Today, Cisco completed the acquisition of Viptela, which further accelerates our Network Intuitive vision we launched in June.
Viptela provides a world-class, cloud-first SD-WAN solution with advanced routing, segmentation, and security capabilities for interconnecting complex enterprise networks. Its cloud-based network management, orchestration and overlay technologies make it easy to deploy and manage next-generation WAN architectures.
There are massive transformations in enterprise networking as new waves of Software Defined Networking (SDN) move into the LAN and WAN. Customers are turning to SD-WAN solutions to simplify their branch office and WAN deployments, and lower costs and risks with simple automation and orchestration. In fact, IDC estimates that worldwide SD-WAN infrastructure and services revenues will see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 69.6% and reach $8.05 billion in 2021.
The Viptela team will be joining our enterprise networking engineering and sales teams to begin extending Cisco’s vision for intent-based networking across the WAN, campus, and branch. We are committed to continuing to accelerate the standalone roadmap for Viptela’s vEdge routers and overall SD-WAN solution. We will also be committing significant incremental engineering resources to bring unified next-generation SD-WAN solutions to market across our ISR and ASR routers as well as the newly announced DNA Center.
Cisco is committed to offering the broadest range of SD-WAN solutions to our customers. Selecting the right solution is based on understanding our customers’ needs and goals. With that in mind, we’ll provide our customers with the following options:
- For customers and partners that require cloud-first SD-WAN solutions with advanced routing, complex topologies, or granular segmentation capabilities, Cisco’s SD-WAN solution based on Viptela will be the preferred solution.
- For customers looking for unified threat management (UTM) solutions with SD-WAN functionality or are existing Cisco Meraki customers looking to expand to SD-WAN then Cisco Meraki is the recommended solution.
- Cisco is investing in and supporting the IWAN solution. Customers who need to support advanced services such as voice, compute, WAN optimization, integrated threat control capabilities, switching, etc., integrated on a single device, or are leveraging an existing ISR, should select Cisco IWAN. As new unified offers are made available with Viptela’s technology incorporated in the ISR and ASRs, customers will be able to migrate to the new unified solution as desired.
Viptela accelerates Cisco’s overall Network Intuitive vision that was unveiled in June. With this new Digital Network Architecture approach, Cisco is changing the fundamental blueprint for networking with reimagined hardware and the most advanced software. The shift from hardware-centric to software-driven networking will enable customers to experience a quantum leap in agility, productivity and performance. The intuitive network is an intelligent, highly secure platform — powered by intent and informed by context and Viptela’s solution is perfectly aligned with that vision. We’re helping our customers be successful with their digital transformation and Cisco’s next-generation SD-WAN solutions will play a key role in making that vision a reality.
Glad to see Viptela joining our EN team. Looking forward to great things to come!!!
cisco’s acquisition of and strategy for viptela makes great sense. as opposed to a not invented here attitude, cisco continues its leadership of networking by acquiring and investing in the best software defined – wide area (sd-wan) technology. I think sd-wan is one of the greatest technologies since the widespread adoption of Ethernet.
Congratulations.
So the SD-WAN solution Viptela brought to market will not be integrated into the current ISR solution (iWAN) with Cisco?
Chase,
Viptela SD-WAN solution will be fully integrated into the ISR 4K and ASR1K and will be our next-generation SD-WAN solution release.
We were planning a next generation release of SD-WAN to address cloud use cases and automation and the acquisition of Viptela will accelerate that.
This next gen release will not be backwards compatible with the current IWAN, but you will be able to move to the new release via SW upgrade on ISR4K and ASR1K platforms.
The integration will take time to complete, but in the meantime the Viptela products will be available to meet customers needs
@StevenWood – thank-you. So Cisco views Viptela as Cisco’s premium/preferred SD-WAN solution going forward? I understand that iWAN/PfRv3 support and even development will not go away, but just wondering whether Viptela is viewed as a complementary solution that sits alongside iWAN going forward, or if Viptela is viewed as the evolution and long term replacement for PfRv3.
Also, will Viptela make use of the 4k service container resources? If yes, will a Cisco SSD be required to run Viptela in this service-container space, or will Viptela software run on the routers as they ship, given the appropriate licensing?
Thanks!
Hey MB – good question. Its not about “premium” solution its about evolution. IWAN was introduced to the market almost 3 years ago. That’s an eon considering how fast the market is moving.
We were already planning and developing a Next Gen release to address these new realities. In addition we want to make several changes in technology architecture to set us up for the long term. This included a new fabric overlay and path control. Viptela helps us accelerate the introduction of this next gen tremendously.
So in that context its a new release of our SD-WAN solution train.
We had IWAN 1, IWAN 2 and now our Next Gen – all part of the evolution.
We will continue to support customers on our IWAN 2 release and the roadmap there will overlap our next gen. Choice of which one will depend on your use cases, platform investments and deployment timelines but if your just starting out, we’d recommend to be looking at the next gen release.
So is IWAN in its current form, no longer a “recommended solution”? You don’t highlight any use cases for which IWAN would be recommended. I get that Viptela and the ISR will be integrated in the future, but should customers looking to implement Cisco SDWAN in the next 3-6 months only be looking at Viptela or Meraki?
Thanks for share this article.
Another nice move, Congratulations for this new acquisition…That’s why Cisco is always a step ahead!
Hi folks – everyone should rest assured that with the release of our next gen SD WAN solution, that IWAN 2 and its technologies will continue to be supported in the long term. PfR and DMVPN are based IOS technologies and have 100’s of customers on IWAN 2. We are committed to support of those customers and transition when appropriate for customer needs & timelines
Great move. Looking forward to seeing how this changes the SD-WAN solution to the Cisco product range in this domain.
I would highly recommend that Cisco take a look at some of the open initiatives such as CORD project, Ubiquiti, and VyOS. These examples of software-defined solutions are where the future lies and if Cisco does not re-invent itself to accommodate this market shift they could find themselves left behind. CSR and XRv are great examples of work being done already in that field but Cisco has to push forward.
SD-WAN is one of the amazing technologies. Congratulations team CISCO. That’s the reason no one can beat CISCO in industry.
Good