News

SD-WAN Players Maneuver with Partnerships

• By David Ramel
• 02/04/2019

As the fast-growing software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) space shakes itself out, industry players are maneuvering to cash in on market opportunities with a series of partnerships.

Two such pacts announced on the same day last week serve as the latest examples of this trend, as SD-WAN is emerging as the primary avenue for the game-changing, disruptive software-centric movement to crack the enterprise networking space.

Last Wednesday (Jan. 30), Cloud Computing Concepts (C3) announced a new SD-WAN offering powered by VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud. The same day, PanTerra Networks and Bigleaf Networks announced they were teaming up to deliver SD-WAN services.

C3, described as a technology and communications services provider, said VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud combines the benefits of a real-time network overlay -- economics and flexibility -- with the benefits of cloud-delivered services such as deployment speed, scalability and automation.

The VMware SD-WAN solution consists of a distributed network of VMware SD-WAN Gateways, a cloud-based VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator and a branch platform called VMware SD-WAN Edge, according to its site.

"The VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud solution allows our network architects to select the appropriate connectivity solution(s) on a site-by-site basis, and then present them to the client as a unified, easily-managed enterprise network," said Rick Mancinelli, CEO of C3, in a statement. "We can now drive down cost and reduce complexity while simultaneously accelerating connectivity to next generation technologies such as video collaboration, cloud computing, and IoT."

While the above announcement was made by C3 in Delray Beach, Fla., PanTerra Networks and Bigleaf Networks on the West Coast announced a wholesale agreement in which Bigleaf's SD-WAN solution will be included in PanTerra's Streams business communication suite.

Bigleaf says its cloud-first SD-WAN combines cloud attributes such as speed, agility and cost-effectiveness with the reliability of MPLS systems that SD-WAN is supplanting around the world.

That combination will reportedly provide customer benefits such as:

• Simple Install: Routers come pre-configured, requiring no changes to existing security environment. The install is simply a matter of adding the Bigleaf-provided public IP address to the existing firewall.
• Intelligent load balancing: Monitors circuit conditions and adapts load balancing in real-time to match application traffic needs to circuit performance.
• Dynamic QoS: Autonomously detects and prioritizes VoIP and other collaboration traffic in both directions across commodity Internet connections, even with varying bandwidth.
• Avoid dropped calls: Provides the benefits of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) without the hassle and cost. Applications stay connected even if a circuit fails.

"We're excited to see cloud providers such as PanTerra see the value in using Bigleaf SD-WAN with their service offerings for real-time quality of service, load balancing, and uptime protection," said Joel Mulkey, Bigleaf founder and CEO, in a statement. "With more applications running across customer networks all the time, customers need a solution built on intelligent software to protect their critical communication and collaboration applications. PanTerra's robust end-to-end solution is a perfect match with our company focus."

The two partnerships detailed above are but the latest of a growing trend in the software-defined ecosystem as evidenced by recent news of BT tapping Cisco tech for a managed SD-WAN service and Verizon teaming up with other major SDN players to bundle virtualization services for enterprises looking for an easier onramp to the new technology. Versa Networks has been especially active, forming partnerships with Mode (an SD-CORE) startup, Microsoft (Azure Virtual WAN), various partners for Amazon Web Services initiatives, Amdocs (SDN, NFV orchestration), and more.

With SD-WAN predicted to explode in the coming years, stay tuned for more partnership moves as industry players jockey for position to capitalize on that growth.