Verizon Moves Forward with Viptela SD-WAN

Global telecommunications company Verizon (News - Alert) has begun a partnership with Viptela, a developer of software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) software, to address enterprises’ needs for secure access to applications from outside and within the cloud.

Shawn Hakl, the vice president of enterprise networking and innovation at Verizon, commented that this pairing will join his company’s global access to networking infrastructure with the Viptela boundary-pushing SDN networking platform. Together, they can move forward the way in which enterprises can access their own data – through software – which is the path many businesses are now taking to make their networks more accessible and efficient.

“Software defined networking is the wave of the future,” Hakl said. “Viptela’s innovative technology coupled with our global networking and data center assets give clients an advantage in today’s digital economy where speed and agility matter most. Indicators from our testing efforts confirmed this solution is poised to take off in the enterprise space.”

It appears that Verizon will brand this new SD-WAN service under its name and that existing and future customers will have the choice to connect to their private networks as they see fit. Connection options will include MPLS, wireless through Verizon LTE (News - Alert), and wired with broadband.

The new service will extend outside the U.S. border, where Verizon has a strong presence, to parts of Europe and the Asia Pacific regions. Clients that make use of these networks will have access to the Viptela central console that provides IT admins with remote management of their entire deployments. Admins can make changes as they see fit and organize their applications to make the most of their capabilities.

Part of “making the most” of applications will lie in security, which Viptela also offers. Its networking core authenticates every device connected to a WAN and also encrypts every packet sent through a network. It also has the capability to chain multiple services such as packet optimization software and firewalls – all that can aid in the delivery and protection of company data.

Verizon’s adoption of Viptela’s platform seeks to build on its own managed SD-WAN, which is based on Cisco’s (News - Alert) iWAN. There is no final word on how the two services will interact or if one will take preference over another.