Agero supports nearly half of passenger vehicles on the road with Oracle SD-WAN

Agero is using Oracle enterprise communications technologies to safeguard drivers in more than 115 million vehicles in the U.S. When a driver is stranded roadside, time is of the essence. With Oracle, the company has achieved continuous contact center uptime, so customers can get the assistance they need and are back on the road as quickly as possible.

For 45 years, Agero has provided smart solutions for its clients and their drivers. Currently, Agero’s  roadside assistance, accident management and consumer affairs services are leveraged in the U.S. by drivers in two-thirds of new passenger vehicles, policyholders from nine of the top 15 auto insurance carriers and customers of a variety of other diversified clients. 

Oracle SD-WAN was created to solve the ongoing IT challenges network managers face every day—from expensive, sluggish, inflexible WANs to difficulties deploying new office WAN links and accessing cloud services. 

With Oracle SD-WAN, enterprises can benefit from internet economics, leverage high-bandwidth and inexpensive Internet connections, and safely migrate applications to the public cloud and SaaS at their own pace – without sacrificing the high availability and predictable application performance they expect from their MPLS-only WANs..

To maximize the quality of its customers’ experiences and to eliminate communication failures or downtime, Agero needed predictable enterprise communications performance and real-time application support. Agero selected Oracle for the failsafe reliability, security and interoperability.

“When drivers are stranded on the road in the winter, creating not only an uncomfortable situation but also a health and safety issue, it is crucial for our customers to get directly in contact with an agent,” said Robert Sullivan, vice president, technology and shared services, Agero. “Oracle has the best of breed technology in the Oracle SD-WAN and Enterprise Session Border Controllers, which have helped us to deliver high availability, reliability and quality of experience for our customers.”

Since working with Oracle and Presidio to implement the Oracle SD-WAN solution, Agero has reduced downtime and created special routing situations for sites without substantial circuit diversity. This advanced, “always-on performance” is invaluable to Agero as the company processes more than 12 million roadside and emergency support requests per year.

“Agero is reinventing how driver assistance is delivered, while elevating the consumer experience in often dire scenarios,” said Andrew Morawski, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications - Networks. “As enterprises demand flexible WAN solutions supporting shifting business requirements, Oracle is increasing and leveraging bandwidth for affordable and trusted WAN connectivity, anywhere and whenever it’s needed.”

In addition to the Oracle SD-WAN, Agero deployed Oracle 1100 Enterprise Session Border Controller (E-SBC) Oracle 3900 E-SBC and the Oracle Communications Converged Application Server (OCCAS) to protect its network and contact center from external threats.

Mushroom Networks comes together with Aethra Telecommunications to provide SD-WAN for service providers, system integrators

Mushroom Networks and Italian telecom firm Aethra Telecommunications, jointly announced their partnership to provide universal-CPE (uCPE) based SD-WAN solutions for service providers and system integrators worldwide.

The uCPE, with integrated fiber and copper ports, embedded VDSL2 modems and an embedded LTE modem, is capable of running VNFs (Virtual Network Functions) on VMs (Virtual Machines). When combined with Mushroom Networks' SD-WAN software, this creates an ideal platform for service providers and integrators. 

The SD-WAN solution enables intelligent management of the application traffic flows and the orchestration of the WAN connections to optimize end-user experience both for inter-office communications as well as Internet applications served by private, public or hybrid clouds. 

The combined solution enhances the performance of the network and increases network reliability by dynamically steering packets based on advanced algorithms that learn and adapt depending on network conditions. This cognitive and adaptive approach to SD-WAN facilitates setting the networks on autopilot to work around and shield network problems without any human intervention.

The uCPE with SD-WAN solution is now available in Europe, Central America, the Middle East and Northern Africa regions.

Meriplex takes on SD-WAN; boosts network uptime and decreases MPLS-driven costs

Meriplex Communications announced that it has aligned with Dell EMC for a newly launched, SD-WAN solution powered by VMware. This collaborative SD-WAN solution will be desirable to enterprise organizations as it brings Dell EMC capabilities to the market coupled with a MSP partner.

