New Silver Peak alliances

Silver Peak has teamed with Infoblox, the network control company, Nutanix, the next-generation enterprise computing company, and Zscaler, the internet security company, to expand its Unity EdgeConnect ecosystem for building software-defined WANs (SD-WANs). These alliances provide a new set of secure, optimised, and interoperable hardware and software solutions for deploying broadband and hybrid WANs, and reducing branch office OPEX/CAPEX when connecting users to applications.

“Silver Peak is dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of building a WAN through broadband internet connectivity, and our simplified deployment options pave the path to a ‘thin’ branch office architecture,” said Damon Ennis, SVP of products for Silver Peak. “We are excited to take our Unity EdgeConnect solution to the next level by enabling customers to build a broadband WAN that interoperates with industry-leading networking, infrastructure, and internet security technologies. By joining forces with Infoblox, Nutanix and Zscaler, customers benefit by having more options to quickly connect, secure and scale their branch offices.”

Infoblox provides integrated and centrally-managed DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI) to support evolving IT needs while providing high standards for service uptime, operational efficiencies, security, and IT ecosystem integration. While Silver Peak EdgeConnect appliances allow new sites to be connected in minutes, the Infoblox DDI solution helps to reduce the amount of time it takes to deploy network services to those remote sites. Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect DHCP and DNS forwarding supports centralised Infoblox deployments (in either a data centre or regional hub) enabling centralised, scalable management of DDI services and is transparent to end-users and applications.

“Silver Peak has made WAN connectivity in the branch simple, fast and lightweight, and our industry leading position in the network complements EdgeConnect deployments by helping to centralise and secure DDI functions that speed service delivery,” said Jonathan Gohstand, vice president of product management at Infoblox. “We look forward to providing our joint customers with this new interoperability that will further minimise the amount of network infrastructure in the branch and help customers reduce their branch networking costs.”

Nutanix delivers invisible infrastructure for next-generation enterprise computing by integrating storage, compute and virtualisation into a turnkey hyperconverged solution. Built on a distributed web-scale architecture, a single Nutanix solution can simultaneously run many workloads, including Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect virtual appliances. The combination of Nutanix and Silver Peak EdgeConnect virtual appliances provides customers even faster ROI, greater flexibility and simplified SD-WAN deployments across data centres, regional hubs, and branch offices.

“Nutanix reduces IT complexity for customers, providing a cost-effective option for deploying Silver Peak’s EdgeConnect virtual appliances in the branch,” said Venugopal Pai, vice president, global alliances and business development for Nutanix. “By eliminating the requirement for multiple, proprietary hardware appliances in the branch and in the data centre, we are giving customers more flexibility and choice for implementing Silver Peak’s SD-WAN solution.”

Zscaler’s award-winning Security-as-a-Service platform delivers a safe and productive internet experience for every user, from any device and from any location. Operating in more than 100 data centres distributed around the globe, Zscaler delivers unified, carrier-grade internet security, advanced persistent threat (APT) protection, data loss prevention, SSL decryption, traffic shaping, policy management, and threat intelligence – all without the need for on-premise hardware, appliances or software. When Silver Peak’s Unity EdgeConnect is deployed directly onto the internet in branch offices, Zscaler enables employees to access the internet securely by scanning all incoming and outgoing traffic between the EdgeConnect appliances and the internet to identify and block potential threats and to protect intellectual property.

“Enterprise applications are moving to the cloud and the traditional appliance-based approach to security is far too complex and cost-prohibitive in the branch,” said Punit Minocha, vice president business development and mobile solutions for Zscaler. “With Zscaler, Silver Peak customers can be assured that their employees can access the internet securely. Just as Silver Peak EdgeConnect can be deployed in branch offices in minutes, Zscaler’s cloud-based security can be implemented at scale in minutes to protect users in the branch with a safe and productive experience as they access applications in the cloud.”

With combined interoperability options with Infoblox, Nutanix, and Zscaler, Silver Peak is capable of creating the most agile broadband WAN that also powers industry-leading performance improvements to any form of connectivity. Silver Peak customers benefit from significant:

* Flexibility – Customers can rapidly and non-disruptively augment or replace their MPLS networks with any form of broadband connectivity
* Visibility and control – Customers benefit from unprecedented levels of visibility into both legacy and cloud applications and gain the unique ability to centrally assign business intent policies to secure and control all WAN traffic
* Performance – End-user satisfaction is significantly improved due to consistent and significantly enhanced application performance
* Savings – Silver Peak can dramatically lower connectivity, equipment and network administration costs by up to 90% by enabling customers to leverage lower-cost internet bandwidth