Verizon Becomes the First Service Provider to Offer Cisco IWAN

Today, Verizon announced a new software-defined WAN service, becoming the first global carrier to incorporate Software Defined-WAN as a key component of their managed network service offers. We are excited that Verizon has chosen Cisco Intelligent WAN (IWAN) as the foundation for this new service, which will give Enterprise customers even more flexibility when choosing how to purchase their SD-WAN solution.

Cisco recently published an “SD-WAN Bill of Rights”, a guide designed to help you evaluate SD-WAN solutions as you prepare your WAN for digital transformation. Together, Cisco and Verizon are strengthening your ability to achieve two of these “rights”: The Right to Choose Your WAN Connectivity and The Right to Flexible Deployment Models.

The Right to Choose Your WAN Connectivity

Both ONUG and Gartner agree that any SD-WAN solution should support both public and private WAN transports. With Cisco IWAN, Verizon enables enterprise organizations to use all available connectivity options – leveraging the power of the Internet with Verizon’s leading high performance, secure private network, MPLS and the nation’s most reliable 4G LTE network. Applications can be load balanced in real time, assigned and prioritized to a certain transport, and arrive at the final destination securely.

With Verizon and Cisco, you also eliminate the pain of managing multiple carriers across multiple technologies. And if you are a global company, you might be managing a carrier or carriers per city or country. The new service allows you to manage just one contract for all your WAN needs, resulting in simpler and more efficient operations.

The Right to Flexible Deployment Models

While we have customers adopting Cisco IWAN, designing and implementing it on their own successfully, for many organizations, may not be an option due to size of the IT staff, resources or other business requirements. Verizon’s new service offers all of the features and benefits of Cisco IWAN without the administrative burden. Verizon will deploy, configure, and manage the Cisco platforms. All you need to know is that your employees, customers and guests have a seamless user experience and that the WAN can support any digital transformations the business requires.

Learn more about Cisco IWAN by visiting http://www.cisco.com/go/sdwan.

Stay tuned for my next post with information on a Verizon-Cisco webinar!