FatPipe Networks became the latest SD-WAN vendor to announce a tie-in with a cloud provider with the news that it's working with Microsoft Azure.
While FatPipe has previously announced hypervisor work with several cloud service providers, it announced on Tuesday the general availability of "FatPipe SD-WAN for Azure," which is now available through the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
Cloud service providers have taken note of the importance of bundling SD-WAN as part of a cloud service in order to deliver SaaS-based applications such as Office 365 or migrating workloads to Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure.
Last year, Versa Networks announced it was partnering with AWS to offer SD-WAN to AWS partners. Citrix and Riverbed also announced availability of their SD-WAN offerings on Microsoft Azure and AWS in 2018.
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FatPipe SD-WAN for Azure, which is an SD-WAN virtual machine, lets Microsoft Azure customers who are using Office 365 and other cloud-based applications bypass the need to reconnect to the cloud every time their sessions have dropped. FatPipe says this is especially useful for customers and offices where large groups have to use Office 365 or other cloud-hosted applications, or when a single-line connection to Azure is not adequate to address line drop issues.
FatPipe SD-WAN for Azure is built around FatPipe's MPSec technology, which it said provides the highest possible WAN transmission security versus standard encryption. The improved security is targeted at multinational corporations, embassies and government agencies that want to use cloud applications but are concerned about security and compromised ISPs.
"FatPipe for Azure is especially important for real-time Azure Cloud offerings like Office 365, AI, business intelligence, Azure Stream Analytics, and Event Hubs where thousands of telemetry data have to be sent to the Azure Cloud. FatPipe ensures that all sessions including VoIP, video, data, and VPNs are not dropped but simply fail over to other available lines," said Ragula Bhaskar, Ph.D., CEO of FatPipe Networks, in a prepared statement.
FatPipe for Azure can be licensed with FatPipe's full suite of features including SD-WAN, WAN optimization, network visibility and reporting, VPN, and QoS. FatPipe for Azure is licensed using Azure's "Bring Your Own License" model.