Tag Archives: SoC

NormCyber becomes first European Fortinet partner to attain SOC accreditation

NormCyber, the award-winning managed security service provider for mid-sized organisations, today announced that it has achieved Security Operations, Operational Technology (OT), and Cloud Security specialisations as part of the Fortinet Engage Partner Programme.

NormCyber is the first MSSP in Europe and only one in six firms across the wider EMEA region to achieve all three specialisations, demonstrating its commitment to helping midmarket organisations bolster their cyber resilience with state-of-the-art tools and practices.

A Fortinet partner since 2019, NormCyber has undergone rigorous sales training and multiple technical exams to achieve Advanced status in all three specialisations, proving its ability to deliver the full spectrum of Fortinet’s security solutions with certified staff to handle various implementation requirements.

With the Security Operations Specialisation, NormCyber is able to demonstrate its deep technical understanding and expertise when it comes to the delivery and operation of Fortinet’s security information and event management (SIEM), security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) and endpoint detection response (EDR) in the SOC, along with deeper understanding of advanced analytics. Through this, NormCyber can manage security operations in a more efficient way on behalf of customers, allowing for response in near-real time.

To achieve the Operational Technology Specialisation, NormCyber’s sales and technical teams have demonstrated both a deep understanding of OT best practices and requirements as well as experience of deploying IT and OT security solutions. NormCyber can now help Fortinet customers secure their converged IT-OT networks to close OT security gaps, as well as provide the visibility, control and behavioural analytics they require.

For the Cloud Security Specialisation, NormCyber has demonstrated its proficiency in managing Fortinet’s portfolio of solutions, helping organisations to securely deploy on any cloud or virtual data centre with consistent policies, centralised management and visibility, security automation and orchestration. NormCyber can help customers better secure their cloud environments, with advanced application and API protection, hybrid security and cloud-native protection.
In a fast-moving industry, specialisations focused on market opportunities enabled by the Fortinet Engage Partner Programme help partners to be recognised and valued by current and potential customers as trusted partners which have the expertise, services and technologies they need to fulfil their business needs.

“Today, with mid-sized organisations facing a complex web of cyber security risks and an overwhelming choice for tools, NormCyber prides itself in standing out in the midmarket with its clear and straightforward approach, and with its commitment to partnering with best-of-breed solution providers,” said Paul Cragg, CTO at NormCyber. “Fortinet’s solutions fit perfectly into our strategy and so we take great pride in being the first cyber security services provider in Europe to achieve this hat-trick of specialisations, particularly as it speaks to our SOC team’s strengths.”

“Fortinet has developed a very strong relationship with NormCyber since the moment we started working together back in 2019”, said Guillaume Schlienger, EMEA MSSP Security Operations Leader at Fortinet. “Their flexible and customer centric approach to solving the complex cyber security challenges that mid-sized organisations face has enabled them to grow exponentially as a Fortinet partner, and we were delighted to recognise them as our first partner in Europe to achieve these specialisations.”

Picocom validates 5G Open RAN SoC with Radisys interoperability milestone

Companies partner to deliver integrated Open RAN platforms to joint customers

Bristol, UK – 19 May 2022 – Picocom, the 5G Open RAN baseband semiconductor and software specialist, announced that through close partnership with Radisys, they are delivering joint 5G Open RAN platforms to customers based on Picocom’s PC802 small cell System-on-Chip (SoC) and Radisys’ Connect RAN 5G software. The PC802 flexible, low power device empowers the innovation of a new breed of 5G NR Open RAN products.

The current PC802-based interoperability milestone is based on the O-RAN split 7.2 architecture. It includes the Radisys Connect RAN 5G software (Layer 2 and Layer 3) running on an x86-based server, interfacing to the Picocom Layer 1 (L1) with the Small Cell Forum FAPI interface.

“We only just announced PC802 in December, the world’s first 4G/5G device dedicated to developing small cells with integrated support for Open RAN (Radio Access Networks) standards, so it’s great that several customers have already integrated it into their products. The wider availability of optimised silicon is just the stimulus the Open RAN telecom industry needs,” said Oliver Davies, VP Marketing, Picocom.

“Close teamwork between the Picocom and Radisys teams has enabled a high degree of interoperability in these early days of PC802. We’ve established a plan of interoperability/demo phases over 2022 for different RAN architectures and roadmap features. We recognise the significant contribution that Radisys has provided at this important validation phase of PC802,” added Vicky Messer, VP Product Management, Picocom.

“This has been a great partnership with Picocom to deliver an interoperable Open RAN small cell platform to market,” said Munish Chhabra, head of Mobility Software and Services, Radisys. “Our award-winning Connect RAN 5G NR software suite is compliant with 3GPP and O-RAN Alliance specifications, as well as the SCF’s FAPI specification, and it is playing a critical role in this Open RAN solution, making our joint vision of a thriving Open RAN ecosystem a reality today.”

Radisys and Picocom have cooperated closely to provide complete Open RAN solutions. The joint Open RAN split 7.2 configuration uses Radisys RAN protocol software CU (L3) and DU (L2) running on an Intel x86 COTS server. L1 and Open Fronthaul (OFH) run on a Picocom PC802 SoC on an inline accelerator card.

The interface between L2 and L1 is compliant with the standard Small Cell Forum FAPI protocol. The same FAPI stream is used not just to control L1 processing on PC802 but directly controls OFH Control-Plane and User-Plane processing, transparently marrying together the FAPI and OFH protocols.

The two companies are now preparing an integrated small cell solution based on PC802, with the RAN software running on a low form factor Arm-based network processor.

The PC802 is a purpose-designed PHY SoC for 5G NR/LTE small cell disaggregated and integrated Open RAN architectures that includes support for 4G. The SoC supports industry-leading Open RAN specifications and interfaces with a Layer 2/3 stack via the SCF FAPI interface over PCIe.

PC802 live demos to feature at Small Cells World Summit (SCWS) 2022 May 24-25, in London: smallcells.world. For more information and/or to download the product brief on Picocom’s PC802 5G small cell SoC, visit picocom.com/products/socs/pc802.