Leading Lights 2017 Finalists: Most Innovative SDN/SD-WAN Products & Deployment

Software-defined networking (SDN) has certainly caught on with vendors, so for the best strategy category in this year's Leading Lights, we tried to focus on the entries that took a holistic view. Plenty of point products are adding programmability to specific parts of the network, but which vendors are vying for big-picture changes?

We took our best shot at shortlisting the entries that displayed that kind of vision. And if you're wondering about SD-WAN, take a look at the service-provider finalists on the next page.

The winners will be announced at the Leading Lights Awards dinner on Monday, May 15, at Brazos Hall in Austin, Texas. The following day, the Big Communications Event opens its doors for two days of networking, learning and fun.

To find out which companies were shortlisted in all of this year's Leading Lights categories, see Leading Lights 2017: The Finalists.

Adtran: Mosaic
SDN has its roots in the data center, but Adtran is among the companies bringing it to the carrier access network. Mosaic is the company's software-defined access architecture, meant give carriers flexible and automated ways to provide high-speed services regardless of media; it supports NG-PON2 and 5G for instance.

The platform is compliant with the Central Office Re-architected as a Data Center (CORD) architecture, so it's pointing toward a future that has more to do with data centers than with traditional COs. The Mosaic OS is based on open source components and was built with SDN programmability in mind.

Adtran says Mosaic is in more than 100 G.fast trials and 20 CORD trials.

Infinera: Xceed Software Suite
Continuing our theme of "taking SDN into other places," optical networking vendors have long been trying to weave Layer 1 into the carrier SDN narrative. For Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN), that's taken the form of Xceed, a software component for a multilayer SDN deployment. Xceed includes an SDN controller based on OpenDaylight, so it's an interesting example of bringing openness and open source into the optical world.

Xceed's Dynamic Bandwidth application handles provisioning of OTN circuits as well as Ethernet services. Another application called Instant Virtual Networks allows for the creation of many virtual transport networks on one physical network. Xceed also contributes to the Instant Network capabilities that Infinera announced at OFC in March.

Rival Ciena Corp. (NYSE: CIEN) has its own take on transport SDN, including the Liquid Spectrum set of capabilities launched just before OFC. Ciena did not submit a Leading Lights entry for Liquid Spectrum. (See Ciena Adds Apps for Optical Network Flexibility.)

Nuage Networks: VSP
While Nuage Networks has joined the ranks of SD-WAN vendors, it's getting Leading Lights consideration more for the overall SDN strategy and its Virtualized Services Platform (VSP). SD-WAN is only a byproduct of that strategy; in fact, Nuage's Virtualized Network Services (VNS) technology was available before the "SD-WAN" term was invented.

Having said that, Nuage's headlines lately have mostly been around SD-WAN. Announced customer wins for VNS include British Telecom, China Telecom, Telia and Vodafone. (Nuage also announced a deal with Telefónica this week, but that arrived too late to count for Leading Lights consideration.) It all stems from the fact that Nuage -- now part of Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) -- was one of the earlier SDN players to specifically target carrier networks rather than data centers.

In the "deployment" category, we're highlighting SD-WAN -- but with the understanding that the technology is only beginning to play out.

SD-WAN at its most basic allows for using Internet connections in place of more expensive MPLS links, but carriers have begun wrapping other services into the concept as well. What's intriguing is the possibility of blending SD-WAN with other services, or enhancing it with other elements of a carrier's SDN/NFV portfolio.

Of note: Entries leaned toward the SD-WAN side rather than general SDN deployment. We're taking that as a sign that carriers can more easily articulate an SD-WAN strategy today. It seems likely that carriers don't feel as confident talking about SDN in broad strokes -- possibly because SDN and NFV, evolving together, are still a work in progress. (See Time for a Telecom Reboot.)

Colt
Colt Technology Services Group Ltd began developing its SD-WAN in May, tapping Versa for virtualized network functions (VNFs) as well as an SDN controller. The first services were launched in January.

As part of the carrier's Novitas architecture for SDN and NFV, Colt's SD-WAN is being set up with APIs to allow ordering and management to come from other systems. That could set the basis for interoperability among carriers' SD-WAN services. In February, AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and Orange (NYSE: FTE) announced they'd worked with Colt, the MEF and TM Forum to start an effort to standardize some of those APIs.

Global Capacity
The company's Managed SD-WAN Hybrid Network is based on technology from startup VeloCloud Networks Inc. , a selection made in 2016, with pilot services that launched early this year. Global Capacity combines SD-WAN with its One Marketplace offering for network connectivity, providing options across fiber, copper, wireless and cable.

Global Capacity intends for its SD-WAN to tie into the Bring Your Own Network concept. Ideally, enterprises would use SD-WAN to combine their own networks and Global Capacity-provided connectivity to increase their options for connecting far-flung branch offices and data centers.

Tata
Tata Communications Ltd. won a Leading lights award in 2015 for IZO Internet WAN. Now it's back with an SD-WAN entry announced in November.

Tata has two managed SD-WAN options. IZO SDWAN Prime is based on the carrier's own technology and targets brownfield scenarios, specifically Cisco-based WANs using Cisco's customer premises equipment. It's intended for cases where an enterprise wants to augment a Cisco-based WAN. Among the available options are Tata's in-house technologies for application-aware networking and traffic management.

IZO SDWAN Select is a more virtualized, greenfield-minded option based on technology from Versa Networks. IZO Select uses x86-based edge devices. Plans for Select include the addition of virtualized network functions (VNFs) from Blue Coat (now owned by Symantec), Checkpoint, F5, Fortinet, Juniper and Riverbed.

And in general, Tata intends to let customers tap IZO Select on a self-service basis with usage-based billing -- but that's yet to come and won't be a factor in our choice of this category's winner.

Prime covers 130 countries, while Select is available in 76. The latter number is smaller but noteworthy, in that it involves deploying new technology -- albeit on commodity x86 hardware -- for a service announced only in November. Tata names Essilor, Fujitsu and Bajaj Finance as beta customers on IZO Select.

— Craig Matsumoto, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading