SD-WAN FEATURED ARTICLE

Network Appliance Manufacturer Partners with SDN Technology Company to Bundle Up

August 13, 2019

By Arti Loftus, Special Correspondent

Enterprise customers and the Communications Service Providers who connect them are continuing to demand more flexible, open, cloud-based technologies, especially as the Network Function Virtualization (NVF) era evolves to the Enterprise Cloud Edge.




Cloudification of the Edge means large enterprises can call the shots when it comes to the white box hardware they use on site (or in the cloud) to deliver mainstream functions including routing, firewall and VPN.

In the old world, the customer premise equipment or CPE used to accomplish this was typically deployed on proprietary or specialized WAN technology with dedicated appliances from different vendors used to implement different network functions. Adding to cost and complexity, WAN traffic was forced to flow over expensive, dedicated E1/T1/DS3 lines using MPLS technology. This approach, which is still in use today, still offers the benefits of guaranteeing Service Level Agreements (SLAs). On the flip side, it lacks modern flexibility when more capacity or support of new services are required, slowing down time to market and delaying growth.

In the new world, specialized appliances are no longer required, as network functions like routers and firewalls become virtual network functions (VNFs) and can run on open networking platforms. uCPE white box devices on the customer premises offer a dramatically reduced CAPEX alternative enabling a more cost-effective separation of hardware and software and opening new opportunities for challengers, including companies like Lanner and Dispersive Networks who announced this week an agreement to innovate and secure SD-WAN and uCPE solutions.

Lanner Electronics (News - Alert), a global manufacturer of network appliances, and Dispersive Networks, an innovative supplier of secure programmable virtual networking and SD-WAN, have created an integrated solution that merges the Dispersive Virtual Network (DVN) software with Lanner’s uCPE platforms. This partnership provides a Cloud Edge solution with room for other VNF suppliers to service chain in the most secure virtual networking architecture in the industry. And the solution includes Enterprise-class SLAs, QoS and performance throughput far superior to legacy SD WAN and MPLS solutions.

“Legacy WAN and SD-WAN typically utilize at-risk VPNs with IPSEC tunnels for security and often require private proprietary single-function hardware to deploy,” said Chris Swan, Dispersive’s Chief Revenue Officer. “DVN is a multi-path software-defined networking overlay solution that sends packets via multiple streams to deliver new levels of security, reliability, and performance, and we’re now combining that with Lanner’s state-of-the art hardware designed to bring huge benefits to enterprises looking to improve performance and security, while reducing overall costs without sacrificing performance.”

DVN clients typically experience 2-10 times performance improvement.

“Dispersive’s reputation for solving military grade security and performance is well recognized,” said Sven Freudenfeld, CTO Telecom Application Business Unit. “Lanner is enthusiastic about helping to extend those benefits to government and commercial enterprise clients around the world with our best in class white box solutions.”

Lanner and Dispersive Networks have tested and validated an integrated solution that combines Lanner’s universal CPE equipment and Dispersive Networks’ highly-flexible NFV and Container-based SD-WAN programmable networking software.

The joint solution enables service providers and enterprise clients to securely and cost-effectively manage NFV and Container-based software-defined WAN. The integration of DVN architecture and Lanner’s hardware uCPE platform delivers flexibility, performance and cost advantages for creating agile and profitable managed services while raising the bar for secure, high performance networking.

“Lanner’s leadership in uCPE and IIoT white box is a great fit with Dispersive’s leading secure virtual networking solution,” Swan continued. “We’re excited about the powerful and economic options our clients now have to deploy from device to branch and data center.”


Arti Loftus is an experienced Information Technology specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the research, writing, and editing industry with many published articles under her belt.

Edited by Maurice Nagle

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