In a push to strengthen its SD-WAN offering, Orange Business Services said it joined with Cisco to showcase the first onboarding of a Cisco SD-WAN virtual network function on the Cisco Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS).
With the platform, enterprise customers gain a fully functional virtualized solution for network services as part of the Orange universal CPE offer, and Orange said it’s part of the company’s strategy to shift to software-defined networks and intent-based networking.
SD-WAN enables enterprises to meet increasing cloud, bandwidth and internet demands using secure hybrid connectivity over any transport network, including MPLS, and internet and satellite, according to Orange.
Due to uCPE central orchestration, the company can offer automated Cisco SD-WAN deployment in minutes on all enterprise sites, no matter location. Enterprises can also adapt branch office configuration as the uCPE can reportedly run multiple additional functions, like security, which can be orchestrated centrally and chained as needed.
“These developments will help realize the promise of intent-based networking, which will use artificial intelligence to automatically orchestrate networks based on predicted user demand,” Pierre-Louis Biaggi, VP of Connectivity for Orange Business Services, said in a statement. “This will help improve application performance, security and business continuity.”
“SD-WAN provides the essential foundation for Service Providers to transform their network services,” said Sachin Gupta, SVP of product management for Cisco Enterprise Networking. “One of the truly global providers, we are excited Orange is accelerating the adoption of SD-WAN technology leveraging Cisco’s ENCS platform. Our partnership will accelerate customers’ transformation to cloud and digital while delivering new-age capability for simplified operations, application visibility and performance.”