Here’s our gathering of the week’s news bits around software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), and related topics.

... Intel proposed a silicon photonics-based replacement for 10-Gb/s copper cables in the data center. Working with Corning, Molex, TE Connectivity, US Conec, and others, Intel introduced the MXC connectors and cables, which send data across 64 fibers at 25 Gb/s per fiber. That multiplies out to a potential of 1.6 Tb/s.

... Coriant came to OFC 2014 with a plan called the Dynamic Optical Cloud. Coriant was assembled by private equity firm Marlin Equity Partners, which acquired Tellabs in December to add to the optical businesses of Nokia Siemens Networks and Sycamore. The Dynamic Optical Cloud combines the Tellabs 8600 router with NSN's hiT 7300 and Tellabs' 7100 packet-optical platforms. The combined offering is in some customers' hands but won't be ready for commercial trials until the third quarter.

... Coriant also announced the first new system it's produced: the mTera Universal Transport Platform, which (among other things) combines OTN and Layer 2 switching. It's in customer trials.

... Huawei introduced its prototype transport SDN platform as part of its SoftCOM network architecture.  The T-SDN platform uses a unified physical network model and resource abstraction to virtualize transmission pipes.

... MRV Communications launched new service delivery and provisioning software built on HTML5. Its Pro-Vision 3.0 is designed to monitor service performance in packet and optical domains and currently is being deployed by Tier 1 communications service providers. The company also announced it will work with ONF and ETSI to help develop SDN and NFV standards.

... Incapsula launched what it calls the first cloud-based, integrated load balancer. The cloud-based application delivery service company says the load balancer is Layer 7 aware and can balance traffic across data centers and web servers directly from the cloud without DNS-based routing, a local load balancer, or a virtual appliance.

... Finally, a shout-out to the SDN-related products selected as finalists for the Best of Interop 2014. Here are the nominees in the SDN, management, and networking categories.

SDN finalists

• Cisco – Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) for Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure
• OpenDaylight Project – Hydrogen
• VMware – VMware NSX Network Virtualization Platform

Management finalists

• NEC – Unified Network Coordinator (UNC)
• Gigamon – NetFlow Generation Application
• Extreme Networks – Purview

And a few other notables:

• HP's Network Optimizer SDN Application for Microsoft Lync (Networking category), which debuted at the Open Networking Summit in late April last year.
• Cisco's not-yet-shipping Nexus 9516 switch (Data Center category), which will give customers a chance to apply the full Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI) as developed by Insieme.
• The Coho DataStream 1000 (Storage category), which we wanted to point out mainly because we wrote about Coho in October.

Winners will be announced at 5:30 p.m. on April 1 at Interop Las Vegas.