Orange delivers SD-WAN solution with NFV onboarding on universal CPE

At Cisco Live Europe, Orange Business Services showcased the next push of its global SD-WAN portfolio with the first onboarding of a Cisco SD-WAN virtual network function (VNF) on the Cisco Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS).

This platform, which delivers a fully functional virtualized solution for network services, is part of the Orange universal customer premise equipment (uCPE) offer. This new approach is in addition to existing appliance or cloud-based deployment options. It further strengthens the SD-WAN by Orange offering, and is part of its strategy to move to software-defined networks (SDN) and intent-based networking.

Orange is using SD-WAN technology to build secure, hybrid connectivity for enterprises over any transport network, including MPLS, internet and satellite, with real-time centralized management of network functions, application policy setting and application visibility. SD-WAN allows enterprises to meet their ever increasing cloud, bandwidth and internet demands effectively and securely. It also improves application performance, irrespective of whether it is delivered from the cloud or the enterprise data center.

In addition, thanks to uCPE central orchestration, Orange can provide automated Cisco SD-WAN deployment, based on Viptela technology, in minutes on all enterprise sites, wherever they are located. The uCPE can run multiple additional functions, such as security, which can be orchestrated centrally and chained as required. This means that enterprises can dynamically adapt the branch office configuration to optimize user experience.