China Telecom, Silver Peak to Provide Global Managed SD-WAN

China Telecom has partnered with Silver Peak to provide tiered managed SD-WAN services to multinational enterprise customers.

The managed SD-WAN solution, based on Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect and Unity Boost, will be delivered to China Telecom’s multinational customers based in the PRC looking to expand network services within the region and globally. The managed SD-WAN technology provides security services; SaaS optimization; cloud application performance, visibility and control; secure WAN connectivity; SLA-based performance for on premise and cloud-hosted applications; and tiered WAN optimization services with Silver Peak’s Unity Boost.

By partnering with the industry leader Silver Peak, we can accelerate growth

“By partnering with the industry leader Silver Peak, we can accelerate growth and expand our customer base by offering cost-effective global WAN connectivity to our existing Chinese multinational clients and attract new multinational clients that seek low-cost WAN connectivity across their sites in China,” said Cao Zheng, manager of network management expert business department at China Telecom Shanghai Ideal Information Industry Group, in the release.

Tiered services are the next generation of managed SD-WAN services

Tiered managed SD-WAN services enable operators to deliver additional services in an automated way and derive incremental revenue from acceleration for SaaS services, WAN optimization as a service, analytics and security services, said Shayne Stubbs, vice president of service provider and cloud for Silver Peak, in an interview with Light Reading. Tiered services are the next generation of managed SD-WAN services, added Nav Chander, senior director of service provider marketing for Silver Peak.

“Tiered services — we think that’s the next evolution of managed SD-WAN services … not all services are needed for all applications and customers are different sizes and how far they reach may not require the same level of service, and we have that flexibility to take any of those applications and package them,” said Chander. “For example, analytics as a service is one of those areas where service providers are trying to figure out how can they monetize and make money from that — that’s a new source of potential revenue on top of SD-WAN — that’s another value-add, higher-margin service.”

The Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator and Unity EdgeConnect are also integrated with China Telecom’s NetCare unified customer network monitoring and management platform.

“NetCare is for their largest global accounts — they probably represent 80% of global revenue,” said Stubbs.”We’ve been integrated with NetCare completely at an API level for fully automated service delivery for over nine months.”

In addition to China Telecom, Silver Peak has dozens of service provider partners delivering their managed SD-WAN services including NTT Communications, Hyundai HCN in South Korea, Masergy Communications, TeliaSonera Finland and Interoute Communications Ltd. Silver Peak also has 450 new production customers for Silver Peak’s Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution, which are enterprise customers from direct end channels.

“Silver Peak and China Telecom’s partnership has come at an opportune time as the APAC market is just beginning to embrace SD-WAN,” said Roopa Honnachari, industry director of Business Communication Services & Cloud Computing Services – ICT for Frost & Sullivan , in an email to Light Reading. “The SD-WAN market has emerged out of the early adopter stage and is gaining traction, globally. Managed SD-WAN, in particular, is of immense value to enterprises as the service provider takes on the tasks of procuring, deploying and managing the hybrid network and edge devices, and ensuring application performance. In a recent Frost & Sullivan SD-WAN survey, nearly 50% of the respondents stated they would prefer to buy SD-WAN from their current network service provider or a managed service provider.”

China Telecom is also partnering with Wetcon-Comstor, a global distributor for Silver Peak, which acts as a service delivery vehicle with on the ground presence in China to assist China Telecom with fulfillment and integration of the underlying Silver Peak EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution.