Light Reading editors share their highlights from Day Two of MEF18, including new uses for uCPE and MEF's faster spec processes.

MEF18 demo shows policy-driven dynamic services over multi-carrier networks

IBM's $34 billion Red Hat buyout is a high-risk, high-reward gamble that will probably fail. But if IBM succeeds, it can dominate enterprise computing for a generation.

The growth of public and private cloud data centers is driving a strong and growing market for high-performance switch chips, and the choices dominating operators in the market make will have a dramatic impact.

Organization kicks off its annual conference with three key announcements showing progress on multiple MEF 3.0 fronts.

IBM's Red Hat acquisition seems like a hail-mary play by a vendor that's losing to the competition in public cloud.

Light Reading's Carol Wilson and Mitch Wagner tell you what they're looking forward to at MEF18 in Los Angeles.

On a joint conference call, senior IBM and Red Hat execs sought to reassure analysts, investors and customers that nothing will change at Red Hat after Big Blue completes its $34 billion takeover.

Big Blue is paying a staggering premium for a company that trades in open source software.

Google is taking the next generation of its Firebase mobile app development service beyond consumer apps and small and midsized business developers.

IBM rocket-boosts its flagging cloud business by acquiring the open source pioneer.

While cloud spending slowed in Q3 2018, it's still growing faster than last year.

The open source developer community gained 3 million users since the two companies announced the acquisition in June, suggesting that developer claims they'd abandon the platform were overblown.

New software is designed to centralize Kubernetes deployments under IT control, as well as improve support for developers building data science applications with machine learning.

AWS boosted its operating margin to 31% by slashing costs, the company said. Amazon reported overall sales of $56.6 billion, up 29% year-over-year.

Internet giant pouring dollars into acquiring talent including sales and marketing skills for its cloud unit, still ranked third behind AWS and Microsoft.

Developer trust will have to be 'earned and not something that we will inherit because of being owners of GitHub,' CEO Satya Nadella said on an earnings call Wednesday.

The open source cloud vendor says telco network virtualization is stalled, and it's got the cure.

76% year-over-year growth looks laggy when you've been kissing triple digits.

The swyMed DOT Telemedicine Backpack brings medical consultation and transmit clinical data from remote locations, using SD-WAN for connectivity.

As Oracle debuts new blockchain solutions, Light Reading wonders what, if anything, blockchain is good for.

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Sparkle and Amartus air their SD-WAN concept; Nokia boosts Netia's network capacity in Poland; Orange seals satellite-based military deal.

Before the end of this year, Arista said it will be shipping at least one new 400G switch aimed at helping cloud and data center providers handle the growth and sheer number of enterprise workloads.

A proposed standard aims to allow upgrades to legacy technologies like DOCSIS, or new capabilities, such as 5G or PON, to be snapped into a generic (and modular) node housing.

Oracle's new CX Unity service is designed to go beyond the linear 'customer journey' to help serve today's 'fickle and nomadic' customers, the company says.

This week in our WiC roundup: Keeping smart home products safe for all; Merkel finds sexism in Israeli tech community; girls have limited access to mobile phones worldwide; and more.

Almost 70% of service providers in this month's Thought Leadership Council (TLC) survey say they either already have or will move compute and application execution to the edge by 2020.

New initiatives bring IP onto the platform for end-to-end services up to Layer 3 but also support remaining base of TDM offerings better.

Dell is continuing forward with its planned return to public markets, as investor Carl Icahn threatens to go to the mattresses to fight the proposal.

Twenty percent growth looks great, but not when the market is growing at 50%.

Arista is extending its Cognitive Campus strategy with networking technology gained from its recent Mojo Networks purchase. Arista says: No more BMOC for CSCO.

‘... I still enjoy a good fight for the right reasons,’ Icahn warns. Let's make popcorn and watch the show.

IPO plans are on hold as Aryaka builds its business.

The legislative environment now seems to have roadblocks up against fiber deployment, according to Brian Daniels, Zayo's senior VP of strategic networks. He said there's a need for standard fees and permanent processes to help multiple tenants use a city's light poles and other infrastructure so several carriers can efficiently provide competitive services in cities.

Investors shell out for companies that plan to kill on-premises data warehouses, server scalability and web performance limits, and AI bottlenecks. That's more murder than a Quentin Tarantino movie!

Microsoft joins the Open Invention Network, a mutual patent protection society, and is bringing along 60,000 patents as a housewarming gift.

IBM Cloud Private, which is a year old, has hundreds of users, a landmark it took Red Hat nearly four years to achieve. However....

Managed service provider developed its own combined connectivity-security solution that it's selling direct and to other MSPs.

Looks to reduce time for security pros to detect and react to application threats.

With one of its most important software updates coming up this month, Aqsacom CEO Gilles Blanc discusses his company's background, technology edge and why 5G is so challenging to cyber-intelligence firms.

New Layer 2-based service promises cloud connections in minutes to enterprises in fiber-fed buildings globally.

Google says it won't compete for a lucrative cloud computing contract because it's inconsistent with the company values — and also because portions are out of scope of current government certifications.

Superior technology isn't enough.

Equinix's Bill Long says age of virtualization and automation is causing a major shift in network deployment costs as well as the engineering skillsets required amid the growing need for talented software developers.

Fending off hypercloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft was a driver for the merger. But there's more to it than that.

Cloud connections, not video or 5G, will be the global network operator's growth drive.

VMware beefs up its portfolio for multicloud management.

Thirty companies, including Amazon and Apple, and the US government are threatened in the attack, according to a bombshell investigative report from Bloomberg.

Security requirements 'can change the design of your overall network dramatically,' says Orange Business's John Isch.

Extending support for legacy languages to the cloud, as well as that newfangled serverless thing that all the kids are going on about.

Some retailers are moving to platforms that aren't competing for customers. Others just want to keep their options open.

VP Bill Long tells NFV-Carrier SDN crowd that niche players and new entrants face a much riskier market, even though hardware capex requirements are much lower.

Microsoft is developing hardware and software tools to help secure 80 billion Internet of Things devices that will come online by 2025.

Microsoft is striving to win cloud customers with a new telco strategic focus, HoloLens augmented reality, and by forswearing competing with customers – unlike, Microsoft says, its crosstown rivals at Amazon Web Services.