Launching Megaport Virtual Edge with Cisco SD-WAN Cloud Interconnect

By Henry Wagner, Chief Marketing Officer

Megaport Virtual Edge (MVE) is an on-demand Network Function Virtualization (NFV) service that supports branch-to-cloud connectivity on SD-WAN platforms, improving network reliability, and reducing provisioning time to minutes.

In August of last year, we announced the development of Megaport Virtual Edge (MVE), our on-demand, vendor-neutral NFV hosting service, in collaboration with Cisco to enable MVE’s interoperability with Cisco SD-WAN’s secure, cloud-scale architecture. Today, Cisco announced that MVE is now available on our global Software Defined Network (SDN), easily accessible via our portal, providing immediate support for branch-to-cloud and branch-to-branch connectivity to customers of Cisco SD-WAN and Megaport.

The service we’ve launched today will transform networking at the edge. With MVE, you can spin up NFV instances on demand and in a point-and-click manner, directly on Megaport’s global platform in a matter of minutes through Cisco’s SD-WAN controller vManage with version 20.5 and after. You’ll be able to extend your network functions such as virtual routers, SD-WAN routers, and other future networking technologies closer to your network’s edge, in real time, without needing to deploy hardware.

Read the Megaport/Cisco press release on MVE.

What MVE means for you

Enterprises and service providers are rapidly adopting SD-WAN technology to improve edge network connectivity. In the recent Forrester Analytics’ Global Business TechnographicsⓇ Network and Telecom Survey 2020, 82% of decision-makers surveyed said SD-WAN would be a top organizational priority in 2021.

Many factors are driving SD-WAN adoption. With infrastructure, applications, mobile and IoT devices distributed between data centres, public clouds, and branch locations, enterprise networks have never been more complex. Almost overnight, remote workforces became the new normal, creating network strain. The rise of hybrid cloud and multicloud deployments add further network design complexity. Cybersecurity risks have never been higher, particularly on the public internet.

In a recent survey by AppDynamics, 89% of IT professionals feel “immense pressure” and 75% of technologists say they’re experiencing more complexity than ever. Businesses must exchange data fast and securely with widespread offices, an increasing number of remote workers, branch locations, devices, partners, and customers. In short, the network edge is expanding, and IT departments have turned to SD-WAN solutions to manage this new complexity.

SD-WAN appliances deployed at edge locations rely on end-to-end internet connections which can impact performance, reliability, and security. With MVE, you can host compute instances of your SD-WAN appliances on our global Software Defined Network while your data can ride private and secure connections to any cloud service provider on the network, bypassing the unpredictable internet and optimising the middle and last mile connectivity.

Read 5 Reasons You Should Modernize and Software-Define Your MPLS Network.

MVE simplifies your enterprise networking and supercharges your SD-WAN solution, improving network performance, reliability, and security, while reducing data transfer costs by up to 54% thanks to private connectivity. And you can deploy MVE on-demand on our portal, without having to install more equipment, reducing capex and opex. You can have cloud-enabled edge networking up and running in a matter of minutes.

Users of MVE can also connect to Megaport’s ecosystem of more than 360 service providers and over 700 enabled data centres globally, which includes 200+ cloud on-ramps, the most of any neutral Network as a Service provider.

Today, MVE is available in 11 metros across North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, with 10 additional locations coming online at the end of April.

For more information about Megaport Virtual Edge, please visit megaport.com/mve.

Supercharging SD-WAN connectivity with MVE

Here are the benefits of using MVE with your SD-WAN solution:

• Reduced cloud egress costs to cloud on-ramps when compared to internet rates.
• Better performance with reduced jitter and latency.
• Vendor neutral service that supports SD-WAN technologies from leading providers.
• Highly distributed for localised connections.
• Point-and-click network provisioning to support interconnection between branch locations, data centres, cloud providers, and IT services.
• Real-time provisioning of virtual network infrastructure and interconnections.
• No hardware to ship, install, or manage.
• End-to-end network provisioning and management to transform legacy networks.
• Secure, multicloud connections to more than 360 service providers, 700+ enabled data centres, and 200+ cloud interconnect points.

Cisco SD-WAN Cloud Interconnect

Megaport and Cisco have partnered to integrate Cisco SD-WAN Cloud Interconnect with MVE, for enterprises that want their SD-WAN controllers to be able to provision on-demand cloud interconnects using Megaport’s SDN. Building a bridge from SD-WAN to Megaport enables software-defined cloud interconnect fabrics with reliable network performance, cost-optimized connectivity, and reduced provisioning time. This provides enterprise IT full control of SD-WAN (overlay fabric) and cloud interconnects (underlay fabric) from the same Cisco SD-WAN controller.

Fortune 500 companies with a global presence that use Cisco SD-WAN for consuming multicloud applications can take advantage of Cisco SD-WAN Cloud Interconnect with MVE to enable on-demand provisioning of cloud interconnect with global reach. This capability of the underlay interconnect connectivity, in addition to the SD-WAN overlay, offers unprecedented control and visibility to enterprise IT.

“Cisco’s collaboration with Megaport enables customers to extend their Cisco SD-WAN fabric from site to multiple clouds over a direct, high-performance, and neutral interconnect platform, delivering enhanced performance and security,” said JL Valente, Vice President, Product Management, for Cisco Enterprise Routing, SD-WAN and Cloud Networking. “The integration of Cisco’s new SD-WAN Cloud Interconnect with Megaport Virtual Edge brings together the secure networking capability of Cisco SD-WAN and the programmable, on-demand cloud interconnects offered by Megaport to automate provisioning of high-performance site-to-cloud and site-to-site connectivity.”

Key benefits of MVE with Cisco SD-WAN Cloud Interconnect include:

• Simple on-demand provisioning and management: vManage and the Megaport portal provides end-to-end network automation from branch to clouds, which reduces human error and cuts connectivity time from weeks to minutes
• Secure SD-WAN: Worldwide, end-to-end security segmentation, and policy enforced through SD-WAN
• Guaranteed SLAs: Guaranteed uptime with 99.999% availability over the cloud and interconnect backbone
• Optimised costs: Reduce cloud data egress fees by up to 54% and network charges by up to 75%
• Increased visibility: End-to-end visibility to 1500+ business applications (including SaaS applications)

This is just the beginning

As enterprises and service providers rapidly adopt SD-WAN technology to improve edge network connectivity, the ability for our 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 Megaport’s global Software Defined Network allows customers to optimise their SD-WAN connectivity via a single workflow to improve overall network and application performance at a fraction of the cost of legacy methods.

As a vendor neutral service, additional leading SD-WAN platforms are currently being integrated with MVE.

In short, we’ve only begun to transform the network edge.

Learn More

For more information about Megaport Virtual Edge, please visit megaport.com/mve.

Are you interested in learning more about MVE? Download the MVE infopaper.

You can also contact your Megaport account manager, or visit our registration page.