Verizon adds 'Co Management' to its enterprise SD-WAN quiver

Verizon had added a new capability into its SD-WAN managed services portfolio that lets customers change their policies on the fly.

Verizon said its "Co Management" service gives enterprise customers the ability to change SD-WAN policies, such as application-aware routing, or quality of service, through either the Verizon Enterprise Center (VEC) self-service policy management portal or Verizon's API platform.

The self-service portal enables customers to define intents based on users, applications, sites and their WAN links, and then apply those intents to different policy objects based on business needs. Verizon didn't say which vendor it was working with to enable the Co Management service, but it has previously announced Cisco IWAN, Versa Networks and Hitachi High Technologies America as its SD-WAN partners.

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By providing customers with control of their applications policies, they're able to be more flexible and responsive to their business requirements, which in turn provides a better user experience for their end customers. Any of the policies that are not supported in the portal or the APIs are still managed by Verizon.

“Co-management has become a key desired feature of SD-WAN Managed Services programs as clients have expressed the desire to have a portal for self-serve management and configuration capabilities," said Scott Raynovich, founder and principal analyst, Futuriom. "This is an important addition Verizon as it builds its extensive managed services portfolio.”

While managed services add to Verizon's bottom line, they also allow it stand out in a crowded field of SD-WAN services from telcos and cable operators.

“By adding Co Management to our managed services portfolio, we are giving enterprise customers the ability to define and implement their SD-WAN policies across their location based on a rules-based engine, themselves,” said Verizon's Vickie Lonker, vice president of product management, in a statement. “We listen to customer feedback, understand industry trends and continue to develop innovative SD-WAN solutions that can meet the needs of any business customer.”

Lonker previously told FierceTelecom that her team has been working on creating tools and capabilities that gave business customers more control of their services and applications. Verizon said it planned to offer a series of Co Management product rollouts to support the Verizon Virtual Networks portfolio.