With Meriplex delivered Dell EMC SD-WAN powered by VMware, organizations can increase network uptime and cut MPLS-driven costs, allowing for an effective approach of automation and intelligence to overcome constantly evolving network challenges. 

Organizations will leverage their investment in existing WAN infrastructure while taking advantage of the features and capabilities of SD-WAN. With business security requirements for modern enterprises ever evolving, end-to-end data security is the most valuable infrastructure component for conducting a robust digital business, connecting with customers, and driving business growth. SD-WAN protects organizations through enhanced centralized and next-gen firewall capabilities and the ability to integrate cloud security solutions. 

It also delivers speed to deploy new branch organizations with increasing M&A activity and organic growth, which is required to open and operate new branch locations. SD-WAN eliminates prolonged wait times for circuit installation turnups, and with zero-touch capabilities, technical expertise on site is not necessary, allowing branch locations to start running instantaneously.

As cloud-based applications increase the necessity for high network performance, organizations now expect better reliability, dexterity, and flexibility from their WAN to maximize the cloud's economies of scale. SD-WAN allows this transformational shift from rigid, outdated WAN architecture, to move SaaS applications into cloud environments, enhancing business growth and providing better QoS for end-users.

The DIY SD-WAN takes a copious amount of time away from an IT department's ability to focus on business-critical projects. Many lack the first-hand experience and expertise to configure complex network integrations. With a managed SD-WAN solution, organizations free up their technical resources for higher business priorities and rely on an MSP, like Meriplex, to proactively monitor and manage the network 24/7 with SD-WAN experts.

With Meriplex and Dell EMC, organizations can bundle these benefits for SD-WAN, including integrated cloud security, speedy branch deployment, and connectivity to the cloud, into one cost-effective, turnkey SD-WAN solution. Meriplex offers a unique, co-managed service that allows organizations to operate in tandem with Meriplex to gain complete visibility and control into their solution.

Opengear announces Verizon certification for ACM7000-L resilience gateway products with global modem

Opengear, provider of solutions that deliver secure, resilient network access and automation to critical IT infrastructure, announced Wednesday that the ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products have received the Verizon Wireless Open Development Device Certification for embedded global modem.

The ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway ensures uptime at branch offices, retail stores, kiosks and other remote sites. Cellular access provides an always-on gateway to your off-site network devices, even when the primary network is down. It helps identify and remediate issues at the network edge before they become failures with Smart OOB, and provides maximize WAN resilience with Failover to Cellular to 4G LTE networks and built-in multicarrier capabilities.

To earn the Verizon Wireless Open Development Device Certification, the ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products underwent a series of testing and conformance requirements that all devices must meet before they are certified for use on the Verizon Wireless network. Opengear is the first manufacturer to embed the EM7565 modem in a device and complete Verizon certification.

As organizations become increasingly global and move their networks to the edge, network management becomes progressively more complex. As most hardware devices require the use of a regionalized modem, not only are network engineers responsible for ensuring edge locations receive the right hardware, they must also ensure that hardware is equipped with a modem configured for the local wireless network, or risk the devices being unusable. With the move to a global modem, Opengear has made it possible for customers to purchase and use a single, network agnostic device across all edge locations globally.

By eliminating the need for region-specific modules across its ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products – including the ACM7004-2-L, ACM7004-5-L and ACM7008-2-L – coupled with its built in Smart OOB and Failover to Cellular capabilities, organizations are able to run global networks on a single device SKU.

Additional feature improvements to the ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products include CAT12 speed 600 Mbps download / 150 Mbps upload capabilities with 3G failback, providing customers with a single solution for out-of-band (OOB) and WAN failover at remote sites and allowing the download of critical files onto embedded device storage over cellular networks. 

It also offers improved flexibility with high density of serial console access in a small form factor via a combination of 4 x serial RS232 ports, 8 x serial RS232 ports and 4 x serial RS232 with an embedded 4x GbE switch; improved, dual SIM slots for carrier diversity that enable error-free installation with push click; with high device operating and storage temperature, allowing products to be deployed in harsh and uncontrolled environments with no impact on performance.

