Albany, NY – November 5, 2019 – FirstLight, a leading provider of fiber-optic data, Internet, data center, cloud and voice services to enterprise and carrier customers throughout the Northeast, announced today the addition of a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) solution to its comprehensive portfolio of fiber-based services.
FirstLight’s SD-WAN solution, based on Cisco’s secure SD-WAN technology, allows users to streamline the management of their wide area network (WAN) using a simplified, centralized dashboard. Delivered as a service, SD-WAN addresses the widespread need for businesses to better understand and optimize the performance of their network and enables the rapid deployment of branch, data center and multi-cloud networks.
“With the sophistication of wide area networks across today’s organizations, we realize the need to simplify network management and increase efficiency,” said Patrick Coughlin, Chief Development Officer for FirstLight. “FirstLight’s SD-WAN portfolio provides organizations with deep insight into their network environment, with features that ensure performance optimization, network resiliency and flexibility. We’re thrilled to offer this managed service over our low latency, high capacity fiber optic network, allowing businesses to manage their WAN with confidence and ease.”
“Today’s increasing number of users, devices and locations accessing more and more cloud applications has caused a demand from organizations for higher bandwidth to optimize application experiences,” said Muninder Sambi, Vice President Product Management, Enterprise Routing/SDWAN and Switching at Cisco. “Innovative managed SD-WAN services from providers such as FirstLight offer businesses an easy way to achieve agility and improve application performance, without compromising security.”
With a Cisco-based architecture that is natively integrated with security, FirstLight’s SD-WAN solution offers two platforms, Foundation and Advanced, with packages to suit the varying needs of organizations. FirstLight’s Foundation Edge service, based on Cisco SD-WAN powered by Meraki, is ideal for lean IT organizations that value simplicity. FirstLight’s Advanced Edge offering integrates Cisco SD-WAN powered by Viptela, for businesses requiring enterprise scale for global WANs, and support for multicloud environments.
FirstLight’s SD-WAN portfolio also includes Network Assurance, which enables access to FirstLight’s team of engineering experts to assist with the design, configuration and implementation of SD-WAN solutions.
