Orange Business picks Ekinops and Dell for uCPE

Orange Business Services has chosen Ekinops and Dell Technologies as partners for a new universal customer premise equipment (uCPE) solution.

The uCPE solution, which is a result of co-innovation between companies, combines Enterprise Branch Server IT and Virtualization Management. It uses hardware provided by Dell Technologies OEM | Embedded & Edge Solutions running middleware built by Ekinops. It will allow enterprises to consolidate their site connectivity and functionality with virtual network functions (VNF) management.

Enterprises can install VNFs remotely to a uCPE deployed at any site. A single box can run multiple network functions, such as routers, SD-WAN, firewalls and WAN optimization, allowing customers to provision new sites and services much more quickly. The Ekinops VNF certification program currently has certified over 30 third-party VNFs.

“Our global enterprise customers require increased flexibility in terms of connectivity solutions and infrastructure optimization. This uCPE solution developed with Ekinops and Dell Technologies will give enterprises further choice in terms of deployment and reinforces our ecosystem-based approach. We believe that flexible solutions such as these are essential for customers looking to run an increasing number of services at the Edge,” said Anne-Marie Thiollet, Vice President, Connectivity Business Unit, Orange Business Services.

“The combination of our middleware and VNFs with the powerful uCPEs and global presence of Dell will ensure the best possible quality, performance and support for Orange enterprise customers. We are committed to help service providers adopt software-defined networking, and our growing line of software products has proven to be at the cutting edge, as this announcement attests,” said Didier Brédy, Ekinops CEO.

“Our uCPE range offers an ideal solution for service providers who are looking to modernize operations for connecting branch locations to the WAN, reduce complexity and foster business impact,” said Sanjay Tyagi, Vice President and General Manager, EMEA OEM | Embedded & Edge Solutions, Dell Technologies.

http://www.orange-business.com

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MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Certification Program gets underway

MEF is launching a MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Certification Program, with Spirent Communications as the SD-WAN Authorized Certification and Test Partner (ACTP), enabling service and technology providers to validate that their SD-WAN services and products conform to the recently published SD-WAN Service Attributes and Services (MEF 70) standard.

The certification will test the service attributes and their behaviors defined in MEF 70 and described in detail in the upcoming MEF SD-WAN Certification Test Requirements (MEF 90) standard. Demonstration of conformity with the industry’s first SD-WAN services standard is a valuable reference baseline for users choosing a service supplier in the inevitable confusion of a fast-growing new market.

MEF and Spirent have already begun working with an initial group of 7 service providers and technology vendors selected to participate in the MEF 3.0 SD-WAN Certification Pilot Program. The first certified companies are expected to be announced in Q1 2020.

“There are expansive opportunities in the SD-WAN market, with tens of billions of dollars in revenue at stake during the next five years, and many service providers are looking to quickly develop and advance their SD-WAN offerings to ensure they remain competitive,” said Nan Chen, President, MEF. “MEF 3.0 SD-WAN standardization and certification will play a vital role in accelerating SD-WAN market growth and facilitating creation of powerful new hybrid networking solutions optimized for digital transformation. Spirent’s technology, market leadership, and global reach make it a great partner to help maximize SD-WAN’s full market potential through certification.”

Commenting on the significant new partnership, Abhitesh Kastuar, General Manager of Spirent’s Cloud and IP business, said, "Spirent has earned a global reputation as the advisor and vendor-neutral authority that guides complex deployments of new technologies. SD-WAN is a particularly important innovation that accelerates the value realization of virtualized infrastructures, and Spirent solutions assure that resulting SD-WAN services are ready to perform as expected. We are pleased to join forces with MEF on the first SD-WAN Certification Program and look forward to the important work ahead of us as MEF 3.0 SD-WAN rolls out around the world.”

“SD-WAN is a dynamic service delivered using software-defined networking, virtualization, and inherent security and therefore requires a significant level of testing, validation, and assurance to achieve certification,” said Marc Cohn, Spirent Head of Virtualization. “The transition from traditional to MEF 3.0 orchestrated and assured services is significant to Spirent and for the entire global communications industry. We are thrilled to participate as the official SD-WAN Authorized Certification and Test Partner.”