“As networks are increasingly distributed, organizations are looking for infrastructure that simplifies network management while ensuring resilience,” said Thomas Wang, senior product manager, Opengear. “At Opengear, we strive to provide our customers with this peace of mind by providing class-leading products that can be bought and provisioned once and used everywhere around the world. With the updates to our ACM7000-L Resilience Gateway products – including the Verizon certification – we continue to lead the industry by providing unmatched speed, value and flexibility.”

Frontier launches managed SD-WAN offering that eases the network digital transformation for enterprises

Frontier Communications announced Frontier Managed SD-WAN, its end-to-end, Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) solution that provides WAN-wide visibility, agility, control and AWS Cloud integration. It also offers the enterprise customer a choice and puts them in control with either a fully managed or a co-managed model. 

Combined with SD-WAN Managed Private Network (SD-WAN EVPL), Frontier Managed SD-WAN is a powerful solution that simplifies network management operations, delivers enhanced service-levels (SLA) and offers a compelling alternative for enterprise customers looking to transition from complex, costly and static MPLS networks.

Through an intuitive user-friendly portal, the customer can implement WAN-wide configurations to reflect traffic conditions and business and application priorities. This feature alone puts the customer in control and results in the WAN delivering network performance and traffic optimization at the application level, based on the customer’s policy and priorities, all at the click of a mouse.

Frontier Managed SD-WAN supports all WAN underlay technologies, integrating seamlessly with traditional solutions. Its flexible, transport-agnostic design allows for a phased, at-your-own-pace migration without a large capex or downtime, while providing zero-touch provisioning for easy, agile network scaling.

The offering can be used for financial services by securing sensitive data with built-in protection measures and micro-segmentation of network traffic, while allowing remote access to protected information. For the manufacturing sector, it simplifies management and prioritization of network traffic, ensuring business-critical traffic has the best connection available.

The retail category allows organizations to get new stores up and running fast, providing smooth upgrade paths for future network additions and cloud migration of business-critical applications; while the entertainment sector prioritizes network activity for both critical and low-priority traffic, ensuring a seamless customer experience.

The education arena reduces IT costs while providing high-performing connectivity for students, administration and educators, enhancing online learning applications; and the healthcare segment provides full network visibility from a central location for WAN-wide control, prioritization, segmentation and control.

Featuring dynamic routing capability, Application Aware Routing (AAR) with 2000+ application signatures, Frontier’s Managed SD-WAN provides direct and secure access to the cloud as well as Frontier hardware redundancy to ensure network uptime and reliability. 

For enterprise customers, static network configurations have become too complex and unsustainable to meet the continued growth of cloud implementations and bandwidth demand driven by increasing mobile device use. The comprehensive new features of Frontier’s Managed SD-WAN address the needs of enterprise customers seeking to move to an agile digital networking model while maintaining security, performance, and resiliency.

With Frontier’s Managed SD-WAN, the customer can expect value from day one because the network will be fully visible; providing network insight including application bandwidth consumption, performance alerts, policy recommendations, business reporting and more. This powerful view enables the enterprise to make informed decisions based on actual data in near real-time.

Fortinet’s FortiGate 60F sets new benchmark for security compute ratings; boosts performance for integrated security and SD-WAN

Fortinet announced the FortiGate 60F Next-Generation Firewall, its latest desktop secure SD-WAN appliance. With over 1.5 million units sold worldwide, the FortiGate 60 series is the best-selling next-generation firewall and now includes Fortinet’s purpose-built system on a chip 4 (SOC4) security processor to achieve the highest Security Compute Ratings in the industry to support customers’ WAN edge transformation.

Digital innovation and rapid cloud adoption is changing the face of today’s business and has created significant challenges for organizations, such as poor user experience due to network bandwidth constraints and increased security risks with branches connected to the internet. 

Software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs) have emerged as the favored solution to solve these issues while also reducing the costs associated with MPLS connections. 

