The branch and wide-area network (WAN) architectures and designs of the last 20 years have quickly become outdated due to the growth and bandwidth needs of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud and modern media-rich applications. Complexity, cost and inefficiency has forced a transformation of how the WAN and branch provide connectivity and services. Servicing business and commercial customers requires providing more bandwidth intensive digital and media-rich services while also increasing the security and integrity of sensitive customer data.
“The current WAN and branch infrastructure are not optimised and effective to provide these services in the cloud and digital transformation age. Versa Networks delivers a solution that enables financial services providers to truly software-define their WAN and branch with a cloud-native software platform. This solution delivers integrated networking and multi-layer security services while simplifying and unifying visibility and analytics under a single-pane-of-glass interface,” says Andre Kannemeyer, CTO at Duxbury Networking, distributors of Versa technology.
“One of the best indicators of the suitability of a solution is in its successful application in a particular market sector,” he adds.
Global credit card payments company modernises WAN infrastructure
A global company providing payment services, and financial and commerce technology solutions, needed to transform its WAN infrastructure to better support its customers. Its customers include financial institutions and merchants, corporations and consumers. To support its integrated solutions, the company required a new software-based infrastructure that would move money and information at scale, and accelerate services at the rapidly increasing pace of change.
The company had multiple needs and use cases identified for their SD-WAN deployment, including:
Branch office connectivity to processing centres
Connecting branch offices to cloud resources
Mobile and IoT endpoint connectivity
Customer self-service portals for branch, mobile and home users
The major objectives of the new network included:
Transform network infrastructure to a software-based, virtual infrastructure
Eliminate proprietary hardware dependence
Shorten network provisioning time
Enable rapid onboarding
Deploy diverse sites with consistency
Leverage a consistent API for all programming and reporting
Reduce complexity with a controller-based routing typology using an overlay
Store all relevant IT hardware and software information, and their relationships in a CMDB
Integrate with their legacy network.
To accomplish its WAN transformation, the company chose Versa Network’s SD-WAN. Versa’s single platform, with multi-function VNFs, provided the diversity of features and flexible deployment capabilities the company needed. Versa enabled the company to simplify its network infrastructure, reduce its multi-site footprint, and lower the cost of deployment and operational management. Versa SD-WAN software is installed on vendor agnostic hardware at branch locations that deploy services that scale based on the size of each location.
Deploying virtual network services within a software-defined infrastructure allowed the company to centralise all functions into a set of compute blocks that easily scale by simply adding compute nodes, rather than deploying more hardware.
By deploying virtual infrastructure, they are now free from the constraints and limitations of physical infrastructure. By eliminating the plethora of single-function hardware devices, the company has reduced Capex, power consumption, and maintenance and support costs. By adopting a software-based approach, they moved away from the end of life, and end of support challenges, associated with the traditional hardware refresh model.