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Building highly-resilient SD-WANs

Traditional out-of-band network technology started out with deployments in large data centers, providing the ability to remotely access network infrastructure, says Gary Marks, CEO, Open Gear. Deployments have quickly grown to the edge, where there is strong demand driven by IoT and other applications. SD-WAN is now driving strong demand for out-of-band solutions.

This video talks about using out-of-band technology to build highly-resilent SD-WANs.

https://youtu.be/8kNQvisKp-c

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Versa Titan delivers cloud-managed SD-WAN branch and security

Versa Networks released a cloud-managed SD-WAN branch and security solution that simplifies the complexity associated with wide-area network transformation.

The new Versa Titan, which is available through certified partners as a cloud-managed service, incorporates all core functionality of Versa Secure Cloud IP, Versa's fully integrated, cloud native, contextually-aware software stack. Versa Titan delivers offers cloud-based SD-WAN and software-defined security management tools via a Web browser that enhance visibility into security vulnerabilities, application behavior, network performance and bandwidth utilization.

Versa Titan also brings to market the Versa Cloud Services Gateway (CSG), a Versa-branded appliance series that combines innovative hardware for high-performing advanced SD-WAN and security capabilities. Versa CSG runs Versa's FlexVNF software stack as a branch office endpoint appliance with integrated enterprise-class LTE, Wi-Fi and PoE to further simplify and improve the customer experience as organizations transition to multi-cloud and hybrid-WAN infrastructures.

"The complexity of traditional WAN infrastructure is cumbersome, performance inhibiting and counterproductive to fueling digital transformation. With limited ability to secure multi-device, mobile and IoT-centric networks, legacy WAN infrastructure restricts the ability to harness the advantages of cloud," said Rob Mustarde, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Versa Networks. "Versa Titan enables businesses to unleash the power and performance of a secure SD-WAN infrastructure without the added costs, complexity and footprint of legacy networking solutions."

https://www.versa-networks.com/partners/titan

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Sprint expands SD-WAN worldwide

Sprint announed the worldwide expansion of its Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) services worldwide.

"With just one dedicated Sprint team and one simple portal in the cloud, an enterprise is now able to more intelligently manage all of its network resources across the globe with the geographic expansion of our SD-WAN services," said Mike Fitz, vice president of the Sprint Global Wireline Business Unit. "Intuitive cloud-based management allows thousands of applications to be easily managed across any network to any destination, all anchored by Sprint's worldwide, Tier 1 wireline network. The result is better network availability, unparalleled monitoring, superior converged application support, an improved user experience and overall reduced operational costs."

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Anuta Supports Remote Deployment of Tata Communications’ IZO SDWAN

Anuta Networks announced that its NCX orchestrator has been successfully deployed by the global managed services provider Tata Communications for automating the roll-out of the company’s IZO SDWAN offering across 130 countries.

NCX delivers configuration and policy management for multi-vendor network devices using extensible device and service models. For Tata Communications’ IZO SDWAN, NCX automates Cisco Integrated Services Routers, Cisco Aggregation Services Routers and Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series. In addition to provisioning, NCX collects telemetry from thousands of network elements to provide customers with unprecedented visibility into their network operations.

“Since launching IZO SDWAN, we’ve seen significant interest in this service from our enterprise customers who want to make the most of their cloud deployments, while reducing the complexity of moving to the cloud,” said Peter Juffernholz, Associate Vice President, Virtualized Network Services at Tata Communications. “To enhance the self-service capabilities of IZO SDWAN and enable on-demand service provisioning, including network telemetry driven service assurance, we have partnered with Anuta Networks. The company’s NCX network orchestrator has the breadth and depth of features we needed to automate remote branch deployments for our customers globally.”

