EdgeConnect Integrates SD-WAN, WAN Optimisation, routing and a stateful firewall; offering a complete solution to simplify and consolidate branch office infrastructure

Dubai, UAE – March 29, 2017 – Silver Peak, the global leader in broadband and hybrid WAN solutions, today announced a series of new advancements to the Unity EdgeConnect high-performance SD-WAN solution that will enable enterprises to realise the advantages of a thin branch office. With its latest software release, EdgeConnect becomes the industry’s first fully integrated SD-WAN solution to combine high performance SD-WAN, WAN Optimisation, routing and a stateful firewall. These advancements simplify and consolidate branch office infrastructure, shift the WAN edge toward being application-driven and enable secure, direct internet connectivity to SaaS and trusted web-based applications from the branch office. With more than 350 customer deployments and counting, EdgeConnect is fast becoming the preferred SD-WAN solution for geographically distributed enterprises and partners including Clair Global, Bentley Systems, Radial Inc., and Solar Communications Group.

According to Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst Joe Skorupa, “By 2020, more than 50 percent of WAN edge infrastructure refresh initiatives will be based on SD-WAN versus traditional routers.”

SD-WAN powers the thin branch

Silver Peak EdgeConnect liberates enterprises from the cost, complexity and headaches associated with legacy router-centric branch office infrastructure. With a series of new innovations and capabilities, EdgeConnect can power an application-driven WAN edge and enable enterprises, of all sizes, to confidently embrace commodity broadband to connect users directly to applications, whether they are hosted in the cloud or the data centre. By consolidating branch office infrastructure at the WAN edge, enterprises can dramatically simplify operations and lower costs without sacrificing network or application performance.

Granular SaaS and cloud application visibility and control with first-packet iQ

EdgeConnect incorporates a new feature called First-packet iQ that automatically identifies more than 10,000 applications and 300 million web domains based on the first packet received. With granular insight into HTTP/HTTPS traffic, First-packet iQ enables internet breakout automation by steering specific, trusted SaaS and web-based application traffic directly to the internet while directing unknown or suspicious traffic to a regional hub or data centre firewall for further inspection. Direct internet breakout automation optimises SaaS and web application performance, enhancing worker productivity and business agility. First-packet iQ utilizes sophisticated techniques to provide the highest levels of application awareness and intelligence available today. The techniques include a dynamic application data repository based on DNS queries and hosted in the Silver Peak cloud portal, DPI, TCP/UDP port data and IP protocol methods to assure accurate application identification on the first packet.

Integrated stateful firewall for secure Internet breakout

EdgeConnect now integrates a stateful firewall that supports foundational firewall and security capabilities for branch office locations that do not host applications. The integrated stateful firewall allows outbound traffic to exit, but only allows ingress traffic to enter in response to user-initiated sessions providing robust, thin branch security. For applications traffic directed to regional or corporate firewalls, EdgeConnect supports seamless service chaining across its industry-leading technology alliance ecosystem that includes: Check Point Software, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and zScaler.

Seamless routing interoperability

EdgeConnect now supports industry-standard BGP routing protocols for seamless interoperability between the SD-WAN and legacy WAN architectures. BGP routing protocols facilitate full mesh network configurations and dramatically simplify the addition of local subnets to an SD-WAN, enabling enterprises to transition to an SD-WAN at a comfortable pace. The combination of an integrated stateful firewall and routing interoperability enables progressive enterprises seeking to rapidly integrate acquired companies or consolidate branch office infrastructure to transition to a thin branch without sacrificing the performance, security and reliability of their WAN.

“We’re embarking upon a long overdue revolution of the legacy WAN as enterprise network managers reach a boiling point over the rigidity, complexity and escalating costs associated with router-centric architectures,” said Damon Ennis, senior vice president, products at Silver Peak. “Increasingly, enterprises are seeking to simplify branch and WAN Edge infrastructure with SD-WAN solutions that connect users directly from branch offices to cloud-hosted applications without sacrificing application performance. EdgeConnect enables distributed enterprises to immediately or progressively transform their router-centric WAN infrastructures to an SD-WAN to gain the performance, security, reliability and control they require to keep pace with changing business requirements.”

