American telecom company CenturyLink announced the launch of its CenturyLink managed hybrid software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) service last week. The communications provider says the service will cater to businesses that require secure SD-WAN features by facilitating traffic flows across private Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks and broadband internet connections.
According to CenturyLink, its new SD-WAN solutions will have built-in encryption, security policy control and segmentation, with the option of integrating the company’s managed security services. Customers will avail the service in the form of WAN packages with a monthly as-a-service fee. CenturyLink claims that its SD-WAN offering will decrease network security risks and increase cost efficiency for end users across their WANs.
While discussing the new SD-WAN service, VP of Channel Alliances at CenturyLink, John DeLozier, spoke on some of its key selling points:
With CenturyLink Managed Hybrid SD-WAN solutions, our partners can now offer their customers complete, ‘as-a-service’ hybrid SD-WAN offerings with CenturyLink providing the SD-WAN platform and management, along with transport and management of the entire WAN for a single bundled price.
In similar fashion, VP of Product Management at CenturyLink, Troy Trenchard, echoed his colleague’s endorsement:
Businesses are looking to evolve their networks to better support their mission-critical business and cloud initiatives. Our Managed Hybrid SD-WAN solutions enable businesses to leverage their existing investments in MPLS while adding next-generation network capabilities. By using these new offerings, businesses can deliver high application performance and security across the WAN, especially for cloud-hosted apps.
This is an evolving market both in terms of the technology and the vendors, but also the use cases. We are paying a lot of attention to what is happening in the market and what we are learning from our current engagements.
CenturyLink’s latest service offering is viewed by the company as a refined and upgraded version of the SD-WAN solutions it introduced a few months ago.