by Damian Murray | Sep 23, 2020 | Uncategorized
In the first post in this series we looked at the various drivers for SD-WAN adoption and the factors that are influencing decisions that companies are taking as they move to take advantage of this new technology. But how exactly does SD-WAN address some of the requirements that we highlighted previously, what are the key features and ultimately what are the main benefits that an organisation adopting SD-WAN should expect to see? To begin with, we should acknowledge that there are many different SD-WAN solutions available in the market and while sometimes differing in terms of focus and terminology used, they are all aiming to address essentially the same demands from companies at the various stages of digital transformation. While differences exist, there are a core set of capabilities and related benefits that leading SD-WAN solutions comprise as follows: Centralised Control At the core of an SD-WAN is a centralised control or Orchestration platform which provides the configuration and management of the SD-WAN. Centralised control is key in terms of realising the SDN principle of separation of the control and data planes, effectively abstracting the underlying connectivity regardless of type (fixed or wireless), removing any related dependencies that would otherwise exist and providing the freedom and flexibility to architect a set of virtual overlay connections in the manner best suited to business needs. It is these overlay connections or tunnels that then allow the SD-WAN to provide the required flexibility and visibility needed in modern networks. Packet Recognition and Steering The ability to recognise traffic on a per packet basis and to then steer this traffic across the preferred... read more
by Damian Murray | Sep 16, 2020 | Uncategorized
This is the first of our new series of posts focussed on addressing the main questions we receive from customers about SD-WAN. Over the coming weeks we will address the most important reasons for choosing SD-WAN and the main considerations for deployment based on our own and customer experiences. To begin with, we look at what is motivating companies to choose SD-WAN. One of the main drivers for SD-WAN adoption today is the move to take advantage of cloud based services, both Software and Infrastructure as a service. Many companies both large and small have or are about to embark on a digital transformation journey and for most that means a very significant shift to cloud hosted applications and workload. What that also means however is that the traditional wide area network, commonly architected on a hub and spoke basis, is no longer capable of dealing with the demands being placed on it. Failure to address this issue can result in poor application performance and a ultimately a poor user experience. The traditional network was designed to carry traffic from remote or branch locations back to a central site, a data centre or HQ, where applications were hosted or from where traffic could be safely forwarded. Modern environments place both applications and workload in many different locations meaning that the traditional network is no longer optimised to deal with the demand. Compounding this, the volume of applications in use is growing continuously and the requirement to optimise the network on a per application basis is therefore critical to meet the need of the modern enterprise. These fundamental changes mean... read more
by Damian Murray | May 26, 2020 | Uncategorized
With the move to working from home and the growing expectation that in many cases this is likely to remain a reality for many employees for the foreseeable future, more and more companies are looking at ways to improve connectivity issues and in turn ensure security for remote workers. In recent weeks many of our customers have started expanding existing SD-WAN deployments or adding SD-WAN as a secure and reliable way to improve the experience for both customers and employees when communicating from a home office environment. Traditionally remote office environments don’t have any quality of service and cannot offer priority to those applications that need it. Congestion mitigation is typically not available and in many cases the performance of consumer broadband can be very variable. SD-WAN can solve these issues, even when only a single link is available and can provide reliable cloud connections and the ability to apply policies and in turn assure application performance. Critical services such as the use of SaaS and IaaS based applications, video conferencing and the increased use of VoIP, in particular for customer facing staff, require more than standard VPN, they require SD-WAN. At Iricent, we are working with partners and with customers to help with this transition to remote working and are happy to offer free trials combined with professional services support to allow customers to learn for themselves the benefits of SD-WAN for remote working. If this sounds interesting, contact us at remote-working@iricent.com to schedule a call or a... read more
by Damian Murray | Oct 25, 2019 | Uncategorized
We are delighted to announce that Iricent has been selected as a partner by Intel in the Network Builders Winners Circle Program. The award was achieved for bringing to market the Iricent NFV Cloud platform utilizing Intel centric uCPE HW with NFVI SW, MANO and VNFs from leading vendor partners. Initial use case is uCPE and Edge Cloud deployment for SP and Enterprise Customers – typically focussed on SD WAN, while the rapidly emerging use case is Neutral Host for Mobile – specifically 5G deployment on vRAN. “As a member of the Intel Network Builders ecosystem, Iricent has contributed to the acceleration of network transformation by working closely with Intel and our ecosystem and we would like to recognize your contributions by awarding Iricent in our Winners’ Circle Program as a Partner.” We are looking forward to even closer collaboration with Intel as we close out 2019 and head into 2020. ... read more
by Damian Murray | Feb 24, 2019 | Uncategorized
We are making our annual visit to Mobile World Congress this week (Feb 25th. to 28th.) in Barcelona. If you want to have a chat about SD-WAN, managed and un-managed uCPE, network automation, 5G in a virtualized World or anything else for that matter drop us a line and we’d be delighted to meet up –... read more
by Damian Murray | Oct 4, 2018 | Uncategorized