“The transition to cloud-centric service delivery including hybrid cloud, presents a great opportunity for managed services providers,” said Chandu Guntakala, President & CEO of Anuta Networks. “NCX with its YANG model driven architecture empowers them to automate complex provisioning and operational flows. It gives me immense pleasure to partner with Tata Communications to accelerate the company’s IZO™ SDWAN deployments.”

http://www.anutanetworks.com/

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Windstream builds its enhanced ‘Cloud Connect’

Windstream introduced an enhanced version of its Cloud Connect solution, providing a dedicated, high-speed, highly secure cloud-optimized network connection to major Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM Bluemix, Google Cloud, Oracle Fast Connect and Salesforce. The service is available immediately to companies in Windstream’s nationwide service area.

Windstream Cloud Connect offers customers flexible bandwidth options ranging from 50 Mbps to 10 Gbps, with the ability to design customer solutions using multiple 10 Gbps connections. It also supports a variety of connectivity options – including SD-WAN, MPLS VPN, VLS or new wavelengths.

“Windstream Cloud Connect enables customers to confidently and more cost-effectively migrate mission critical applications, workloads and business processes to the cloud,” said Joseph Harding, executive vice president and enterprise chief marketing officer at Windstream. “We are confident that Windstream Cloud Connect will deliver a better and more cost-effective experience for large and mid-sized enterprises than any of our competitors.”

Windstream said its Cloud Connect allows customers to more easily move data and workloads between cloud environments, as well as maximize flexibility and scalability by integrating dedicated onsite IT infrastructure with shared offsite cloud-based environments. These cloud-based environments enable them to optimize application performance and reliability, increase network resiliency and simplify network management.

http://windstreambusiness.com

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Versa confirms that Verizon SD-Branch using its FlexVNF software

Versa Networks confirmed that it has been added to Verizon’s SND platform for its new Software Defined Secure Branch (SD-Branch) managed service. Specifically, Verizon’s SD-Branch offering utilizes the Versa FlexVNF Software, which combines network and security capabilities to provide a full suite of Layer 3 to Layer 7 IP services that are built on a cloud-native, multi-tenant software platform.

The Verizon offering includes software based networking, cloud based end user management and virtualized security services for protecting and simplifying branch network architectures.

Versa said its solution enables Verizon's Virtual Network Services customers to reduce complexity and control costs by virtualizing multiple components of a branch office. These include public and private network connectivity management, wireless connectivity, multi-site network support, application based quality of service and multi layered security.

“Verizon has been an early and aggressive innovator in software defining their network, as well as their customers’ networks,” said Kelly Ahuja, CEO of Versa Networks. “Verizon saw the wider set of challenges that businesses were having across branch offices, and has designed a comprehensive service to virtualize, software define, manage and secure the full branch.”

“Businesses are adopting digital technologies as mainstream elements of their go to market strategy,” said Shawn Hakl, vice president of business networking and security solutions. “Software defining the branch office and WAN provides them with a flexible networking platform to accelerate cloud and digital migration while reducing IT complexity and controlling costs.”

https://www.versa-networks.com/press-release/versa-networks-added-verizons-software-defined-networking-ecosystem/

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Silver Peak EdgeConnect SD-WAN completes tests

Silver Peak's flagship Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution completed a series of rigorous network packet-loss resilience tests conducted by Miercom, a leading independent network test lab.

Specifically, Miercom, subjected the EdgeConnect solution to hands-on stress tests to validate the resiliency of multi-link bonded tunnels combined with path conditioning and dynamic path control.

Key Test Findings:

• The high availability link bonding policy continued to ensure connectivity during a blackout condition of an underlay
• Silver Peak high availability link bonding policy managed and adjusted to degrading link conditions and maintained application availability during a brownout condition
• Even if packets are dropped, bonded links in the high availability mode with forward error correction assured that no application data packets were lost over the connection
• Business intent overlays utilized tunnels, created by bonding multiple underlay links together to act as one, these overlays can perform micro-segmentation to apply security and QoS policies and to assist in meeting compliance requirements

Silver Peak said the results validated the solution’s ability to maintain peak network and application performance and availability through a series of real-world WAN transport congestion, brownout and blackout scenarios.

