Telstra launched its new SDN-based PEN Exchange and PEN Marketplace — two new enhancements to its global Software Defined Networking solution, enabling organisations to identify and connect their network circuits on-demand with other PEN customers. The two new enhancements were designed to satisfy customers’ growing needs for secure, high bandwidth on-demand, and built on the expansion of the Telstra PEN Platform to the optical layer across 26 PEN Points of Presence worldwide in 2015.
The new PEN Marketplace is an online portal that allows organisations to instantly order virtual network functions – such as firewalls and routers – on-demand and based on their preferred vendor.
“The launch of our new PEN Exchange is the natural next step in our SDN strategy and means we now have the unique capability to dynamically connect network circuits between PEN Exchange customers, linking different people and business sites easily and cost effectively. With provisioning time measured in minutes rather than months, PEN Exchange customers can also use a new application programming interface, which triggers additional capacity depending on their changing bandwidth needs,” stated Jim Clarke, Telstra’s Head of International Products and Pricing, Telstra.
http://www.telstraglobal.com/dynamicnetworks
Telstra Extends its Global SDN into the Optical Layer
Telstra has extended its new global Software Defined Networking (SDN) Platform into the optical layer, enabling high-bandwidth provisioning up to 100G and automated fault restoration across its global Points of Presence (PoPs).
The announcement follows Telstra’s recent acquisition of Pacnet, a provider of connectivity, managed services and data centre services to carriers, multinational corporations and governments in the Asia-Pacific region. The Pacnet Enabled Network (PEN)an SDN-based service delivery platform with automated provisioning capabilities.
Telstra now operates 25 PEN Points of Presence across eight countries – including Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the US and the UK. Additional connectivity options into public Cloud services to bridge hybrid Cloud deployments are available too.
Jim Clarke, Telstra’s Director of Marketing, Product and Pricing – International, said the extension of SDN and Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) capabilities into Layer 1 followed the announcement last month that Telstra had added nine Telstra PEN PoPs to Pacnet’s existing footprint of sixteen PoPs across Asia, creating a globally connected on-demand networking Platform.
“Extending our global PEN platform into the optical layer is the natural next step in our SDN strategy and by providing this infrastructure on demand, we’re able to significantly shorten the provisioning cycle times and better meet our customers’ growing high-bandwidth needs.
“This is an exciting milestone in Telstra’s SDN journey and by leveraging our high quality infrastructure assets and Pacnet’s leadership in early adoption of SDN technology, we will continue to innovate and deliver cost-efficient virtualised network resources to our customers,” Mr Clarke said.
“We believe it’s time for global networks to evolve. The applications of tomorrow require a different kind of network and this latest enhancement to the PEN Platform means we now have the unique capability to provide customers with on-demand provisioning of their network services up to 100G, whenever they want it and wherever they are based.
“Furthermore, Telstra plans to extend virtualisation to its suite of Managed Services offerings which means we can now, more than ever, deliver the choice and flexibility our customers require, in an age of bandwidth hungry applications, fuelled by distributed computing, big data and mobility,” Mr Clarke concluded.
In March 2015, Infinera announced that Pacnet, which operates submarine cable systems connecting 15 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, has deployed the new Infinera Open Transport Switch (OTS) software to extend virtualization into the optical layer of its network. Pacnet’s existing Intelligent Transport Network is based on the Infinera DTN-X packet optical transport networking platform.
