GBI gets on the SD-WAN scoreboard with Nuage

Gulf Bridge International (GBI) is using Nuage Networks' SD-WAN technologies to connect branch locations to both public and private clouds in the Middle East and Africa.

GBI, which is an inter-connect carrier, said the deal with Nuage marked the first extension of SD-WAN to the public cloud in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region. GBI offers managed IP services to hundreds of enterprise customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia.

With Nuage Networks' "SD-WAN 2.0," which it announced in September, GBI's customers can set up automated services with specific policies related to availability, reliability or security by using a single, unified interface. The policies include dynamic responses to security threats such as distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), and the ability to monitor capacity and distribute it manually or automatically in order to meet the bandwidth needs of individual branches or data centers.

"We believe Nuage's SD-WAN solution will completely change the future of business connectivity services for our enterprise customers," said Cengiz Oztelcan, CEO of GBI, in a statement. "As the largest provider of connectivity in our market, we see SD-WAN as the icing on the cake that will further reinforce the confidence, loyalty and trust of our many business customers. With GBI products and the SD-WAN technology, we are delivering more capabilities and bringing more value to our customers."

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In a recent FierceTelecom story that evaluated the SD-WAN vendors, Scott Raynovich, the founder and chief analyst of Futuriom, wrote that Nuage "has a strong SDN offering and recently integrated its SD-WAN offerings with its data-center networking product, VNS," which was announced in September.

Nuage Networks SD-WAN deployments to date include BT, Cogeco Peer1, Credit Andorra, Etisalat, Equal, Globe Telecom, NTT Com India and Telefonica. On the security front, Nuage works with well-known names in the industry, such as Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks and Check Point.

In IHS Markit's SD-WAN and ADC fourth-quarter report, Nuage ranked fifth overall for fourth quarter revenues behind, respectively, VMware, Cisco, Aryaka, and Silver Peak.