“While other SD-WAN vendors claim performance and resiliency, Silver Peak is effectively putting the industry on notice, challenging any vendor to submit their solution to a network torture test,” said Derek Granath, vice president of product marketing at Silver Peak. “Distributed enterprises will quickly find that, while others route around WAN service congestion and disruptions, only Silver Peak addresses underlying link performance issues to deliver a superior application experience, even under the most extreme packet-loss conditions.”

http://www.silver-peak.com

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Expereo opens SD-WAN POP at CoreSite Miami

Expereo, a leading managed SD-WAN, Internet connectivity services and cloud acceleration solutions provider, has deployed a new network Point of Presence (PoP) at CoreSite's Miami data center.

Expereo’s Miami POP provides 10GB connectivity to Latin America for its Cloud Acceleration service, called Accelerated Cloud Access (XCA). The company said this service overcomes the limitations of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing to deliver improved user productivity experiences for cloud applications, through speed and reliability optimized Internet routing.

“CoreSite is a high-performance partner that we know is highly reliable and provides an excellent customer experience,” said Sander Barens, Vice President of Commercial Development at Expereo. “As we worked to establish our Miami POP, it was clear to us that CoreSite was best positioned to provide the required international connectivity options that we need to support our Latin America services and ensure our customers have the performance and connectivity they expect from Expereo.”

http://www.coresite.com

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SD-WAN Managed Services update with FNC's Ralph Santitoro

Fujitsu Network Communications delivers SD-WAN-as-a-Service, a subscription-based SD-WAN managed service, that enables service providers to quickly get to market with an SD-WAN service offering.

“Fujitsu’s SD-WAN-as-a-Service uses the MEF’s work defining SD-WAN terminology, fundamental SD-WAN service capabilities and LSO reference architecture.  The MEF’s new SD-WAN service work has been quite beneficial in discussions with service & technology providers and end users, says. Ralph Santitoro, Head of SDN/NFV/SD-WAN Services at Fujitsu Network Communications.

See video: https://youtu.be/iTWO-2NakVY

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Cisco completes acquisition of Viptela for $610m

Cisco announced that it has completed the acquisition of Viptela, a privately held start-up company focused on software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology based in San Jose, California, for approximately $610 million in cash and assumed equity awards under an agreement originally announced in May, 2017.

Viptela has developed a secure overlay fabric for SD-WAN, cloud onramp and Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) applications for enterprise clients. The Viptela fabric is designed to enable separation of control, data, management and orchestration layers and integrates routing, security and policy controls and application awareness across all elements in the system. A key feature of the solution is integrated authentication, encryption, segmentation and access controls.

Viptela has announced major deployments of its fabric solution with customers including Verizon, Singtel and NTTPC of Japan.

Cisco noted that it already offers the software-based Cisco Intelligent WAN (IWAN) and Meraki SD-WAN solutions, with the Viptela acquisition intended to enable it to accelerate the development of next generation SD-WAN solutions. The Viptela team will join Cisco's Enterprise Routing team within the Networking and Security Business, led by SVP David Goeckeler.

https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1870481

* In June, Cisco unveiled its 'intent-based' networking solutions that are designed to provide an intuitive network able to continuously learn and adapt and automate and protect processes and services to provide organisations with an intelligent and secure platform for digital transformation. The acquisition of Viptela will support its strategic transition towards a software-centric, subscription-led networking model.

* Cisco stated that it plans to commit significant engineering resources to deliver next-generation SD-WAN solutions based on Viptela's technology. Cisco will combine Viptela's cloud-first network management, orchestration and overlay technologies with its existing enterprise routing platforms and solutions.

* Cisco, which was an investor in Viptela, entered into an agreement to acquire the company for $610 million from equity investors including Redline Captial, Northgate Capital and Sequoia Capital. The company was founded in 2012 and had raised total funding of approximately $108 million in four rounds, including $75 million in a Series C funding round announced in May 2016.

