Here are the top stories SDxCentral wrangled this week related to SDN, NFV, 5G, IoT, containers, cloud, and more: 

Cisco Integrates Viptela SD-WAN Tech on Existing Routers — The Viptela technology (and team) were rolled up into IWAN.

Nokia Validates xRAN by Joining Industry Consortium — The membership signals a big shift in the vendor's strategy.

LinkedIn's Project Falco Swoops Up SONiC Switching Platform — The projects working group developed a homegrown switch, Pigeon.

Here are the week's strays and stragglers we roped for you: 

Qualcomm unanimously rejected Broadcom's nominees for its board on the basis that they wouldn't bring new skills or expertise.

Nokia added support for cloud-ready automated deployment on its Data Refinery data processing software.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its Paris Region, with three Availability Zones.

Cisco partnered with Zain Group, a North Africa telecom provider, to expand the telco’s IP/MPLS network for increased flexibility, adaptability, and next generation network capabilities.

Ericsson partnered with Vodafone UK and completed a pre-standard 5G test using a prototype device in the UK.

CENX signed TM Forum’s Open API Manifesto and is working with Telefónica, Vodafone, Ericsson, and 24 other service providers  to develop an industry standard for application programming interface (API) integration.

Lumina Networks released version 7.1 of its SDN Controller, powered by OpenDaylight Nitrogen.

Sprint’s 2.5-GHz spectrum band was included in the non-standalone 3GPP NR specification.

Data center provider Telehouse America selected Juniper Networks to build a multi-tenant infrastructure to bridge some of its U.S. data centers.

EdgeX Foundry added five new members to its Internet of Things (IoT) edge computing group.

Four companies were selected for the European Space Agency’s Copernicus data and information access service (DIAS) project to integrated public cloud worldwide.

Veeam, a data management software provider, released version 3 of its Availability Suite 9.5, enabling enterprises to replace legacy backup offerings and more.

Plexxi, a hyperconverged networking (HCN) company, added five select European partners to validate its HCN platform in the region.

Security company LogRhythm launched a User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) product to provide additional security coverage.

Cloud security firm HyTrust released CloudAdvisor to discover, classify, and protect workload data.

Network performance and visibility company Empirix joined the ETSI and its MANO community.

Technology incubator and VC Victory Square firm will acquire 20 percent of Multapplied Networks, a software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) company.

Ericsson signed a funding agreement with the Nordic Investment Bank for 5G research and development and other mobile innovations.

Here are the other stories SDxCentral covered this week: 

  • Kubeflow Project Tacks Machine Learning on top of Kubernetes
  • The No. 1 Hyperconverged Infrastructure Vendor is...
  • Alphabet's Schmidt To Step Down as Chairman
  • Microsoft Slashes Azure Cosmos DB Fee for Container Management
  • Vertek Ramps up Migration, Provisioning Services for VeloCloud SD-WAN
  • Dear Santa, Here's What SDxCentral Editors Want for Christmas
  • AT&T, Comcast Pledge Bonuses, CapEx Boost Tied to Tax Reform
  • SD-WAN Vendor TELoip Names Former AT&T Exec as CEO
  • Amazon Web Services Gives in to Blockchain Craze
  • Ericsson, Qualcomm Achieve 5G Interoperability Using New Standard
  • 3GPP Approves First 5G Specification
  • Is Container Confusion Hindering Security Advances?
  • How Google Uses Encryption to Secure Against Cloud Data Leaks
  • RedHat Fails to Impress Investors with Robust Q3 2018 Results
  • Why Cisco, McAfee Say Security Vendors Must Share Threat Intel to Beat the Baddies
  • NTT DoCoMo and Huawei Tout High-Speed, Long-Distance mmWave Trial
  • LiveAction Forms Service Provider Business Unit with LivingObjects Team and Tech
  • Telefónica Selects CA Technologies for API Management
  • 5G Will Take its First Step Toward Standardization This Week
  • IDC Predicts the vCPE and uCPE Market to Reach $3B by 2021
  • Enterprise Security Spending Will Total $96.3B in 2018, Gartner Says
  • Oracle Constructs $1.2B Offer for Cloud Firm Aconex
  • Equinix Acquires Metronode for $792M, Extending Australian Footprint
  • AT&T Will Use FlexWare Platform in Waco 5G Trial
  • Safety Company Uses SD-WAN to Connect Manufacturing Plants
  • HPE's New Chapter Under Neri: What's Next?
  • Kubernetes 1.9 Development Shows Challenges of Growing Up
  • CableLabs Announces Two Open Source Projects for NFV
  • Qualcomm Hits Glitch in $38B NXP Purchase