Today, Exponential-e, a UK provider of cloud connectivity, business Internet and IT services, announced that they would be using Nuage Networks Virtualized Network Services (VNS) platform as the basis for newly announced SD-WAN services that they are rolling out to customers. Exponential-e is a leader in WAN service delivery with a 100GigE core network, including MPLS VPNs, with enterprise-grade security and end-to-end Service Level Agreements (SLAs). They are the UK’s pioneer of corporate Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), which allows geographically diverse locations to connect as if on the same LAN.
Exponential-e, already a customer for Nuage Networks datacenter SDN solution, has chosen the Nuage Networks Virtualized Network Services (VNS) platform to accelerate the provisioning of WAN services and incorporate remote sites using both MPLS and broadband Internet. They began looking for a solution to connect remote sites that could not be connected directly to the MPLS backbone. These sites relied primarily on local ISPs, which complicated the setup because of the number of intermediaries and the cost and complexity of the contracting and provisioning process.
Having evolved from telco-grade network operating system technology used in some of the world’s most scalable routers, VNS uses many of the same principles as the current Exponential-e MPLS cloud infrastructure. It unites the management and provisioning of virtual networks regardless of the underlying network technology, allowing seamless integration of MPLS and broadband Internet-connected sites.
The new hybrid VPN solution allows Exponential-e to rapidly add remote sites using any network connectivity and to augment existing WAN links with minimal configuration. Furthermore, the VNS solution uses industry-standard Ethernet VPN (E-VPN) technology to dynamically exchange routing information between existing MPLS and VNS sites, making communication transparent between sites.
“Our strategy for next-generation WAN connectivity to cloud-based services is perfectly aligned with Nuage Networks’ SD-WAN technology”, said Chris Christou, Director of Engineering at Exponential-e. “Leveraging their Virtualized Network Services platform will accelerate the delivery of our services and will help our customers significantly reduce their WAN costs through greater operational efficiency, IT automation and faster deployments.”
Exponential-e expects customers to see reduced time and complexity to bring up remote sites and connect to the corporate WAN by using VNS. The expansion of the number of sites that they can seamlessly link to their MPLS backbone and manage is allowing them to increase their addressable market for VPN services and increase their revenue.
The increasing demand in cloud services is driving demand for greater automation that delivers a premium customer experience while allowing organizations to control, scale and deliver services more quickly. Using Nuage Network’s powerful plug-and-play solution, Exponential-e will introduce automation from the network branch to the applications in the datacenter so that organizations can reconfigure cloud and connectivity services on demand through a simple self-service interface. Setting up a connection at a new location can be done in no time, using Exponential-e’s smart connectivity or third party access.
“Exponential-e is known in the market for its innovation and customer focus,” said Nuage Networks Founder and Chief Executive Officer Sunil Khandekar. “Exponential-e realizes that the nature of connectivity itself is changing because of the cloud and that branch office connectivity has to be bundled with automating the cloud, and that’s what the cloudnet offering is all about.”
The new Exponential-e cloudnet service is the topic of an operator perspective presentation during the SD-WAN summit in Paris this week.