Expereo Adds 5G Access To Its Managed SD-WAN, Internet Services

Service provider Expereo expanded its internet services and connectivity portfolio with the addition of 5G access to its SD-WAN and global internet services.

The new expansion will enable 5G mobile connectivity to its SD-WAN overlay, when available. Now, Expereo’s customers will have access to a combination of connectivity options including fiber, broadband, and a 4G wireless connection.

However, for use cases that are consuming large quantities of data, if available, 5G will help deliver higher performance for services in line with the performance of fixed-line terrestrial services. This performance is provided by the lower latency, higher performance, and increased bandwidth promised by 5G mobile access.

“Mobile connectivity fits very well into an internet underlay design for SD-WAN and cloud access. Ensuring that businesses can be flexible and fast, that they have a redundant internet solution ensuring site and application availability,” said Rene de Baerdemaeker, the director of supplier management at Expereo, in a statement.

These mobile services, the company says, will allow it to enhance its global network reliability and availability. Its customers will have the option to add mobile access, both 4G and 5G, to its SD-WAN overlay.

Expereo says that this addition will serve a number of industries and use cases. For construction companies, it says, having mobile connectivity in remote locations can give employees access to WiFi and adds the ability to maintain services such as security cameras. For the retail market, having 5G will give more flexibility to companies looking to reach new sites or add alternate point of sale locations.

And for most market verticals, having multiple connectivity options is paramount to creating redundancy.

The service provider joins the market in welcoming 5G connectivity services to SD-WAN. This February, Cisco partnered with Verizon to add 5G mobile access and VMware announced a similar partnership with AT&T. Josh Bancroft, senior research analyst at IHS Markit, told SDxCentral, that the SD-WAN market going forward will see the addition of 5G, IoT, and other edge application capabilities.

“The telcos view SD-WAN as a key way to ensure various traffic types are automatically steered to the appropriate links. It can also guarantee IoT traffic is prioritized over 5G and other applications are automatically routed over broadband,” Bancroft said.

The provider delivers a managed SD-WAN underlay service with an internet overlay to customers, leveraging both Cisco and Viptela SD-WAN services, though it says it will offer network change management with most major SD-WAN vendors. And Expereo provides an orchestration layer with the SD-WAN to manage configuration and lifecycle changes.

Expereo Managed SD-WAN

Expereo has made significant upgrades to its SD-WAN platform through both acquisitions and partnerships.

In July 2017, it acquired software vendor Border 6 to bolster its SD-WAN underlay platform. Initially it used the Border 6 software to build an internet routing optimization service on its border gateway protocol (BGP) network optimization platform, deemed XCA Edge, which can optimize outbound traffic from data centers and customer sites.

And in April 2018, it partnered with SecurityOps to add the ability to bundle its SD-WAN with fully-managed security as well. It offers security infrastructure management, threat monitoring and response, and vulnerability lifecycle management.

The Amsterdam-based provider claims to manage over 11,000 enterprise and government sites across 190 countries. In May 2018, it was purchased by Paris private equity firm Apex Partners.―SDX Central