Here's our weekly update of various happenings in the software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) world.

Flash-storage vendor SolidFire announced the names of nine cloud providers that have launched services using SolidFire storage.

SolidFire's pitch is that it's developed its storage with cloud scale in mind. It's developed features such as a quality-of-service (QoS) mechanism to arbitrate among all the applications that each try to eat up as much memory as they need — the idea being to increase scale. "We're allowing them to run a greater number of applications and many different types of applications, all in the same system," says Jay Pressl, Solidfire's vice president of marketing.

CENX announced a Tier 1 mobile operator is using the vendor's Ethernet Lifestyle Manager — software for ordering, provisioning, and optimizing an Ethernet service — for mobile backhaul services. The idea is to extract information from a service provider's OSS layer and use it to provision connections automatically.

CENX developed the software for its Ethernet exchange, which it envisioned as a kind of swap meet where carriers could find connnectivity partners to extend the reach of Ethernet services.

... AllThingsD reported that startup vIPtela raised $33 million from Sequoia Capital. The startup happily mentions Sequoia on its web site but doesn't say much else. Based on reporter Arik Hesseldahl's description, vIPtela appears to be working on something related to cloud access.

... Ixia updated its IxNetwork testing platform to emulate OpenFlow 1.3 switches.

... KEMP Technologies announced its application delivery controller (ADC) is now available in bare-metal form on Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS). KEMP is trying to fill the gap created last year when Cisco gave up on its Application Control Engine (ACE).

... JDSU announced a $200 million deal to acquire Network Instruments, which makes network monitoring equipment. That includes gear for watching virtualized networks.

... "SDN isn’t the cause of Cisco’s malady; it’s just a symptom," analyst Tom Nolle writes on the CIMI Corp. blog. He thinks Cisco has the right idea of how to become more of a "software" company, but he's worried Wall Street won't care.