Roundup: Verizon, Cisco, QTS

Here’s our review of today’s noteworthy links for the data center industry:

Verizon nets $186 million contract with US Postal Service.  Verizon (VZ) announced that the United States Postal Service has selected Verizon as a prime contractor in the Postal Service’s Telecommunications Integrated Postal Services (TIPN) contract. The $186 million contract extends a long-standing relationship between the two orgnaizations and has Verizon continuing to plan, design, install and manage a private, converged Internet protocol communications network based on multiprotocol label switching (MPLS). "The Postal Service’s operations are among the most far-reaching and complex in the world, and Verizon is helping them keep the mailing public connected every step of the way," said Susan Zeleniak, group president for Verizon Federal. "Whether it’s tracking Express Mail, selling stamps on usps.com or linking more than 31,000 postal facilities, we’re delivering the communications backbone that helps keep the mail on time in a modern world." Verizon will continue to manage the Post Office network 365 days a year, from Verizon’s dedicated network operations center in Cary, North Carolina.

Cisco Videoscape products launched at CES.  Cisco (CSCO) used the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to launch new Videoscape products and to show how major service providers have selected Videoscape to deliver their next generation video services. Videoscape is Cisco's TV platform for service providers that combines digital TV and online video content with social media and communication applications. New offerings in the product will enable "video in the cloud" services that will drive new revenue streams for providers. Built on the Unified Cloud Services platform, new Videoscape cloud components include Voyager Virtual, Cisco Conductor back-office technology, Cisco Media Processor and Transcode Manager and Videoscape Content Delivery Network (CDN) analytics. Videoscape is uniquely designed as an open software-based platform that provides a migration path to an all IP-based video infrastructure, with cloud, network and client components working together to allow video experiences to move, pause and resume across all of these devices.  "Service providers are looking for ways to bridge the gaps to IP and cloud migration and offer consumers quality video experiences that follow them anywhere," said Greg Ireland, research manager at IDC Consumer Video. "Cisco's Videoscape brings an array of capabilities to the table, allowing service providers an opportunity to leverage some or all of its features to enable compelling experiences across multiple screens." Videoscape was selected by such service providers as Rogers Communications of Canada, YES of Israel and Numericable of France.

QTS selected by cloud provider eApps.  QTS (Quality Technology Services) announced that private cloud provider eApps is expanding its presence into the QTS Richmond Data Center. Previously hosted in QTS' Suwanee Data Center, eApps desired to add multi-data center connectivity and this led the company to select an additional QTS facility to host its growing private cloud services. "Expanding into Richmond is a natural next step as we continue to grow our infrastructure and serve our customers," said Richard Lingsch, president - eApps.  "The redundancy, security, service and collaborative nature of our partnership with QTS has been an asset to our business.  We look forward to growing and deepening that relationship in this new state-of-the-art facility." The expansion is eApps' fourth with QTS in past 10 months.