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

... VCE introduced a large addition to its converged infrastructure portfolio with three new advancements: VCE Vscale Architecture, VCE VxBlock Systems (which include the factory-installed NSX option previously announced), and VCE Vision Intelligent Operations 3.0. The new pieces are aimed to address speed and simplicity for the hybrid cloud.

...Websense is reportedly up for sale at a $1 billion valuation. Vista Equity Partners acquired the company, which makes security policy and traffic inspection software, for $890 million in 2013. Now Vista has hired Citigroup to find a buyer, according to Bloomberg.

... Netsocket is no more. The company's assets were bought this week by equipment vendor iPhotonix, which specializes in fiber-to-the-home technologies. Netsocket's assets will become part of iPhotonix's NFV play.

... Calient and Phoenix Datacom unveiled a collaboration to bring Calient's S-Series Optical Circuit Switch family to the U.K. market. Separately, Calient announced the S160, a smaller-port-count version of its Optical Circuit Switching System (160 x 160 ports, as opposed to 320 x 320 in the current product) intended for the data center and service provider applications.

... Accton Technology will contribute industry's first open design of a 100-Gb/s Ethernet switch to the Open Compute Project (OCP). Accton subsidiary Edge-Core Networks will market two new data center switch designs — the 100 Gb/s and another 40 Gb/s switch poised for current open infrastructures — as part of an open network switch product line.

... Pica8 wants everyone to know that it is now has the most expansive portfolio of ODMs and integrators in the white box switching arena.

... Coriant completed its long-standing Tellabs-related litigation with Fujitsu.

... Telco Systems unveiled the Open Edge Alliance, its effort to create an environment made up of best-of-breed SDN and distributed NFV products for the network edge. Members will enjoy minimal investment and have the ability to develop applications that become fully certified components of carrier-grade network-edge products.

... NTT Communications and Dell's Global Services division are partnering for the first time to bring NTT's self-managed cloud and cloud-enabled managed services into Dell's branded cloud services.

... Talari, a vendor touting the software-defined wide area network, was granted two patents related to its distributed shared memory services.

... Pacnet deployed Infinera's Open Transport Switch (OTS) to push network virtualization to the optical layer.

... Mellanox said the OpenOptics MSA is contributing wavelength specifications to the Open Compute Project. The new addition will enable data to be streamed at terabits per second over a single fiber.

... Synnex subsidiary Hyve announced support for the OCP's compute, storage, and networking products by offering Open Rack v2, Leopard, Honey Badger, and Wedge products to data center customers.

... Intel and Facebook worked together for over 18 months on Yosemite, which uses Mono Lake as its server (it's based on the new Intel Xeon processor D-1500 product family, the company’s first Xeon-based SoC). The Xeon D product family is the first Xeon line built on 14nm process technology and the third generation of Intel 64-bit SoCs for microservers, storage, network, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

... Facebook also altered its Multifeed technology so it now uses two types of servers — leaf and aggregation -- instead of using one server for both tasks.

... NetBRIC joined the Open Compute Project as the first contributor from China. NetBRIC looks to redefine the FLASH storage architecture of the big data, cloud computing era.

... OPNFV is gearing up for its first software release. We'll keep you posted...

... Masergy Communications made its network-as-a-service (NaaS) self-service option generally available this week.

... MRV Communications enhanced its OptiDriver optical transport product line with dynamic wavelength routing for intelligent optical network control capabilities.

... Neutrona Networks picked the Packet Design Route Explorer as its "Intelligent Analytics Engine" to provide management visibility.

... SimpliVity raised $175 million in series D funding at a valuation of more than $1 billion. "Almost there" is what I imagine competitor Nutanix would say, as its valuation late last summer stood at $2 billion.

... Gigabyte announced the commercial availability of its MP30 server platform, powered by AppliedMicro's X-Gene Server. The MP30 platform will provide users with higher performance-per-watt capability, the companies say.

... SanDisk announced contributions to the open source storage project Ceph. SanDisk had recently launched its InfiniFlash system, which is based on Ceph.

... VMware vSphere and vCloud Air will now support CoreOS.

... Docker Inc. acquired Kitematic, which had developed a Mac user interface for managing Docker containers.

... Elastica closed a series B funding round of $30 million, led by Third Point Ventures.

Here’s what else SDxCentral covered lately:

• Canonical Lived the Open Source Dream at MWC
• With Domain 2.0 Backing, Affirmed Networks Rides the NFV Wave
• NFV Orchestration Wars: Cyan Lands CenturyLink
• Juniper Bursts Forth With New Routers, Switches, & Security
• Networking Opens Up at Open Compute Summit
• NFV Insider’s Series, Part X: No Momentum Loss In NFV
• Ericsson Just Laid Off 2,200 Employees
• HP Cloudline Gives Open Compute an Off-the-Shelf Option
• England's Bristol is Building the First Software-Defined City
• Broadcom's OpenNSL Invites Open Source Development
• Cloud RAN & 5G Will Bring SDN/NFV to Mobile Networks
• In Mobile Backhaul, Coriant Pieces Together Its SDN Strategy