News

Nuage Updates 'SD-WAN 2.0' Virtualized Network Services Platform

• By David Ramel
• 09/24/2018

Nuage Networks claimed several industry "firsts" in announcing an update to its Virtualized Network Services (VNS) platform, which it characterizes as an SD-WAN 2.0 offering.

SD-WAN 2.0 is a vaguely defined industry term used by several companies to mark next-generation products building and expanding upon the original SD-WAN movement, which brought the upstart software-defined networking (SDN) technology approach to wide-area networks (WANs).

Nuage says SD-WAN 2.0 goes beyond that original mission of delivering agile WAN connectivity -- such as the automation and management of branch offices connectivity -- which increased the reach of corporate networks while reducing operational complexity.

To further that original mission, the company claims its improved VNS platform adds more functionality, including end-to-end security. What's more, the company says its VNS platform is the first such offering to use a services architecture to provide enterprise IT services across datacenters, public clouds, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider clouds and enterprise branch sites.

Through a single management interface -- often referred to as a "single plane of glass" -- enterprises can orchestrate and deliver these services, including VoIP, next-generation firewall, Internet of Things (IoT) and W-iFi access.

The company quoted Cliff Grossner, senior research director at IHS Markit, as saying Nuage's new offering answers an important requirement in a market that IDC forecasts to reach $4.5 billion in 2022.

"The adoption of SD-WAN by enterprise grows rapidly, driven by the desire to connect branch locations and on-premises datacenters with workloads placed in cloud service provider datacenters and SaaS services," Nuage quoted Grossner as saying. "Effectively, enterprises are creating a multi-cloud ecosystem. Ensuring a high-quality user experience with applications distributed across the multi-cloud makes secure, high-performance adaptive connectivity an imperative."

IDC, in addition to forecasting the huge growth in the SD-WAN market, also weighed in on Nuage's new update. "Network challenges are coming to the fore as organizations worldwide embrace multi-cloud as a means of achieving digital-transformation objectives," Nuage quoted IDC's Brad Casemore, research VP, as saying. "Indeed, IDC finds that enterprises are thinking more comprehensively and holistically about how their networks will support the full spectrum of multi-cloud -- from on-premises datacenters to IaaS [Infrastructure-as-a-Service] and Saas public clouds and out to the branch offices and remote locations that constitute the intelligent edge. With its latest release of the Virtualized Services Platform (VSP) and its vision for SD-WAN 2.0, Nuage Networks addresses the need for secure networking across the multi-cloud landscape."

Nuage -- a unit of Nokia -- said more than 400 enterprise customers use its Virtualized Network Services platform.