Many enterprise communications managers would love the ability to use broadband Internet connections -- wired or wireless -- for latency-sensitive applications with the same level of confidence they have in their pricey private links. That's long been a pipe dream, so to speak -- and hence one reason for the rising interest in software-defined WAN, or SD WAN.
Chris Edwards, vice president of information systems for Group Dekko, a provider of workspace power solutions, is no exception. In a conversation this morning, Edwards told me he welcomes the opportunity to leverage the Internet connections the company uses at its eight domestic manufacturing locations while reducing its reliance on the multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network it has had in place for the last eight or nine years.
To do so, Edwards plans on taking advantage of SD WAN technology introduced today by Silver Peak, the company Group Dekko already looks to for WAN acceleration. Silver Peak enters the SD WAN fray with the Unity EdgeConnect, a physical or virtual appliance through which companies like Group Dekko can create virtual network overlays for secure, reliable, and cost-effective broadband connectivity from remote locations.
With Unity EdgeConnect, enterprises can connect their branches together independently of the services they're using, whether MPLS, DSL, cable, wireless, or whatever, Silver Peak CEO David Hughes told me in briefing. "It lets you mix and match carriers very easily and allows for zero-touch provisioning without expertise in the branch."
Read the rest of the article at No Jitter.
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