Happy Holidays! It's a bit slow in the world of news related to software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV), but here are a few strays we found roaming around on the snowy, peaceful plains:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and the China Telecom Beijing Research Institute announced the opening of a joint NFV lab in Beijing. The lab will use the HPE OpenNFV infrastructure stack and reference architecture. China Telecom will use the lab to test the benefits of using NFV to transform its network.

Deutsche Telekom is offering the Norton Small Business security package. All the administration is controlled via Deutsche Telekom's Cloud Portal.

Axiros debuted its AXC container management platform to provide provisioning, monitoring, and general management of state and software for containers. The company says AXC has already been deployed by a Tier 1 carrier in Europe to enable end-to-end service fulfillment and assurance for VoIP on large enterprises.

VMware announced general availability of vRealize Automation 7 and vRealize Business Standard 7, part of the company’s cloud management platform.

NetApp is acquiring flash-storage vendor SolidFire for $870 million cash.

Twistlock announced its container-security suite has been added to Amazon Web Service's EC2 Container Registry. Twistlock's software reached general availability in November and is already available in Google Container Registry and Docker Registry.

Dell has suitors for Perot Systems, Reuters reported. Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp, NTT Data Corp and Atos SE are vying for the Dell unit, the sale of which could raise $5 billion or more to use toward Dell's pending acquisition of EMC. 

Here’s what else SDxCentral has covered lately:

  • HPE Gets Ousted From Telefónica's NFV Project
  • SD-WAN Tops Analysts' Surprises of 2015
  • Xmas Miracle? An Optical IPO Appears
  • Capex & Cisco: Grading Scott Raynovich's 2015 Unpredictions
  • Nutanix Reveals Huge Losses With Its $200M IPO
  • It’s Unlikely Juniper Could Have Found the Security Breach Sooner
  • 2015: A Cloud Security Wake Up Call
  • Elliott Management Was a Disruptive Force in 2015
  • Cisco Says It Has No Juniper-Like Security Issues
  • Alcatel-Lucent Gets an SDN Gig With Italian Carrier
  • Oracle Boosts Its Docker Game by Acquiring StackEngine
  • Pivotal Snaps Up London-Based CloudCredo