However, not all SD-WAN solutions have risen to the requirements of existing WAN edge. Many SD-WAN solutions on the market are incomplete and do not adequately provide the right performance, visibility, or security to ensure a secure connection and high quality of user experience.

To continue its focus on supporting enterprises’ WAN edge transformation and delivering Secure SD-WAN, Fortinet is announcing the latest next-generation firewall to include its patented SOC4 security processor - the FortiGate 60F. 

FortiGate 60F now consolidates SD-WAN, advanced routing, and advanced security capabilities into a single appliance that enables network leaders to deploy Secure SD-WAN, while reducing complexity by consolidating point products into a single offering. This allows high performance and improved user experience at an optimal total cost of ownership (TCO).
 

To help customers maintain high quality user experience for their business critical traffic (be it SaaS, multi-cloud, or unified communications), FortiGate 60F delivers ideal application steering, giving visibility to all traffic (even if encrypted) without impacting performance and ensuring all critical applications are routed to their best path.
 

FortiGate 60F leverages Security-Driven Networking principals – powered by Fortinet’s patented SOC4 security processor – to deliver the fastest deep inspection of SSL/TLS encrypted traffic (including the industry’s first support for TLS 1.3) at 750Mbps, 11 times greater than the industry average. 

The FortiGate 60F offers comprehensive threat prevention with IPS, application control, and anti-malware at 700Mbps, four times greater than the industry average, to help customers protect their network without impacting performance.

Fortinet security processors radically increase the performance, scalability, and value of Fortinet solutions while greatly improving user experience and shrinking space and power requirements. Security Compute Rating is a benchmark that compares the performance of Fortinet’s purpose-built ASIC-based next-generation firewall appliance to other NGFW and SD-WAN vendors in that same price range that utilize generic CPUs for networking and security capabilities. 

“We hear from an increasing number of customers who are struggling to achieve the required level of user experience, visibility, and security at their WAN edge to support key business applications,” said John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet. “With today’s introduction of the FortiGate 60F powered by our latest security processor, Fortinet continues its commitment to security innovation, setting industry records for performance to empower network leaders to truly transform their WAN edge.”

Uplevel delivers SD-WAN to small business; gives high-quality VoIP, reliable Internet and 75 percent savings

Uplevel Systems now offers software-defined Wide Area Network or "SD-WAN" capabilities optimized for small to medium businesses (SMBs). SD-WAN traditionally involves replacing costly telecom services with cost-effective Internet connections between sites. 

Smaller companies find SD-WAN cost-prohibitive because most offerings include advanced features and other "bells and whistles" they must pay for but do not need. In practice, the prospective cost savings also may be compromised by poorly performing Internet connections or call quality between sites.

The Uplevel solution optimizes SD-WAN for small business in four critical ways, including ensuring call quality for voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Phone systems are still the lifeblood of many small businesses and voice call quality is highly sensitive to delays of mere tenths of a second. 

Uplevel's integrated managed service platform includes built-in VoIP quality of service (QoS) mechanisms that ensure voice calls always receive priority over data and other "best effort" transactions and also eliminate packet loss that can lead to poor call quality. 

Uplevel delivers a targeted and reliable small business SD-WAN solution that removes both cost and complexity to deliver the features and benefits SMBs need. Uplevel eliminates traditional upfront costs of approximately $1,000 per site and reduces ongoing costs by 75 percent or more versus traditional solutions. 

Along with adding failover and load balancing optimizing quality and reliability, the Uplevel solution reduces upfront equipment costs by up to $3,000 per site. Users can log in safely using secure virtual private network (VPN) services and cloud-based management allows MSPs to manage multiple sites in real time from anywhere on the device of their choice. 

The Uplevel solution enables two SD-WAN mechanisms for improving and maintaining reliability: "Failover" whereby companies purchase a second Internet connection to provide backup, and "load balancing" in which two primary Internet connections remain in use at all times with traffic distributed to achieve the desired bandwidth at the lowest possible cost.