Cisco Live to Host 2017 SD-WAN Championships

In sports, relishing the underdog role can serve as powerful motivation. From “The miracle on ice” in the 1980 Olympics and the 1983 NCAA basketball champion N.C. State Wolfpack, to the Joe Namath led New York Jets in Super Bowl III and the Eli Manning led New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII, the common denominator is an inner belief, a will to win, if you will – much like a young David slaying the great Goliath.

In technology, it is certainly a challenge to take the “big boys” head on, but it makes victory all the sweeter. For some time, CloudGenix has crossed the country offering firms a challenge between its SD-WAN and Cisco’s, with  David besting Goliath time after time. Well, tonight, those in attendance at Cisco (News - Alert) Live can experience this firsthand in the 2017 SD-WAN Championships for Cisco Live attendees.

The event pits the CloudGenix application-defined fabric against a number of alternatives from the Cisco SD-WAN portfolio. Attendees select a product of their choosing, and are put to timed trials for three functions: zero-touch branch WAN deployment, direct-to-Internet for Cloud applications and troubleshooting with native analytics.

Cisco Live 2016 served as the stage for a classic standoff between the CloudGenix Instant-On Networks (ION) and Cisco’s iWAN solution. Customers had direct access to each offering, and had at it with resounding results. Cloudgenix (News - Alert) ION proved the clear victor.

“In dozens of challenges last year, CloudGenix emerged as the clear winner against Cisco iWAN,” said Kumar Ramachandran (News - Alert), CEO of CloudGenix. “Will this year be any different? Real customers working with real products will be the proof. Come see for yourself how incremental approaches based on legacy routing stack up against the power of a CloudGenix application-defined WAN.”

If you’re in Vegas at the event, the SD-WAN Championships, time trials and customer testing will take place tonight between 6 p.m.-8 p.m. at Charlie Palmer Steak at Mandalay Bay.

At this point, it’s difficult to call CloudGenix an underdog. The young David is growing into a King. And, in a space like SD-WAN, which is pegged for exponential growth, it’s good to be the king.

Stay tuned to see who gets crowned 2017 SD-WAN champion. In the meantime, what kind of WAN are you working with?