SD-WAN has been one of the most commonly deployed networking technology for the past couple years, and because of its technological and economical benefits, enterprises of all sizes and scales have broadened their use cases for SD-WAN. Today, it has evolved to meet a diverse vertical for wider application span.

The reason that drives the widespread of SD-WAN is because it abstracts a virtualized, software layer on top of existing networking hardware, and this hardware-software decoupling approach has enabled IT management to manage, control and monitor the entire traffic routing and implement policies across the entire WAN nodes through software means. In other words, WAN optimization has been simplified through software-defined and virtualization architecture.

As SD-WAN continues its momentum, there have been more and more use case for this software-defined WAN architecture, and therefore, this network technology has evolved to reach a diversified vertical market.

Branch Expansion

When organizations decide to expand its geographical reach, they need a reliable, optimized connectivity for new branches to connect to the cloud center. Therefore, SD-WAN has become the preferred option over VPN or MPLS connectivity due to its simplicity and cost-effectiveness. IT management can deploy software instructions over existing network infrastructure and no longer relies on MPLS service to maintain connectivity with the branch. In fact, with SD-WAN, IT management gains the end-to-end visibility to monitor the traffic between branches and headquarter. Till today, branch connectivity remains the most dynamic driving force for SD-WAN deployments.

QoS Assurance Networking

Some enterprises may require a dedicated SD-WAN to assure QoS (quality of service) in their networking. With the end-to-end visibility and automated policy implementations of SD-WAN, IT management can rout prioritized traffic to a dedicated, low-latency network pipe to ensure the QoS. This makes offloading more efficiently, particularly for companies with hybrid clouds.

Application-centric SD-WAN

Nowadays, many organizations have migrated their applications to the cloud. To manage the application delivery on the cloud, SD-WAN offers the visibility and automated policy configuration to prioritize application traffic to go through the optimal routes of the WAN pipes. However, if a certain application is B2B oriented, the IT will have to designate certain network channels to service this specific application to ensure the low-latency connectivity for customers. In addition, this application requires higher level of security and thus policy prioritization by software-defined approach can really reduce IT management efforts. In this case, application providers may customize application interface for their customers.

Recommended Solutions

In a software-defined, virtualized WAN architecture, IT management would maximize their investments and efforts by using open-architecture, white-box networking hardware to deploy SD-WAN and leverage third-party software to run security policies. For instance, Lanner Electronics Inc. possesses a wide range of hardware portfolio in SD-WAN that have been pre-validated by leading SD-WAN vendors so that deployment time and efforts can be reduced.

For branch SD-WAN, Lanner has NCA-2510, a virtualization-optimized 1U rackmount white-box server designed for vCPE, uCPE and SD-WAN. NCA-2510 is powered by Intel® Atom™ C3958, C3758 or C3558 CPU (4 ~16 Cores) and 4x 288-pin DIMM DDR4 at 2,400MHz to manage data traffic and security. NCA-2510 comes with multiple RJ-45 and SFP networking ports to enable connectivity between branches and headquarters. For security, NCA-2510 is built in with Intel® QuickAssist Technology at 20Gbps, Intel® AES-NI Support and Intel® SR-IOV to accelerate cryptographic encryption/decryption performance and boost virtualization.

To ensure QoS, Lanner features NCA-4012, an 1U rackmount white-box server designed to boost networking and virtualization performance. NCA-4012 is driven by Intel® Xeon® D-1500 8~16 Cores Processor and 2 x 288pin DIMM DDR4 2,400MHz memories. NCA-4012 offers high LAN density with 16 x RJ-45, 2 x 10G SFP+ and one NIC module socket. For failover design, there are 3 or 7 pairs of Lanner’s Gen3 LAN Bypass mechanism.

To address the demands for application-centric SD-WAN, Lanner has NCA-5710, an 1U rackmount networking server powered by 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable Family and 12x 288pin DDR4 2933/2666/2400/2133 MHz REG DIMM to deliver the optimal performance for network virtualization security and traffic management. NCA-5710 is designed to be scalable with its 4 NIC module sockets for future expansion, enabling it to enhance bandwidth and drive high-throughput for optimized packet processing and cryptographic security.

Featured Product


NCA-2510

Virtualization-optimized Network Appliance for vCPE, uCPE, SD-WAN and SD-Security

CPU Intel® Atom™ C3000 Series 4~16 Cores (Denverton)
Chipset SoC

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NCA-5710

1U Rackmount Network Appliance for Network Traffic Management and Virtualized Network Security

CPU 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable Family (Skylake-SP/Cascade Lake-SP)
Chipset Intel® C621/627

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NCA-4012

1U Rackmount Network Appliance for Networking and Virtualization Applications

CPU Intel® Xeon® D-1500 8~16 Cores (Broadwell- DE)
Chipset SoC

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