FatPipe Unleashes New Integrated VNF/SD-WAN Offering for Enterprises

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FatPipe Networks has unveiled an enterprise product for SD-WAN that allows for what the company says is easy deployment of network functions virtualization (NFV).

FatPipe Virtualized Network Function (VNF) integrates SD-WAN functionality with routing, firewall, security, DPI (deep packet inspection), QoS, WAN optimization and domain name system (DNS) management to allow the digital transformation of NFV. It allows enterprises and organizations to add and deploy more NFV without the complexity of multi-vendor interactions, the company said.

FatPipe’s Sanch Datta

Sanch Datta, FatPipe’s chief technology officer, tells Channel Partners that her company’s partners need additional tools to help their enterprise customers more easily meet all the requirements of deploying NFV.

“In the past, they’ve had to understand the complexities of integrating multi-vendor components with SD-WAN, like OpenStack, which has hindered time-to-deployment of NFV,” she said. “Now they can a use single, virtual integrated SD-WAN/NFV solution to meet their customers’ needs to rapidly deploy of NFV,”

FatPipe VNF has been implemented on several NFV hypervisors (virtual machine monitors), including OpenStack, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, VMware and Wind River. It also is available on FatPipe-branded hardware. When selecting FatPipe hardware, customers will have the option of choosing a purpose-built hardware or opt for hardware built with OpenStack and the FatPipe VNF pre-installed, the latter allowing third-party VNFs to be loaded onto FatPipe hardware.

FatPipe has been shipping SD-WAN products since 2001.

“Most all enterprises across all vertical markets are either looking into or currently working on deploying NFV,” said Doug Prowse, FatPipe’s vice president of channel. “With FatPipe VNF, our partners can reduce operational complexities and costs by running the required networking functions as software, which reduces the number of hardware elements to manage and minimizes the need to perform costly site visits for hardware upgrades, installations and adding new network functions.”

FatPipe VNF marks a “milestone” in the enterprise networking space, Datta said.

IKON Business Group’s Ken Nero

“It’s tightly integrated with our SD-WAN family of products, which are deployed by thousands of enterprises and organizations across six continents, with the help of our more than 700 channel partners worldwide,” she said. “Taking an open approach to networking is a natural evolution of our suite of SD-WAN products and allows our customers to easily meet the growing requirements of digital transformation, such as cloud, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity.”

Ken Nero, CEO of IKON Business Group, said FatPipe VNF gives his company the ability to offer a “new opportunity to provide a simple and easy way for enterprises to deploy NFV.”

“It opens a whole new category in a software-only, virtualized manner that empowers enterprises to virtually deploy NFV and add new networking functions, regardless of their choice to use a telco-only or a DIY method, which gives them flexibility, and most importantly, the ability to achieve a faster time-to-market for NFV,” he said.

FatPipe is among SD-WAN vendors poised to reach $100 million in revenue next year and could go public.