Corsa Technology's New Systems Put SDN to Work Smoothing Traffic on the WAN

Wide-area networks (WANs) often drive a lot of traffic, so there's more potential for systems to get jammed up. The increased use of software-defined wide-area networks (SD-WAN) is taking some of that strain off, and new systems from Corsa Technology are looking to turn things around even further.

Corsa's new data-plane appliance offers a way to both bring in OpenFlow and software-defined networking (SDN), using hardware-based virtualization measures as a means to cut the network up into smaller pieces, or zones. This process helps separate traffic as a means to both keep network performance at a more even keel and provide a boost to security. Putting such a system to work can also serve as a means to help automate services, and provide more of the on-demand options that users are after.

While virtualization by itself isn't anything new—it's constantly seen in data centers these days—Corsa wants to take that virtualization and put it somewhere new: out at the metro edge and for the WAN. That takes a somewhat different approach than commonly used, mostly because traffic in the WAN and metro edge is different from data center traffic. In particular, video is a big part of that traffic, especially with a growing number of content delivery networks (CDNs) involved.  Using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), the appliance involved can apply whatever protocols are actually needed at the time. That makes it similar to a white-box switch, using an OpenFlow interface to program the network.

Most recently, Corsa brought out the DP2000 line, which is similar to the DP6400 line, but offers the key advantage of being smaller and stackable. It's also a lot more flexible overall, which provides the background for several different kinds of services. Corsa has been offering appliances for the last year and a half now, which gives it a great base of credibility to work from.

We all know that the network is a very different place today than it ever used to be, and that calls for new technologies to get the most out of it. Corsa Technology's lineup, meanwhile, reflects this changing environment by giving its users more tools to work with and the potential to bring more on-demand services into the market. We know that the network will only be more important as time goes on, thanks to the growing numbers of cloud-based tools like video conferencing and collaboration systems, so to have tools to make the network operate better will be at the foundation of the entire movement.

Corsa's standing in the field, built on 18 months of successful shipments, and the growing demand for better and more responsive networks, should help drive this new technology push forward and give Corsa plenty of room to augment its own fortunes.