Avaya unveils Cloud Networking Platform to simplify and accelerate deployment and management of networks

Provides IT with a secure, scalable, unified cloud management solution for wired and wire-less networks

IP Expo, London 2016 – At the IP Expo show today, Avaya announced a complete network lifecycle management solution for enterprise and mid-size businesses. The Avaya Cloud Networking Platform delivers a unified, powerful solution for deploying and managing wired and wireless networks with complete control and visibility anywhere, anytime.

According to industry analysts, cloud managed models are growing rapidly, with cloud-managed Wi-Fi is growing at twice the rate of Wi-Fi deployments¹ . In addition, businesses are increasingly seeking a unified solution that can manage both wireless and wired networks.

Avaya Cloud Networking provides IT professionals with centralised management, visibility, and control over their network without the complexity of controller appliances or overlay management software. Hardware such as switches and access points installed on a customer premises are configured and managed in the cloud. IT managers can easily add, change, or modify network services from an easy to use dashboard to meet rapidly evolving business needs.

The Avaya Cloud Networking Platform delivers a simpler solution that allows enterprise-grade wireless and wired networks to be deployed and administered with minimal resources:

• Zero-touch activation of new access points and switches along with automated software updates and simplified license management relieves IT of some of their biggest operational burdens. A fully-integrated Guest Portal and BYOD on-boarding capability further improves operations.
• Robust security ensures that customers concerns are adequately addressed about data privacy, regulatory needs and alignment with business policies. The multi-tenant platform provides data isolation among different cloud tenants. All communications are

¹ WLAN Market grew 10% Y/Y, and is projected to be over $5B in CY16 (Dell Oro, IDC), Cloud Wireless LAN is growing at twice the rate of Wireless LAN (Dell Oro) Cloud-Managed Wireless LAN set to Grow to $2.5 Billion by 2018

fully encrypted, with user traffic remaining on the firewall protected LAN and cloud connectivity only required for out of band management functionality.

• Service availability is guaranteed with data center redundancy and data replication. Wireless APs act autonomously even when the cloud connection is lost. Traffic and security is processed directly at the network edge in each AP.
• Massive scalability to support thousands of network devices ensures current and fu-ture needs can be accommodated. Multi-tenant support and the flexibility of a SaaS solution allows for easy scaling to support subscription based pay as you grow model.

Avaya channel partners can offer the Avaya Cloud Networking Platform to customers, expanding their portfolio with cloud-managed services. Pricing for the cloud networking management service is on a subscription basis; hardware is priced separately. The Avaya Cloud Networking Platform will be generally available globally with support for wireless in November 2016 and support for wired networks coming in a follow-on release.

Quotes

“Network management and security are two of the hottest topics at IP Expo. As the demand for unified access solutions continues to grow, the burden of managing and securing networks has become nearly untenable - especially at a time when there’s pressure to reduce IT budgets and resources. The Avaya Cloud Networking Platform provides the much needed relief with a highly-secure, cost-effective solution that fits any size business.”

Jean Turgeon, Chief Technologist, Avaya Networking

“Businesses are becoming increasingly dynamic and distributed and IT management must follow these trends to keep up. Traditional management methods are far too slow to keep up with the speeds that digital organizations require. The daunting number of complicated tasks associated with managing wired and wireless networks is overwhelming network operations. A unified cloud management solution, like Avaya Cloud Networking Platform brings greater efficiency and speed to network management. Also, it offers robust security, scalability and service resiliency providing the best of an enterprise-grade solution without the burden of on-premises management.”

Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst, ZK Research

“Our customers IT resources are stretched and increasingly they look to cloud managed solutions as a means to mitigate the strain. Avaya's new Cloud Networking Platform enables them to improve their operational agility and efficiency by simplifying the tasks required for the ongoing management of their network. We are confident that adding this competitive solution to our portfolio of offers will be a value-added service to our customers as well as expand our addressable market.”

David Rafferty, managing partner, Integration Partners