SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORKING

CISCO SD-WAN

WINNER: OVERALL

Cisco offers two flavors of SDWAN: Cisco Meraki and Cisco SD-WAN powered by Viptela, an offering derived from the acquisition of SD-WAN startup Viptela. The cloud-based Cisco Meraki SD-WAN with unified threat management capabilities offering is included with an enterprise license on Meraki MX SD-WAN and security appliances and requires no extra servers or hardware. Cisco SD-WAN powered by Viptela is a cloud-based offering that separates data and control planes. Users can manage the offering via the Cisco vManage console and establish an SD-WAN overlay to connect data centers, branches, campuses and colocation facilities to improve network speed, security and efficiency.

Finalist: CloudGenix CloudBlades

With CloudBlades, CloudGenix reimagines remote office IT infrastructure into an entirely cloud-based environment. The CloudBlades platform can give branch offices all the IT services they need—such as cloud-based SD-WAN, security and voice services, as well as multi-cloud access and operational tools—in one place without any additional hardware or software.

Finalist: HPE Aruba Software-Defined Branch

HPE Aruba’s Software-Defined Branch and SD-WAN, managed on the Aruba Central network management platform, have seen enhancements to enable easier deployment of edge infrastructure at a large scale. Aruba Central now includes branch management capabilities with a new SD-WAN Orchestrator.

Finalist: Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect

The Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform allows users to connect securely and directly from branch offices to cloud applications via broadband connections, while still providing applications with strong performance. Silver Peak’s SD-WAN services include application visibility and a zone-based firewall via partnerships with security providers such as Palo Alto Networks.

Finalist: VMware NSX

Recently introduced VMware NSX offerings include the new SDN SmartFabric Director, which enables the physical switch underlay infrastructure to keep pace with the changing demands of virtualized and software-defined networks. Based on Dell PowerSwitch switches, the offering tightly integrates VMware vSphere and NSX-T to correctly provision application workloads.