ngena: Creating Next-Gen Global Business Networks

Multinational, global enterprise growth continues to rise, and these businesses require reliable, agile, and seamless connectivity with end-to-end global SLAs. Many of the global companies we talk to are banks, manufacturers, and insurance companies that have a growing international presence or customer base, and they need a secure approach to connect their worldwide operations. Many of these enterprise customers are relying on service providers to provide the infrastructure, platforms, and services they need.

The Next Generation Enterprise Network Alliance (ngena) is truly a ground-breaking initiative creating a global platform that connects regional carrier networks through a global backbone. This platform provides a “borderless,” standardized, global set of VPN services to help enterprise customers work with their service providers to address those needs. ngena is also a new, disruptive global business model that makes it possible for these service providers to share network resources so they can provide a consistent experience for these customers on a global scale.

The ngena platform makes it possible for customers to benefit from simplicity, reliability, quality, and scale. Instead of having to negotiate, obtain, and manage disparate connectivity from various providers, they can rely upon ngena as a “one-stop shop” for all their global network needs.

Cisco has been working with the alliance to design and build the innovative service delivery platform behind ngena. The platform is powered by Cisco technologies that feature high-performance cloud infrastructure, security, management, and layered orchestration for end-to-end seamless automation, service assurance, virtual network functions, and customer premise equipment portfolio. Combined with Viptela’s SD-WAN technology, this platform enables ngena to offer enterprises cost-effective, innovative, and reliable business network services. The ngena solution is designed to meet customer requirements for single sourcing of service providers for global enterprise network services, faster service roll-out at any location in the world, predictable end-to-end service level agreements with superior service performance, and quality of experience.

What’s so great about this model is that the Cisco distributed cloud platform integrates with a third-party B/OSS system, so customers can leverage a global, secure, easy-to-use software-defined network. This fits nicely with Cisco’s Digital Network Architecture, bringing a cloud-first management approach with flexible deployment option for SD-WANs, cloud edge, segmentation, and feature-rich capabilities that are simple to deploy and operate. Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) powers the network automation provisioning and orchestration services based on virtualized and physical functions, while providing a high level of service abstraction, network programmability, and coordinated service assurance.

Core elements of Cisco’s portfolio are helping ngena to deliver a unique set of secure carrier-class network services and wide-area and local-area network management. The alliance will soon add other services such as secure cloud connectivity, unified communication, collaboration, security, and IoT.

I’m really excited about the potential of ngena. It’s a transformative initiative that combines an innovative business model, strong industrial partnerships, a cloud-first, software-based technology platform, and a high degree of process automation. Together those attributes enable ngena and its alliance partners to uniquely address the needs of multinational, “borderless” enterprises and leapfrog the classic competition.

If you are at Cisco Live Barcelona, visit ngena at the World of Solutions to see this innovative model firsthand.

For more information:

ngena website

ngena overview (video)