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

… The bloodletting continues at HP. The company announced it will lay off another 11,000 to 16,000 people in addition to the 34,000 jobs it cut last December. With cuts expected across all business units and all geographies, HP says the company will save $1 billion on top of the expected $3 billion to $4 billion in expected savings from the winter layoffs.

… Ruckus Wireless introduced the virtual SmartCell Gateway (vSCG) for wireless LAN networks, describing it as an NFV construct. It could be used by carriers to deliver a WiFi network as a managed service, where the carrier would keep the WiFi controllers and gateways — the control plane — in the cloud. (Access points would still need to be installed around the enterprise, of course.) The vSCG is set for general availability in June.

… Not-so-separately, Ruckus is apparently at the heart of Google's planned WiFi services for small and medium businesses, according to a GigaOm report.

… Huawei has appointed Ming He as country general manager of U.S. operations, where he will lead the enterprise and carrier network business groups. Interestingly enough, the technology giant seems to be planting its flag in the U.S. carrier market, where it is essentially a non-player and the company is still seen by the U.S. government as a national security threat.

… Cisco declared its intent to acquire ThreatGRID, a provider of malware analysis and threat intelligence for both on-premises and cloud networks. The announcement came in the midst of Cisco Live, which has been going on in San Francisco this week.

… Another security-related acquisition: F5 purchased Defense.Net, a company whose focus is on-premises protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

… ADVA Optical demoed an SDN-controlled 4K video services network developed in collaboration with HEAnet, i2CAT, and Eurotek. ADVA used OpenDaylight to build an SDN controller to work with ADVA FSP 3000’s reconfigurable optical add drop multiplexers (ROADMs), and OpenNaaS orchestration platform.

... Finally, here's a summary of other news covered on SDxCentral this week. Cisco Live dominated the lineup, of course: