Orange Business Services, Cisco bring SD-WAN network function virtualization to life

At Cisco Live Europe, Orange Business Services showcased the next push of its global SD-WAN portfolio with the first onboarding of a Cisco SD-WAN virtual network function (VNF) on the Cisco Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS). 

This platform, which delivers a fully functional virtualized solution for network services, is part of the Orange universal customer premise equipment (uCPE) offer. This new approach is in addition to existing appliance or cloud-based deployment options.

It further strengthens the SD-WAN by Orange offering, and is part of its strategy to move to software-defined networks (SDN) and intent-based networking.

Orange is using SD-WAN technology to build secure, hybrid connectivity for enterprises over any transport network, including MPLS, internet and satellite, with real-time centralized management of network functions, application policy setting and application visibility.

SD-WAN allows enterprises to meet their ever increasing cloud, bandwidth and internet demands effectively and securely. It also improves application performance, irrespective of whether it is delivered from the cloud or the enterprise data center.

In addition, thanks to uCPE central orchestration, Orange can provide automated Cisco SD-WAN deployment, based on Viptela technology, in minutes on all enterprise sites, wherever they are located. The uCPE can run multiple additional functions, such as security, which can be orchestrated centrally and chained as required. This means that enterprises can dynamically adapt the branch office configuration to optimize user experience.

“This work strengthens our long-standing partnership with Cisco. Together we are bringing innovations in SD-WAN and the wider network to our customers worldwide. 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. This will help improve application performance, security and business continuity,” said Pierre-Louis Biaggi, vice president, Connectivity, Orange Business Services.

“SD-WAN provides the essential foundation for Service Providers to transform their network services,” said Sachin Gupta, senior vice president, 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.”

By orchestrating simple and unified end to end solutions through virtualized solutions like SD-WAN from Cisco, Orange is able to provide enterprises with the agility, reliability and cost effectiveness they need to speed their digital transformation.