EarthLink Eager to Add SD-WAN to Solution Suite

SD-WAN is seeing a surge across the board. As we bear witness to software eating the world, and complexity giving way to efficient, automated and high performing WAN solutions empowering teams to stay connected and productive. This week, Earthlink (News - Alert), a network service provider, announced a newly minted partnership with SD-WAN provider VeloCloud with a complete SD-WAN solution to go to market this fall.

“VeloCloud Cloud-Delivered SD-WAN™ will be offered as part of EarthLink’s complete suite of solutions that includes network access, hosted voice, security services, optimized application performance, bandwidth prioritization controls and always-on customer service to satisfy the needs of a wide range of enterprises,” explained Joe Eazor, chief executive officer and president of EarthLink.

EarthLink customers will benefit from the power of the cloud – from simplified deployment to improved network agility, performance is a prerequisite. It is the laundry list of advantages, like added control, visibility and cost savings, serving as impetus for the SD-WAN space, with SMB to enterprise taking advantage. Research from the IDC (News - Alert) projects the market to grow from its $225 million valuation in 2015 to $6 billion by 2020 – stating the obvious, but we are only on the bottom floor of a midtown skyscraper in construction.

Eazor continued to note, “Companies wanting to enhance the experience for their customers need to maximize application performance and meet increasing bandwidth demands with a viable cost effective solution. Implementing SD-WAN alongside other managed network services will give our customers more visibility and control over the applications, websites and devices that utilize their network.”

EarthLink and Velocloud are excited to ride this burgeoning market to summit. As SD-WAN deployment increases so too will awareness of what this nascent technology is capable of; we’ve watched software transform technology and the network is clearly in the crosshairs. There is no true Goliath in this market yet, but the competition is fierce so I’d keep my eyes peeled for David.