Nuage Networks teams up with Asavie for mobile SD-WAN across desktop, mobile and IoT devices

With millions of employees working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic, Nuage Networks is partnering with Asavie to deliver an SD-WAN solution across desktop, mobile and IoT devices.

The combined solution pairs Nuage Networks SD-WAN 2.0 with Asavie's SD Edge, which allows enterprise employees to connect with their work-related software-as-a-services (SaaS) applications across private and public clouds.

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It also enables users to connect to enterprise clouds and applications using SD-WAN without the need for virtual private networks. Nuage Networks said it was the industry's first SD-WAN solution to go beyond offices and branches and into desktop, mobile and IoT devices.

Using Asavie's clientless SD Edge mobile connectivity, Nuage can enable IT managers to extend their security policies beyond their branch locations regardless of their employees' locations. Using SD-WAN is especially timely with employees now working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Considering that remote workers are dependent on a single residential broadband link at their home, SD-WAN can bring tremendous value to users by optimizing the link through continuous monitoring and traffic steering features," said Frost & Sullivan's Roopa Honnachari, industry director, information and communications technologies. "Additionally, users with company-provided mobile devices can add their wireless 4G/LTE links to SD-WAN to aggregate available bandwidth. Furthermore, any novice user at home can easily install an SD-WAN edge device, with the ability for the IT administrator to provision and make the device operational remotely."

In an email to FierceTelecom, Asavie's Mick Higgins, senior vice president of product, said the majority of SD-WAN vendors today only work on fixed networks.

"There are a few SD-WAN vendors offering solutions to handle mobile, but all of these use VPN clients as a way to try and secure mobile devices," Higgins said. "These clients are very cumbersome to deploy, consume battery life on the phone, are not easily scalable and are not suitable for IoT devices.

"In contrast, Asavie offers with SD Edge a clientless solution that is compatible with smartphones, tablets, cellular routers and IoT devices, for example any SIM-based device. Asavie achieves this by taking a private APN (access point name) integration from the operator and we multi-tenant the private APN and create individual private network slices of the mobile network for enterprises. We do this in an automated way and create a self-serve environment for the user.

"For example in AT&T, we have one private APN and we have thousands of slices available and provide one slice per enterprise."

Higgins said Asavie has a strategic partnership with Nuage Networks and Nuage is Asavie's launch partner for its SD Edge. However, Asavie will work and interoperate with other SD-WAN vendors to support its service provider partners.

One of those service provider partners is AT&T. AT&T is currently reselling a white-label version of Asavie’s SD Mobile, which AT&T has branded AccessMyLAN. SD Mobile is a network based, enterprise mobility service that delivers a customized secure internet connection for smartphones and other cellular devices.

"It offers visibility, security and control across the mobile fleet including smartphones, tablets and cellular routers for businesses from one SIM to tens of thousands of SIMs," Higgins said. "Asavie does not sell into the AT&T SD WAN solution service today, however we have integrated into their security solutions for some large enterprises.

"This new SD Edge service would provide a solution for Asavie to integrate into the AT&T SD-WAN service and enable mobile and IoT branches for AT&T."

Privately-held Asavie, which was founded in 2004, has more than 140 employees and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.