Telia Carrier announced on Monday that it has expanded its SD-WAN portfolio with Cisco's Viptela offering. The addition of Cisco Viptela SD-WAN is part of Telia Carrier's move into the enterprise space by using its large, global internet backbone.
In addition to its global backbone, which gives it visibility into the network traffic of SD-WAN competitors such as Cato Networks and Aryaka, Telia Carrier Chief Evangelist Mattias Fridström said Telia Carrier also has on ramp relationships with the major cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud and Google Cloud.
Among those cloud partnerships, Fridström said enterprises want to scale up or scale down their storage and compute capabilities on AWS in particular, in order to get rid of their own servers, while connecting to AWS data centers across its footprint.
By using Cisco Viptela, Telia Carrier can offer enterprise customers the flexibility to manage their MPLS connectivity with their internet connectivity. Using its web portal, customers can opt for a fully managed SD-WAN model or a co-managed model. It also allows customers to attach their WAN overlays to Telia Carrier's backbone.
Telia Carrier's SD-WAN ambitions also benefit from parent company Telia Company launching an SD-WAN solution in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia in 2017 primarily with Nuage Networks, according to a 2019 research report by Frost & Sullivan's Roopa Honnachari. Telia Company was the first European service provider to launch SD-WAN.
"The fact that some of our sister companies have sold SD-WAN means we learn from their mistakes, what should you do or avoid," Fridström said. "We believe that the financial segment and the automotive segments are two segments we can start in with the Cisco SD-WAN. They have skilled engineers on their side to understand the type of services we're selling. They know how to run their own operations, and we will be perfect for them because we will give them the tools to run their networks."
In order to better serve the enterprise sector, Telia Carrier has hired new employees, such as engineers, that have previously worked in the enterprise space.
Service providers, such as AT&T, Verizon, Orange and CenturyLink, have typically added more SD-WAN solutions from different vendors based on customers' demands. Along those lines, Telia Carrier's Joakim Palm, global product manager, said his company anticipates adding more SD-WAN vendors to its portfolio based on customer input.
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On the security side, Telia Carrier has existing relationships with Fortinet and Check Point but could add security virtual network functions (VNF) from other vendors down the road. In order to make its newest SD-WAN solution easier to deploy, Telia Carrier offers its enterprise customers templates.
Telia Carrier's ideal SD-WAN enterprise customer has a footprint in both the U.S. and Europe. Fridström said Telia Carrier's primary competitors in the U.S include Windstream Enterprise and Verizon as well as Megaport, Cato and Aryaka globally.
Telia Carrier's global network serves more than 307 points of presence (PoPs) across 35 countries using its 65,000 km of optical fiber. Telia Carrier can provision its newest SD-WAN service via its 200 certified local access network partners around the world. It also has live MPLS endpoints in 70 countries.
Telia Carrier's global internet backbone, AS1299, is the currently the world's largest, according to Dyn Research's global backbone rankings. All told, Telia Carrier's backbone accounts for nearly 60% of global internet routes.