ANTONY SAVVAS SD-WANs
GLOBAL EXTENSIONS The VMware acquisition also coincided with SD-WAN service launches by the likes of BT, China Telecom and Fujitsu Network Communications, and such launches have continued this year. Interoute recently entered the South American market with its optical network to support SD-WAN demand. Interoute’s South American services will first of all be available in São Paulo, Brazil, delivering a range of connectivity solutions in collaboration with local partners, as well as hosting a new Interoute Virtual Data Centre (VDC) zone. Mark Lewis, EVP of products and development at Interoute, says: “Strategically, this is a significant development for the Interoute Enterprise Digital Platform as it brings our cloud and SD-WAN capabilities to a whole new continent. “Our platform helps enterprises optimise the performance of applications deployed from SaaS providers and hosted in dispersed data centre locations around the globe, regional presence is key to accelerating that performance across our low-latency SDN core network.” The Interoute Enterprise Digital Platform combines a global fibre optic network with a software defined core, a global cloud computing platform and edge SD-WAN and security devices for connecting sites, offices and branches to optimise enterprise data traffic flows.
Eastern Europe has also seen an expansion in SD-WAN activity with VEON recently joining the ngena alliance (next generation enterprise network alliance) to offer SD-WANs in the region. Founded by Deutsche Telekom, CenturyLink, Reliance Jio and SK Telekom in 2016, the alliance has now grown to include several new telecom partners such as A1, Altice with SFR and Portugal Telecom, Expereo, KPN, Neutrona, Starhub, Telus and PCCW. VEON is now selling SD-WANs to its business customers in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The ngena offering allows enterprises to benefit from consistent data connectivity services by merging the networks of alliance partners into one global software-defined network (SDN). The architecture is based on sharing local network assets using cloud and virtualisation technologies to provide hybrid services. This allows enterprise customers of each member of the alliance to have a global data connectivity network which is secure, stable, scalable and easy to use, while being supported by the local access and local care of each alliance member. Eugene Viskovic, chief business officer at VEON, said: “Through this shared network VEON is in a position to provide SD-WANs globally, and ngena can extend the reach of its members to VEON’s unique Eurasian geographical footprint.” In the last 18 months much as happened in the evolving SD-WAN market, and no doubt there is plenty more to come.
The VeloCloud purchase put VMware on a collision course with Cisco, which had already paid $610m for rival SD-WAN player Viptela earlier in 2017, to target the same customer base. Cisco also happened to be a VeloCloud investor. Using its Viptela acquisition, Cisco recently won an SD-WAN deployment deal with Orange Business Services, which is now using the Cisco Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS) in conjunction with its own universal customer premise equipment (uCPE) orchestration solution. Orange can now provide automated Cisco SD-WAN deployments, based on Viptela technology, in minutes on all enterprise sites, wherever they are located. The uCPE can run multiple additional functions, such as security, which can be orchestrated centrally. This means that enterprises can dynamically adapt the branch office configuration to optimise user experience. INNOVATIONS Pierre-Louis Biaggi, vice president of connectivity at Orange Business Services, says: “Together we are bringing innovations in SD-WAN and the wider network to our customers worldwide. These developments will use artificial intelligence to automatically orchestrate networks based on predicted user demand. This will help improve application performance, security and business continuity.”
www.opticalconnectionsnews.com
33
ISSUE 12 | Q1 2018
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker