Megaport gears up to release Virtual Edge platform
Megaport has announced the new release of Megaport Virtual Edge (MVE), a platform designed to enable SD-WAN capabilities through strategic collaboration.
According to the company, it will enable the hosting of Network Function Virtualisation (NFV), such as SD-WAN capabilities, directly on Megaport's global Software Defined Network (SDN).
Megaport states MVE includes gateway functionality to connect with Megaport's SDN in a platform-neutral and technology-agnostic manner, allowing customers to move beyond legacy networking models and take a unified approach to managing their network.
In addition, Megaport states the company is collaborating with Cisco to enable Cisco SD-WAN as the first use case on MVE.
SD-WAN, the first network use case supported on MVE, enables customers to take advantage of Megaport's on-demand network from any internet-connected SD-WAN location around the world, the company states.
This enables customers to build a unified, multicloud network architecture that scales as their business grows.
Customers will host and fully manage instances of SD-WAN devices on MVE to connect Megaport's global interconnection fabric with SD-WAN enabled locations.
Setup and maintenance of SD-WAN instances is enabled through an API and soon will be available through Megaport's point-and-click portal.
Once connected, SD-WAN enabled locations can provision on demand connections to Megaport's leading ecosystem of cloud, IT service providers, and more than 700 enabled data centers.
Megaport is integrated with more than 200 cloud onramps the most of any neutral elastic interconnection platform and has an ecosystem of more than 360 service providers including Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and Salesforce, among others.
Furthermore, the Megaport SDN provides carrier-grade, private connectivity that scales and secures traffic to vital locations and service providers to address performance and security requirements for mission critical applications.
SD-WAN on MVE highlights include: IP-enabled connections to Megaport's industry-first elastic interconnection platform; bring your own SD-WAN license; highly-distributed for localised connections; and point-and-click network provisioning to support interconnection between branch locations, data centers, cloud providers, and IT services.
It also includes real-time provisioning of virtual network infrastructure and interconnections; no hardware to ship, install, or manage; pay-as-you-go (PAYG) consumption model; unified end-to-end network provisioning and management to transform legacy networks; and secure, multicloud connections to more than 360 service providers and 700+ enabled data centers.
Megaport CEO Vincent English says, "As enterprises and service providers begin to fully understand the benefits of SD-WAN, the ability for Megaport customers to easily, and in minutes, 'spin up' SD-WAN virtual appliances around the world on our platform is a big enabler for global organisations.
"Having these virtual appliances fully integrated into the Megaport Interconnection Platform leveraging our multicloud connectivity takes this to another level."
Along with the announcement of the offering, Megaport and Cisco have announced their initiative to integrate Megaport Virtual Edge with Cisco's secure SD-WAN, powered by Viptela, to enable interoperation of Megaport's SDN and Cisco's SD-WAN fabric technology.
Megaport and Cisco have invited a select list of customers to participate in the MVE beta program. General availability of the Cisco SD-WAN platform on MVE is planned for the first quarter of 2021.
Megaport founder and chairman Bevan Slattery says of the announcement and collaboration with Cisco, "The development of Megaport Virtual Edge marks a transformation point for Megaport.
"By creating a platform that will bridge various network access types directly to Megaport's SDN, we have effectively made it possible to connect to our leading ecosystem of service providers and data centers from anywhere in the world. This will put the power of elastic interconnection in the hands of more businesses around the globe.
"We are excited to work with Cisco to integrate their SD-WAN services on MVE so customers can gain full control over how they connect to the vital services that power their business."
At present, more than 1850 customers rely on Megaport to power their digital businesses.
