The Trend behind SD-WAN

SD-WAN is one of the most applied enterprise networking models among SDN applications. According to IHS market research, there will be approximately 45% of enterprises in North America to adopt SD-WAN in the next two years. The era of “software-defined everything” is happening in real-time and SD-WAN is already a booming sector.

SD-WAN adds app-layer intelligence and service chaining in WAN connections between branch offices and headquarters/data centers. Before the emergence of SDN, enterprises invested heavily on legacy proprietary hardware and specific circuit layouts. If the enterprises are expanding their branches, the hardware investment will pile up and become a huge sunk cost that limit the flexibility of enterprise expansion and management. With SD-WAN, business operators enjoy the flexible and open cloud approach to manage and control their WAN connections based on application-centric intelligence and control. Today’s SD-WAN solutions provide improved Internet broadband quality/security and adopt VPN in their architectural design.

To accelerate the SD-WAN time-to-market for service provider, Lanner Electronics, a global leading manufacturer of network appliances, and Versa Networks, a leading provider of SD-WAN and SD-Security software, have jointly formed a partnership, aiming to provide NFV-optimized SD-WAN solutions in mutual hardware and software validations.

Requirements

Lanner and Versa Networks have tested and validated an integrated solution that combines Lanner’s compact virtual CPE appliances and Versa Networks’ highly-flexible SD-WAN and SD-Security software. The joint solution enables managed service providers to centrally and cost-effectively manage a truly software-defined WAN at their network customers’ sites, instead of the traditional investment in proprietary hardware and hands-on management. The integration of Versa’s software-defined architecture and Lanner’s compact virtual CPE hardware delivers flexibility and cost advantages for creating agile and profitable managed services.

  • The new SD-WAN capabilities seamlessly integrates customers’ routed networks, including MPLS, broadband and wireless connections.
  • Implements application-based intelligence and control to overlay conventional packet-based routing with SD-WAN technology.
  • Virtual CPE equipment required for IPsec VPN, MPLS with QoS
  • Dynamic WAN load-balance to meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
  • Software support for application-aware, QoS (Quality of Service) and CoS (Class of Service) for mission-critical applications.
  • Highly flexible deployment capability with far simpler WAN operations (deployment time reduction up to 80% compared to legacy appliance-based approach).
  • Significantly lower cost of deployment since no on-site specialists are required.
  • VNFs (Virtual Network Functions) are provided at customers’ sites.

Lanner’s Solutions

As discussed earlier, Lanner and Versa Networks hardware and software solution supports Lanner’s FW-7525 and FW-7573 have been tested as compatible for SD-WAN by both parties. Both FW-7525 and FW-7573 are compact network appliances built with internal hardware security design, ideal for SD-WAN environments.

Lanner’s FW-7525 is a compact desktop appliance in fanless design, ideally deployable as a virtual CPE device. The inside of FW-7525 is Intel Atom C2358, C2518 or C2558 CPU, programmed with Intel QuickAssist Technology to accelerate crypto instructions. FW-7525 also delivers 4 or 6 GbE LAN ports with a pair of bypass and is internally designed with a wireless network connectivity module socket. The I/O configurations of FW-7525 enables this desktop to be an optimal hardware platform for SD-WAN environment.

Lanner’s FW-7573 is a 1U rackmount network appliance with a network module expansion design. The system provides 6 GbE LAN ports by default, and the module expansion allows higher network bandwidth. The LAN ports include 3 pairs of LAN bypass ports which allow uninterrupted network traffic when an in-line traffic is hanging or shut down. Internally, the core of FW-7573 is built with Intel Atom 8-core C2000 series CPU and is programmed with Intel QuickAssist Technology to accelerate crypto instruction sets.

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FW-7525

Fanless Desktop x86 Network Platform for vCPE, SD-WAN and Network Edge

CPU Intel® Atom™ processor C2358(dual-core), C2518(quad-core) or C2558(quad-core)
Chipset None

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FW-7573

Rackmount x86 Network Security Platform with 8-core Intel® Atom® C2000 Series processor

CPU 8-core Intel® AtomTM processor C2000 series (Codenamed "Rangeley")
Chipset None

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