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S-Net teams with Versa Networks to provide SD-WAN

Chicago-based S-Net Communications, a provider of fibre Internet and VoIP business phone systems, announced it has partnered with next-generation software-based networking and security solutions supplier Versa Networks to offer enterprise and SMB customers a comprehensive communications solution supporting cloud voice services with enhanced security.

S-Net noted that developments in cloud, SDN and NFV technology is making it possible for service providers to use the cloud to deliver traditional and new communications services. However, this delivery model means that networking technologies such as MPLS are becoming too costly for enterprise customers, as well as being difficult to manage and scale compared with hybrid networks leveraging SD-WAN technology.

The new partnership with Versa Networks provides S-Net with a feature-rich secure SD-WAN solution designed to mitigate the challenges relating to cost and complexity. Utilising SD-WAN to augment or replace MPLS connectivity for its voice services allows S-Net to reduce complexity, increase agility and lower costs, while also delivering high call quality.

https://www.versa-networks.com/press-releases/

* In May, Versa Networks announced a significant expansion of its SDN capabilities from SD-WAN to the software-defined branch (SD-Branch). The expanded Versa Cloud IP Platform enables large enterprises and service providers to virtualise and software-define the branch and WAN to help reduce complexity and increase IT agility.

Managed service providers can use the Versa Cloud platform to offer a portfolio of managed services that combine MPLS, broadband Internet and mobile (3G/4G) network services with SD-Branch, SD-WAN, SD-Security or SD-Router functionality.

* S-Net is a major provider of high speed fibre-based Internet and VoIP business phone systems to enterprises and SMBs, currently serving over 30,000 subscribers on its communications platform.

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Talari enhances SD-WAN with WAN optimisation, security

Talari Networks, a developer of SD-WAN technology, announced that its latest software release includes WAN optimisation services that run natively in the core platform, and introduced a solution jointly validated with Zscaler, a provider of cloud security, to help companies transition to secure, direct-to-cloud connections.

Integrated WAN optimisation

Talari SD-WAN solutions now provide native support for core WAN optimisation features such as data compression and deduplication of data, in addition to congestion controls. Talari WAN Optimization (WAN-Op) is designed to improve efficiency across the WAN for bulk file-transfer traffic, particularly for data requested by more than one user at the same location. The integration of WAN-Op with the SD-WAN software is designed to help organisations simplify the branch office and realise cost efficiencies.

Secure solution

The solution validated with Zscaler enables Talari SD-WAN edge nodes to transparently forward all Internet traffic to the Zscaler cloud over IPsec tunnels, enabling faster performance, reduced bandwidth requirements and simplified operations. The service will be delivered via Talari's Adaptive Path Networking (APN) software (Release 7.0), available on currently supported physical, virtual and cloud appliances.

The Talari joint solution specifically delivers IPsec tunnels to the Zscaler cloud, with one active tunnel per Talari SD-WAN node, and Talari app-aware routing rules to selectively determine what traffic to forward to Zscaler.

SD-WAN performance enhancements

In addition to secure cloud gateway and WAN-Op services, Talari APN 7.0 provides new performance features for Talari appliances. Talari is expanding the VT800 virtual appliance performance rating to multi-gigabit, allowing the virtual appliance to address data centre as well as small branch location requirements.

In addition, for the cloud new performance enhancements for Azure enable customers decommissioning legacy data centres to utilise cloud servers. Talari is also extending the performance of VT1000 virtual appliances to 1 Gbit/s on VMware ESX to address the performance requirements of mid-market sites.

Talari is also enhancing the performance of its E100, T800, T3010 and T5200 hardware products.

http://www.talari.com/press_release/talari-expands-sd-wan-platform-partner-ecosystem-secure-network-transformation/

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The Need for SD-WAN Service Definitions and Open APIs

SD-WAN is one of the biggest transformations in telecom in the last 20 years, says Nav Chander, Senior Director of Service Provider Marketing at Silver Peak.  There is a significant role for the MEF in SD-WAN because the industry is in need of service definitions. The MEF has proven itself very adept at building such consensus.

