Tata Communications is leveraging Anuta Networks’ NCX orchestrator to automate the rollout of the service provider's IZO SD-WAN offering across 130 countries.
By using the NCX orchestrator, Tata Communications will be able to automate Cisco Integrated Services Routers (ISR), Cisco Aggregation Services Routers and Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000V Series.
Besides performing service provisioning, NCX collects telemetry from thousands of network elements to provide customers with visibility into their network operations.
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NCX will provide persistence, role-based access control, hierarchical resource pools, Netconf Access Control Model (NACM), and auditing.
While still early in the process of being rolled out, Anuta will provide Tata with branch automation for managed IZO service customers across the 130-country footprint. This will include over 200,000 CPE or branch locations from over 1,000 customers.
Peter Juffernholz, AVP of virtualized network services at Tata Communications, said in a release that the Anuta platform will be key to enabling the service provider to respond to its customer’s remote office needs.
“To enhance the self-service capabilities of IZO SDWAN and enable on-demand service provisioning, including network telemetry driven service assurance, we have partnered with Anuta Networks,” Juffernholz said. “The company’s NCX network orchestrator has the breadth and depth of features we needed to automate remote branch deployments for our customers globally.”
Specifically, Anuta will automate and manage Tata’s branch router for customers who purchase the service provider’s Layer-3 VPN service.
While supporting Cisco’s SD-WAN gear is the focus for this deployment, Anuta’s orchestrator can support multi-vendor, physical, hybrid and virtual network services. Leveraging YANG modeling, Anuta’s platform can support over 40 platforms to help Tata to automate complex provisioning and operational flows.
Additionally, Anuta will be able to support a triggered policy push as well as switching over traffic from primary to secondary WAN. On-boarding a new tenant requires 400 complex CLIs across four vendor platforms.
Kiran Sirupa, director of marketing at Anuta Networks, told FierceTelecom that service providers like Tata need a way to manage what is becoming a complex network of multiple platforms.
“When it comes to network virtualization, there are so many components,” Sirupa said. “The Cisco ASR 9000 router used to serve 10,000 tenants, but if you were to virtualize it you end up with 10,000 individual virtual routers so someone has to take care of them.”
This means a service provider has to not only manage these appliances, but also understand what licenses they have, configurations, and compliance.
Sirupa said that “orchestration is becoming more critical for service providers and enterprises.”
Being able to manage and automate the process of deploying SD-WAN will be important for Tata, particularly as it rolls out the service across its broad footprint.
Tata is just one of several customers using Anuta’s NCX platform. The service provider also has agreements with Telstra and several other customers.