Howdy Buckaroos!  Here's the week's roundup of news bits related to software defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV).

DevOps platform profider JFrog raised $50 million.

Juniper won a contract to provide the U.S. Air Force with a modernized network based on open standards.

Infinera added John Daane to its board of directors, replacing retiring director Carl Redfield. A longtime semiconductor exec, Daane was CEO of Altera, which recently got acquired by Intel.

Cisco pledged to invest $100 million in Italy by giving money to education and investing in startups.

Accedian says in 2015 it secured deals with Telefónica, SK Telecom, T-Mobile, and Cox Business and boosted its sales 25 percent.

Mellanox said its contentious acquisition of EZchip should close late in February, now that the deal has been approved by EZchip shareholders. Activist hedge fund Raging Capital Management, which was protesting the deal, is now on board with it.

The OPNFV Project welcomed Openet as a silver member and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) as associate members.

Australia's Telstra launched two enhancements to its SDN platform. Using the new PEN Exchange, organizations can connect their network circuits on-demand with other PEN customers. The new PEN Marketplace allows customers to order virtual network functions (VNFs).

Qosmos unveiled its ixEngine version 5.0. The software development kit (SDK) is composed of libraries and tools that can be integrated into networking and security products.

CENX released the 6.1 version of its analytics software Exanova Service Intelligence, which takes a lifecycle service orchestration (LSO) approach to network operations.

Ciena debuted new encryption software for use across metro and long-haul networks, offering optical-layer encryption capabilities.

Here’s what else SDxCentral has covered lately: