According to industrial estimates by Gartner, there will be more than 50% of enterprise edge networks replaced by SD-WAN infrastructures by 2020. The rapid rise of SD-WAN is driven by both economical and technological factors. In order to strive for competitiveness, enterprises are pursuing new networking infrastructures to save the costs on MPLS. On the other hand, the software-defined WAN technology, due to its virtual overlay nature, helps enterprise effectively handle load balancing, optimization and real-time visibility in WAN management with reduced costs and increased bandwidth.
Traditionally, enterprises established their WAN infrastructures by leveraging MPLS based connections, which could be broadband, DSL, 3G, or 4G/LTE. The maintenance and the costs involved in the management of MPLS-based protocols could cause economic burden and is somewhat time-consuming if proprietary hardware or software is in use.
Flexible and Manageable Networks by SD-WAN
On the contrary, SD-WAN offers enterprises high degree of flexibility for WAN load balancing, optimization and visibility. Due to the software-defined nature, zero-touch provisioning becomes available so that enterprise IT administrators can repeat the deployments for multiple edges and branches based on web interface and cloud infrastructures. Networking becomes flexibly manageable. Another advantage brought by the software-defined nature is the use of white-box hardware. In other words, no need to acquire proprietary physical equipment that may result in complicated repair and high maintenance. The white-box can be pre-configured and repeated in various branches without additional circuit setup.
Being one of the most widespread SDN deployments, today’s enterprise-grade SD-WAN infrastructures shall include the following characteristics:
- Automated load-balancing
- WAN optimization
- Automated failover
- Real-time visibility and control
- Use of white-box hardware gateway as uCPE/vCPE
- VM/VNF on top of the white-box gateway
How to choose the white-box gateway
SD-WAN promises the liberation from proprietary hardware and emphasizes on white-box gateway that can be pre-configured and optimized for application purposes. Therefore, for drop-in replacements, it is recommended to select the ones that have been pre-validated and optimized by major VNF vendors in the market specializing in SD-WAN. For instance, Lanner’s white-box vCPE/uCPE appliances are pre-validated with major VNF makers and built in open architecture for wide compatibility. Suggested appliances offer Intel® x86 multi-core CPU for running multiple VNFs, hardware acceleration like DPDK, Intel QuickAssist, and AES-NI, rich LAN port configurations including both RJ-45 and SFP ports, as well as wireless connectivity with Wi-Fi/3G/4G/LTE. Suggested models include NCA-1611, NCA-2510 and NCA-4010.
Lanner White-box vCPE/uCPE Solution for Enterprise SD-WAN
Pre-validated and optimized with SD-WAN VNF vendors like Versa Networks, Lanner’s white-box appliance portfolio includes a wide range of vCPE appliances, featuring:
- Based on Intel® Atom C3000 (Deverton) and Xeon D-1500 (Broadwell-DE) or Broadwell-DE–NS CPU
- Run multiple VNF in single appliance with 4-16 core CPU
- Hardware acceleration support: DPDK, SR-IOV, AES-NI, QuickAssist
- 5~16 GbE ports, 10Gbps SFP LAN configuration
- Optional Fanless design
- Wireless connection with W-iFi, 3G/LTE support
Featured Products
NCA-1611
Virtualization-optimized Network Appliance for vCPE, uCPE, SD-WAN and SD-Security
| CPU | Intel® Xeon® D-1500 (Broadwell-DE NS) |
| Chipset | SoC |
NCA-2510
Virtualization-optimized Network Appliance for vCPE, uCPE, SD-WAN and SD-Security
| CPU | Intel® Atom™ C3000 8~16 Cores(Denverton) |
| Chipset | SoC |
NCA-4010
1U High Performance x86 Network Appliance for Enterprise Firewall, UTM and IPS.
| CPU | Onboard Intel Xeon D-1548 or D-1518 Processor (Broadwell-DE) |
| Chipset | SoC |