We are delighted to be returning to the annual SDN World Congress in The Hague next week and to be attending Intel’s Network Builders Summit on Monday October 8th. We’re very much looking forward to meeting up with old friends from the networking community and making new connections. Apart from catching up on latest developments and concepts in relation to SDN and NFV in general, their adoption in 5G, IoT rollouts, etc. we are particularly interested in the rapidly evolving network edge where advances in relation to SD-WAN and to uCPE deployments are accelerating all the time. The OpenDaylight SDN Controller network automation use case is another topic getting lots of attention from our customer base these days. If you would like to meet up in The Hague to find out more about what we do and how we can help or if you could just like to chat about the developments mentioned above, drop us a line at events@iricent.com or contact us at the show to meet up. ... read more
by Damian Murray | Apr 10, 2018 | Uncategorized
Iricent recently launched a cloud based Managed SD-WAN Service targeted at Service Providers who wish to have access to a white label services platform. Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is a specific software-defined networking (SDN) technology use case applied to WAN connections which is rapidly gaining interest and seeing increased adoption in enterprise networks as it offers many advantages over traditional, fixed Wide Area Networks. SD-WAN architecture uses SDN principles to separate the data plane from the control plane in the WAN. It abstracts the underlying transport networks (MPLS, broadband internet, wireless, satellite) and shifts control intelligence from customer premises equipment (CPE) or edge devices to a centralized controller and in turn delivers many benefits including: All-in-one solution (WAN optimization, policy based control, application prioritisation, …) Lower cost for VPNs Access flexibility and redundancy Works over a variety of media (MPLS, Broadband Internet, LTE, satellite) Dynamic path selection and load sharing across WAN connections Simplifies the branch network making it easier to manage with increased network agility ZTP – Zero Touch Provisioning For service providers, SD WAN provides a unique opportunity to broaden the existing service offerings independently of existing reach and without the need for additional. Barriers to entry for new SD WAN services are significantly lower as SD WAN is an OTT offering and a service provider can offer customised SD WAN services that are tailored to specific use cases such as real time traffic or are further enhanced with cost effective WAN Optimisation for example. Iricent SD WAN At Iricent, our platforms are designed and delivered to allow providers to offer SD WAN services as cost effectively as possible... read more
by Damian Murray | Feb 19, 2018 | Uncategorized
Less than one week to go now to MWC 2018 in Barcelona and along with catching up with customers, partners and even friends, we’re looking forward to catching up with all that’s new in the telecoms world. Expect to hear lots of 5G announcements and plently of IoT, artificial intelligence and machine learning details over the week from 26th February – 1St March, all of which we expect will drive an even more accelerated rate of innovation across all walks of industry and life in general over the coming years. Of course central to all of this, and to the congress itself, is the network and at Iricent that’s the part that we are mostly interested in. Over the course of next week, we will be particularly interested to learn about new network developments being introduced both in relation to platforms and services, almost all of which take advantage of the increasing adoption of both SDN and NFV technologies as these become increasingly central to network and services deployments. Both SDN and NFV are central to what we do and to the products and services we offer and provide to customers. Both are also complex technologies and require a new way of doing things but both provide real and quantifiable benefits to service provider and enterprise networks when taken full advantage of. If you would like to meet up in Barcelona to find out more about what we do and how we can help or if you could just like to chat about the developments mentioned above, drop us a line at events@iricent.com or contact us at the... read more
by Damian Murray | Feb 9, 2018 | Uncategorized
Iricent SDN/NFV/SD-WAN Training Services Iricent is pleased to announce that following demand from customers and partners we now offer tailored training programmes addressing state of the art SDN, NFV and SD-WAN topics. The courses delivered to date have been very well received with plenty of positive feedback including the following from Alan Brennan, Head of Presales at Adaptive Mobile: “As a Security company migrating its products to full NFV compliancy, we reached out to Iricent to help guide us on this journey. Their command of this new orchestrated world and ability to synthesize the material for a technical audience was very impressive. I would have no hesitation in recommending Iricent to anyone seeking training or consultancy in the NFV/SDN domain.” Aimed at Network Engineering, Pre-Sales, Product Management as well as Sales personnel, course content, timing and durations are tailored to individual customer requirements. Topics covered include: Evolution of Networking Software Defined Networking (SDN) Virtualisation and Cloud Computing Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) architecture Cloud and Model Driven Orchestration NFV models, Descriptors and APIs SD-WAN Our customised training sessions also include practical demos of key SDN, NFV and SD-WAN functionality such as MANO (Management and Orchestration) using Iricent’s Managed NFV and Managed SD-WAN platforms as well as examples of SDN, NFV and SD-WAN implementations and case studies. To get more information on Iricent’s SDN/NFV/SD-WAN training services and learn how this can benefit your move to NFV and SDN, contact us at info@iricent.com. ... read more
by Damian Murray | Feb 2, 2018 | Uncategorized
We are delighted to announce that Iricent has joined the Lumina Networks channel partner program as an authorised Systems Integrator. The Lumina SDN Controller is powered by OpenDaylight, the most widely deployed SDN Controller platform. As well as being able to deploy Iricent APNOS (our SDN application which enables end user enterprises to take advantage of cloud based feature rich networking functionality including network access control, prioritisation and optimisation) on the Lumina SDN Controller, we can also support customers across Europe with SDN application development and implementation and network automation projects. Working with Lumina we can enable the deployment of a range of SDN application use cases including SD-LAN, SD-Access and NFV based uCPE Zero Touch roll-outs. To learn more about how Iricent can support Lumina SDN Controller based application deployments meet us at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from Feb 26th-Mar 1st. 2018 or contact us at info@iricent.com.... read more
