetite for a long and expensive engagement with prominent business consultancy firms. This is where DatacentreSpeak steps in; by providing a digital transformation roadmap with as-needed support from professional consultants, we give the client greater agency and control over the cost and deployment of DX projects.” The requirements of established medium-sized enterprises differ from those of start-ups – which today are usually digitally native, leveraging cloud and outsourced services – and large enterprises. “The main pain point for these businesses is complexity,” continues Adams, “over time, their digital infrastructure has been developed in a reactive rather than proactive fashion. Generally, it is so widely distributed that it is near-impossible to manage and maintain, let alone optimise. Complexity affects their business agility, decision-making and often their ability to compete.” The DatacentreSpeak approach recognises that successful digital transformation requires systems thinking; it centres on the fire triangle of people, processes and technology to ignite the transformation process. Taking on board the complexity of established businesses, the process is aimed to deliver a roadmap to success keeping the client business and architecture as agile as possible. Adams comments “Medium-sized companies are at risk of disruption if they delay the digital transformation process. The onset of the pandemic has demonstrated that when presented with the prospect of disaster, businesses have been able to very quickly assimilate digitalised solutions without a lot of bureaucracy, cost or delay. Working with DatacentreSpeak promises similar levels of agility to accelerate the path to success.” n09 NEWS IN BRIEF www.networkseuropemagazine.com 09 Colt DCS' Inzai 1 datacentre awarded Stamp of Approval for Management & Operations Colt Data Centre Services' (DCS) Inzai 1 data centre has been awarded the Stamp of Approval for Management & Operations (M&O) by Uptime Institute Professional Services. The M&O Stamp of Approval outlines the necessary measures data centre owners and operators must take to achieve the maximum uptime of their existing data centres. To earn the award, companies must conduct a risk analysis of their selected data centre and take the necessary steps to mitigate these risks. Adherence to the Management and Operations measures has been proven to minimise the chances of human error, which is the number one cause of data centre downtime. It also allows companies to get the most out of their data centres and related assets. The M&O Stamp of Approval was awarded to Colt DCS' Inzai 1 data centre following a document assessment in May 2020. This was subsequently followed by a site verification assessment, which was performed from 30th November 2020 to 2nd December 2020. The award is valid until 10th December 2022. Hiroshige Sugihara, Vice President, Head of Asia-Pacific, Colt DCS, said: "This award demonstrates the high standards we hold ourselves to at Colt DCS. To make sure our customers get the best possible service, we do everything we can to avoid the risk of downtime and, as this award shows, we're succeeding. "This award, in addition to the launch of our Inzai 3 hyperscale facility in 2020, also highlights our commitment in helping Japan achieve its digital transformation goals, set out by Yoshihide Suga, the Japanese Prime Minister. Colt DCS' data centres provide a demonstrably stable and expansive platform to support growth for countries and companies alike." Inzai 1 is part of Colt DCS' three-site campus, which also possesses Inzai 2 and 3, both of which are hyperscale facilities. Inzai 1 remains one of the most secure, high-specification data centres in Japan. The facility is situated in Inzai city, Chiba, which is a low earthquake risk location just 40 minutes from Tokyo. n Riello UPS upgrades Sentryum series with two new models Uninterruptible power supply manufacturer Riello UPS has expanded its transformerless Sentryum series with new 30 and 40 kVA versions. The two additions complement the 10-15-20 kVA models already available in the Sentryum range, which is the company’s third generation of transformer-free solutions. Delivering full-rated unity power (power factor 1) and up to 96.5% online efficiency, the Sentryum is designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized data centres, as well as similarly mission-critical applications in the IT, telecoms, transport and medical sectors. The two new 30-40 kVA models come with a choice of cabinet sizes to maximise battery autonomy and optimise floor space. The Active (ACT) chassis can house up to two battery strings in a footprint of just 0.35sqm, while the Xtend (XTD) option needs just 0.4sqm space and can hold up to three battery strings. Leo Craig, Managing Director of Riello UPS, commented: “With its combination of flexibility, performance and compactness, the Sentryum has quickly become one of our most popular products. These two new additions, give data centres and other similar applications even more options with which to protect their critical equipment.” As well as its exceptional efficiency and compactness, the Sentryum also features a unique control system that helps minimise harmonic voltage distortion, while it also has outstandingly high overload and short circuit capacity. This enables the UPS to deal with sudden peak loads without having to transfer to bypass. Up to eight Sentryum UPSs can be paralleled together to increase capacity or redundancy. While the units also feature a large 5-inch touchscreen colour display panel along with an intuitive LED status indicator that changes colour depending on the operating mode and condition of the UPS system. The Sentryum expansion comes hot on the heels of Riello UPS also extending its super-efficient NextEnergy (NXE) range of UPS systems with a new 600 kVA version. n Ekinops and Silicom's new business perspectives for virtualisation solutions Ekinops, a provider of open, future-proof and flexible solutions for the access network, has announced that together with Silicom Ltd., a provider of networking and data infrastructure solutions, it has reached new benchmark performance levels thanks to the combination of their virtualisation technologies for enterprises. This will enable service providers around the world to broaden their network services portfolio, creating new business opportunities. Ekinops and Silicom Ltd. are technology partners with the aim to provide innovative and efficient virtualisation solutions. OneOS6- LIM, the software solution with a full range of integrated software services from Ekinops, and the new Cordoba universal Customer Premises Equipment (uCPE) platform from Silicom, enable unmatched performance with the economics that make virtualisation attractive to many enterprises. The combination of the two solutions made it possible to go beyond 700Mbps in routing speed on the Cordoba platform, ten times the performance compared to other third-party virtual routers. "We have successfully integrated all our expertise in enterprise connectivity and routing into an embedded model for network functions virtualisation infrastructure. Thus, we achieve much higher performance than with a traditional virtualised router.” said Philippe Moulin, Ekinops Group Chief Operating Officer, "We were able to validate this gain in performance on the new Cordoba uCPE platform from Silicom." "We have developed a new platform with particular care, in both technology terms and footprint choices." said Oren Benisty, EVP for Strategic Accounts and Sales of Silicom, “Our goal was to achieve a level of performance excellence to consolidate multiple network connectivity functions on a single platform with a good cost/performance ratio. Our tests with Ekinops show that we have largely achieved this goal.” "The Silicom and Ekinops combination opens up new perspectives for operators and service providers to innovate in-network services thanks to virtualisation with a true “no-vendor lock-in” approach.” concluded Moulin. nNext >