Solar Communications Group

Solar Communications Group, headquartered in London, is a leading telecommunications reseller that provides businesses with bespoke and flexible communication solutions that help them improve efficiencies and save money.

“Businesses are looking for ways to securely and reliably connect their users to applications using the most cost-effective combination of transports that don’t compromise network or application performance,” said Jason Evans, disruptive technologies director for Solar Communications Group. “Silver Peak provides us with the most comprehensive solution to equip our customers with agile and cost-effective connectivity between their sites. From concept to deployment, Silver Peak provides the full breadth of SD-WAN edge functionality, giving our customers the best-in-class technology available for today, as well as for the future.”

Bentley Systems

Founded in 1984, Bentley Systems is a global leader in comprehensive software solutions for advancing infrastructure. With a global footprint spanning more than 50 countries, the performance and availability of the firm’s network and applications is critical to enabling its more than 3,000 employees, across 90 locations, to design, develop and deliver a complete portfolio of infrastructure lifecycle management software.

“Our managed NaaS-based SD-WAN solution was proving cost prohibitive to scale so we conducted a proof-of-concept and selected Silver Peak EdgeConnect. We selected EdgeConnect for its superior performance, advanced feature-set and ability to cost-effectively scale in line with our business requirements,” said David Craig, network manager, Bentley Systems, Inc. “We put our trust in Silver Peak as the first customer to deploy BGP routing in a production network and we are very satisfied with our ability to easily create a full mesh network and dynamically route traffic between our 15-central hub and 80+ satellite office sites. To date, we’ve realised a 15 percent gain in network and application performance and we’re on track to a three-month ROI that will enable us to save more than $1.4M in connectivity costs over the coming three years.”

Clair Global

Founded in 1966, Clair Global, based in Lititz Pennsylvania, provides its clients with industry-leading production equipment and services for concerts, corporate events and festivals around the world. With a mission to exceed client expectations, the performance of the firm’s network and applications is critical to the overall success of their business.

“To simplify network operations and lower connectivity costs, we evaluated a range of SD-WAN solutions and ultimately selected EdgeConnect for its high performance, advanced features and ease of deployment,” said Ben Harris, lead network administrator, Clair Global. “We deployed the EdgeConnect software, taking advantage of 2-way BGP routing to mesh our global sites together and enable us to simplify router management, embrace commodity broadband and seamlessly connect our employees to the applications that drive our business. From inventory control to VoIP and client data our network and applications are performing better than ever before. More simply put, EdgeConnect has been a game-changer for Clair Global.”

Radial Inc.

Radial Inc., headquartered in King of Prussia Pennsylvania, is the leader in omnichannel commerce technology and operations, enabling brands and retailers to profitably exceed retail customer expectations from ‘behind-the-click’ with advanced order submission, payment authorisation and rapid shipping and fulfilment systems. The firm’s wide area network and applications underpin its continued success and will serve to fuel future growth and expansion.

“Our deployment of the EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution brings us new levels of simplicity and flexibility in connecting our employees to business applications using cost-effective broadband transport,” said Ray Stegmaier, senior director of network operations, Radial Inc. “With new capabilities like BGP routing combined with integrated WAN Optimisation with Unity Boost and advanced application visibility and control with Unity Orchestrator, we’ve regained control of our network and can take full advantage of commodity broadband without compromising network or application performance. EdgeConnect has proven phenomenal for us, the shift has been transparent to employees and we’re well on our way toward reducing our monthly MPLS connectivity costs.”

About Silver Peak

Silver Peak is the global leader in broadband and hybrid WAN solutions. Silver Peak offers a high-performance SD-WAN solution that provides secure and reliable virtual overlays to connect users to applications with the flexibility to use any combination of underlying transport without compromising network or application performance. This results in greater business agility and lower costs. More than 2,000 globally distributed enterprises have deployed Silver Peak broadband and hybrid WAN solutions across 80 countries. Learn more at www.silver-peak.com.

