EXFO and ADVA Push the Boundaries of Automated
SD-WAN Managed Services

EXFO Inc. (NASDAQ: EXFO, TSX: EXF), the network test, monitoring and analytics experts, and ADVA, a leading provider of open networking solutions for the delivery of cloud and mobile services, announced the integration of EXFO’s NFV Service Assurance solution with the ADVA Ensemble open virtualization suite. The fully integrated and automated solution provides communications service providers (CSPs) and their customers with the necessary control, visibility and flexibility to unleash the true value of managed software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) services. 

“Managed SD-WAN represents a tremendous growth opportunity for CSPs looking to transform their network from physical to virtual and to drive new revenue,” said Prayson Pate, CTO of ADVA’s Ensemble division. “For CSPs to reap the expected benefits from deploying SD-WAN services, they need to break free from the numerous constraints of single-vendor solution lock-in and build their solution with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware hosting best-in-class open-source network functions virtualization (NFV) software. That’s what we are offering with Ensemble and our partnership with EXFO.”

“Enhancing service quality will be critical to successfully transition to this environment,” noted Claudio Mazzuca, Vice-President - Systems & Analytics at EXFO. “The nature of an open, VNF based solution requires a different approach to network and service assurance since service quality can no longer be inferred solely from network and equipment quality metrics provided by the VNF vendors themselves. By including EXFO’s active service assurance vProbe VNFs in the service chain, the service orchestrator can automatically test and verify a service before turning it over to the customer and can implement end-to-end service monitoring, based on policy or operational needs. Automating these functions is the only way to address the anticipated scaling of new services.”   

By combining their industry-leading SD-WAN orchestration and orchestrated service assurance solutions, ADVA and EXFO overcome these challenges and enable CSPs to deliver on the promise of SD-WAN—a fully managed, lower-cost, open enterprise WAN solution that delivers a better quality of experience than appliance-based solutions.   

“The industry needs neutral management and monitoring solutions that avoid vendor lock-in to achieve the benefits of agile, reliable service delivery in the SD-WAN domain,” said Patrick Kelly, Founder and Principal Analyst at Appledore Research. EXFO and ADVA will bring a joint solution offering needed to automate and deliver real-time performance data on dynamic network capacity to drive closed-loop optimization”

Source: EXFO media announcement