RingCentral Adds Cato Networks to Elite SD-WAN Club

Cato Networks has earned major validation for its compatibility with unified communications as a service (UCaaS).

The SD-WAN vendor has joined RingCentral’s connectivity partner program. Membership in the program is RingCentral’s seal of approval that an SD-WAN platform delivers a high-quality voice experience. Nick Fan, Cato’s vice president of sales, said a low-latency connection is essential for cloud communications.

Cato Networks’ Nick Fan

“The Cato Cloud provides affordable premium cloud connectivity with the intelligence and performance needed to deliver a high-quality cloud communications experience across the globe,” Fan said.

Cato met the mean-of-opinion (MOS) score requirement of at least 3.8. Curtis Peterson, RingCentral’s senior vice president, cloud operations, said Cato maintained high quality even when it was in a situation with more than 15-percent packet loss.

“Many enterprises are deploying SD-WAN as a leading technology to assure highest-levels of quality of service and availability,” Peterson said. “As part of our partner certification process, we tested Cato’s ability to deliver high-quality voice even under extremely poor network conditions.”

RingCentral launched the connectivity program last spring, listing VeloCloud, CloudGenix, Riverbed, Cradlepoint, Windstream and GTT Communications as charter members. Silver Peak also is now part of the ecosystem. Peterson told us at the time that his company wanted to develop a “predefined template” to ensure an SD-WAN company met customers’ quality-of-service requirements.

Peterson said he didn’t want to force channel partners to pick a new connectivity partner or stay locked in with one.

RingCentral’s Curtis Peterson

“There [are] partners out there selling SD-WAN today, and by doing this certification program, we’re leaving the door wide open for our partners to participate in the play,” he said.

Compatibility between SD-WAN and UCaaS companies has become an important question for both industries. InSpeed Networks and Bigleaf Networks pitch themselves as plug-and-play options that integrate painlessly with voice offerings. Although the rest of the SD-WAN industry might echo that claim, they have been forming special partnerships with UCaaS vendors. Aryaka teamed up with 8×8, and FatPipe Networks partnered with Avaya.

Cato last month announced $55 million in new funding. CEO Shlomo Kramer said the his business will deepen its infrastructure and go-to-market resources as it looks to add more enterprise-size customers. Cato boasts its own global private network, built-in security and last-mile management.