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Unity WAN Fabric Finds Quickest Paths to Office 365, Salesforce.com and Many More

August 20, 2014 – Silver Peak released the industry’s most comprehensive solution for optimizing software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. Unity, the new wide-area-network (WAN) fabric from Silver Peak, enables IT to control cloud connectivity across the enterprise and accelerate applications on any network. Unlike traditional WAN optimization, Unity finds the best route to applications in the public cloud as well as on private networks. It does this using sophisticated new cloud intelligence and WAN routing technology, which correlates information about SaaS applications and Internet “weather,” then sends traffic to the cloud over the shortest or least-congested path.

“SaaS has taken business productivity to new heights, but it has also dramatically changed the dynamics of IT networking,” said Damon Ennis, SVP of products for Silver Peak. “The weather on the Internet can be congested one minute and tolerable the next, making the performance of cloud services unpredictable. Even worse, your IT staff have no way to monitor traffic to the cloud once it leaves the WAN. Silver Peak’s Unity fabric gives them capabilities they’ve never had before. It turns the Internet into your own private, high-performance network and brings SaaS under the control of IT.”

New Routing for the New WAN

The Unity network fabric is generated by Silver Peak software installed in data centers, branch offices and cloud interconnection hubs, in conjunction with Silver Peak’s new Cloud Intelligence Service. Cloud Intelligence aggregates ever-changing information about SaaS providers, including the physical locations where the providers’ data is being served, and provides minute-to-minute updates on Internet weather patterns. The Silver Peak instances use this data to measure the loss, latency and other metrics from their locations to different services in the cloud. This information is broadcasted to all other instances on the fabric, enabling Unity to calculate the optimal end-to-end path for any user on the network to any SaaS destination.

By enabling Silver Peak instances within cloud interconnection points, such as Equinix Performance Hubs, enterprises can easily extend the monitoring, control, and optimization of their WAN all the way to the doorstep of SaaS services such as Salesforce and Office 365.

“As more and more enterprises adopt cloud services, we hear more and more about the strains on network performance and a consistent quality of experience to access cloud-based services for a distributed workforce,” said Jim Poole, vice president, global service providers, Equinix. “The Silver Peak Unity solution combines Equinix Performance Hub with the convenience of seamless cloud access to the largest ecosystem of Cloud providers, MSPs and SIs, bringing users closer to business-critical data and cloud resources from anywhere in the world.”

Comprehensive, Cost-Effective SaaS Optimization through Cloud Intelligence

Silver Peak is constantly adding support for new SaaS services, along with new cloud hub and IaaS partnerships that help enterprises extend their Unity fabric. Silver Peak’s Cloud Intelligence can be added to an enterprise deployment with a single, low-cost annual subscription, which includes all supported SaaS applications.

Over time, Unity will optimize every SaaS application. The fabric currently supports more than 30 of the most popular, including:

• Adobe Creative Cloud
• Box
• ConstantContact
• Cornerstone OnDemand
• Dropbox
• Eloqua
• GoToAssist
• GoToMeeting
• GoToTraining
• GoToWebinar
• Intuit
• Lithium
• LiveOps
• Marketo
• NetSuite
• Microsoft Office 365
• Parature
• Pardot
• ExactTarget
• Salesforce.com
• ServiceNow
• SuccessFactors
• SugarCRM
• Taleo
• Ultimate Software
• Workday
• ZenDesk
• ZohoOffice

Products, Pricing and Availability

To optimize their networks for SaaS, new customers must purchase a minimum of two Silver Peak software instances and a subscription to Unity Cloud Intelligence. Existing Silver Peak customers simply need to upgrade their Silver Peak software to release 7 and subscribe to Unity Cloud Intelligence. Customers can expand their networks by adding Silver Peak instances in cloud hubs or IaaS providers. The Unity Cloud Intelligence subscription is $5,000 per enterprise, per year with unlimited SaaS application support. Silver Peak software instances are available for as little as $551 per year.

Additional Resources

• Silver Peak Unity Web Page
• Analyst Report: The Next Generation of Wide Area Networking
• Analyst Report: Intelligent WAN Market Analysis
• IDC Report: Rise of the Hybrid WAN
• White Paper: Optimize Every SaaS Applications with an Intelligent WAN
• Infographic: Internet Weather Report

About Silver Peak

Silver Peak software unifies cloud, Internet and WAN on a single fabric, giving IT complete visibility and control over the new network while ensuring performance consistency for every application. Transform your network today at www.silver-peak.com

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