Recorded at the MEF Annual Members' Meeting in Toronto.

See video:  https://youtu.be/Qe5ZS4dND4Q

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SD-WAN Interaction and the Importance of Interoperability

Verizon is rapidly expanding its portfolio of virtual services, including SD-WAN. Interoperability is increasingly important as these are rolled out across the globe. The ability to link SD-WAN into other services is critical, says Shawn Hakl, VP, Product and New Business Innovation, @VZEnterprise.

See video: https://youtu.be/2EysfBTwidc

Recorded at MEF Annual Member's Meeting in Toronto.

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CenturyLink introduces Managed Hybrid SD-WAN solutions

CenturyLink has announced the availability of CenturyLink Managed Hybrid SD-WAN solutions, offering complete WAN packages that leverage software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology to integrate traffic flows across both broadband Internet connections and private MPLS networks.

CenturyLink's new solutions employ application-aware routing to automatically identify the best end-to-end path based on application requirements and network  latency, and thereby provide optimal performance between users and applications regardless of where applications reside, whether on-premises or in the cloud.

CenturyLink Managed Hybrid SD-WAN solutions are designed to allow businesses to accelerate their transformation to next-generation networks by reducing the complexities associated with integration, operations and performance management when creating a hybrid WAN environment. As part of the offering, CenturyLink provides core infrastructure, design and implementation, security, transport and provider management, along with centralised monitoring and management.

The managed SD-WAN solution also features encryption, segmentation and security policy control via a central portal that secures traffic at all business locations, including branches. Additionally, CenturyLink's range of managed security services that include security log monitoring and incident management and response can also be integrated into the solution.

CenturyLink Managed Hybrid SD-WAN solutions are also available to CenturyLink Alliance program partners.

Regarding the new offering, Troy Trenchard, VP, product management at CenturyLink, said, "the Managed Hybrid SD-WAN solutions enable businesses to leverage their existing investments in MPLS while adding next-generation network capabilities… by using these new offerings, businesses can deliver high application performance and security across the WAN, especially for cloud-hosted apps".

http://news.centurylink.com/news/centurylink-introduces-managed-hybrid-sd-wan-solutions

* CenturyLink launched its SD-WAN service providing business customers with centralised control over a variety of private network access technologies in June last year. The managed SD-WAN service bundles site connectivity, equipment, software licensing, configuration, performance tuning and monitoring with a management and analytics portal, while offering the customer the option of managing their own policies or having CenturyLink manage their policies.

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Kalaam Telecom teams with Versa Networks on SD-WAN

Kalaam Telecom, describing itself as the second largest ISP serving the business market in Bahrain, announced a partnership with Versa Networks, a supplier of next-generation software-based networking and security solutions, to launch what is believed to be Bahrain's first Secured SD-WAN infrastructure designed to simplify and secure WAN/branch office networks.

Kalaam's next generation feature-rich Secured SD-WAN solution is intended to mitigate the challenges faced by enterprise customers relating to supporting cloud applications, management of branch locations and security. The Kalaam SD-WAN solution is designed to support application growth and enable network agility and simplified branch implementations for both on-premises and cloud-based applications.

As the main alternative licensed telecommunications provider based in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Kalaam Telecom, established in 2005, offers a range of voice, Internet, data and value added services and cloud solutions to business customers. The company addresses small and medium-sized business customers and corporations across a variety of industries in Bahrain.

http://www.versa-networks.com/press_release/kalaam-telecom-launches-disruptive-sd-wan-technology-secured-branch-communication/

• In May, Versa Networks announced the expansion of its software-defined networking (SDN) capabilities from SD-WAN to software-defined branch (SD-Branch). The enhanced Versa Cloud IP Platform enables large enterprises and service providers to virtualise and software-define the entire branch and WAN to help reduce complexity and improve IT agility.

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