Telstra unveils Cisco SD-WAN solution

Telstra has announced its new Cisco technology-powered software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) solution, aimed at providing a more secure and cost-efficient service.

The telco's hybrid SD-WAN service is available worldwide, and enables a more efficient and flexible end-to-end solution by selecting the highest-performing transport path available for application traffic routing.

"The proliferation of media-rich applications and the increased number of connected devices is causing huge demand for bandwidth across wide-area networks," said Jim Clarke, head of International Marketing, Products and Pricing at Telstra.

"Hybrid services such as Telstra's SD-WAN offering allow traffic to be routed based on the application profile over multiple networks, including private MPLS and the public internet. This gives organisations greater flexibility to deal with increased traffic, and means their WANs can be more cost effective, without compromising on application performance or availability.

"Most importantly, it ensures that any traffic routed over the public internet remains highly secure incorporating VPN, firewall, and network segmentation features."

Cisco, which has a long-standing cloud, communications, and collaboration partnership with Telstra, said the new SD-WAN solution will enable enterprises to accelerate their digitisation with a software-driven, open architecture.

"Powered by Cisco's IWAN solution, Telstra's new SD-WAN suite gives enterprises the intelligence to innovate faster, reduce costs, and lower risk," said Jeff Reed, senior vice president of Cisco's Enterprise Infrastructure and Solutions Group.

"We are thrilled to enable this market-leading solution to customers in Asia."

According to Clarke, the new SD-WAN solution will leverage the three products unveiled by the two companies earlier this year, as well as Telstra's PEN Platform.

"This new service also complements our other dynamic network solutions -- including PEN Platform, Internet VPN, Data Centre Interconnect, and Cloud Gateway Protection -- and brings us a step closer to our vision of providing dynamic networks for complete customer control," Clarke said on Wednesday.

In March, Telstra and Cisco announced their three SDN and network function virtualisation (NFV) products to improve cloud security and global datacentre interconnection: Cloud Gateway Protection, Internet VPN, and Data Centre Interconnect.

Cloud Gateway Protection is a virtual security application designed to secure cloud services, internet access, and Next IP networks against cyber attacks and unauthorised access, while Internet VPN provides a secure and encrypted office network over public internet for businesses to use across several sites and by mobile workers.

Data Centre Interconnect, the third product, extended Telstra's SDN PEN1 global datacentre interconnection product through the addition of Australian points of presence. Through PEN1, business customers can directly set up and configure links between overseas and domestic datacentres on flexible contracts.

According to the two companies, these three products were designed to "transform" and "revolutionise" the use and function of cloud and managed services.

Connecting and housing the three new products is Telstra's "single, self-service portal with on-demand functionality".

Telstra in January also unveiled two additional functions for its SDN PEN Platform, allowing customers to procure virtual network functions and make digital partnerships on demand.

The first of the two new SDN services, called PEN Exchange, enabled customers to connect their network services with those of other PEN customers.

The second of the SDN service enhancements was PEN Marketplace, a basic online hub through which organisations can order NFV equipment in real-time, including routers and firewalls, with a choice of several vendors.