Nokia-Nuage SD-WAN Gains Unique Mobile-first Advantages through new Partnership with Asavie

SUMMARY 

April 15, 2020 – Nokia and Asavie entered a commercial and product partnership. Asavie’s mobile SD Edge technology will be integrated with Nokia Nuage Networks SD-WAN 2.0. 

Managed SD-WAN providers that offer Nuage SD-WAN will be able to offer business clients connectivity to enterprise applications and cloud and SaaS services with their mobile devices with exactly the same visibility, control and security policies, as for fixed network endpoints. Asavie SD Edge can also be extended to IoT endpoints providing they are SIM-based. 
Whilst bringing in remote mobile endpoints into the current SD-WAN gives benefits for a remote workforce during the Covid-19 crisis, Asavie SD Edge holds more strategic possibilities for a future way to cost effectively manage more and more workloads on mobile devices and SIM-based IoT device visibility and central orchestration and management. 

Managed SD-WAN service providers that do not have a matching Asavie SD Edge capability can offer mobile VPN clients or direct mobile and IoT device-generated traffic through a URL for filtering – but both these workarounds to the problem add overhead.
MARKET IMPACT

• SD Edge brings the mobile endpoints into the SD-WAN, thus existing firewall investments are preserved. SD-WAN and MSSP’s will want to respond to this either with integrating Asavie SD Edge into their portfolios, or developing similar capabilities based on their own in-house technologies. To do so requires considerable expertise and knowledge of mobile network traffic engineering. 
• This move will shake up the SD-WAN market, because current offerings do not extend to provide visibility and control for mobile and IoT endpoints very elegantly. 
• Current WAN deployments often fail to fully address security for mobile and IoT endpoints. SASE has entered the scene to give automated and software-defined capabilities for this, but despite giving decent security, once again the existing solution won’t protect all the existing SD-WAN investments – more layers need to be added. Asavie SD Edge is designed to leverage the existing SD-WAN investment. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR NOKIA-NUAGE? 

• This is a great response by Nokia-Nuage to entrenched SD-WAN vendors such as Cisco-Viptela, Versa Networks, and VMware-VeloCloud, because the mentioned competitors do not come from heavy mobile technology influenced backgrounds. Nokia is thus playing to a key strength. 
• Nokia is a leading provider of embedded 5G private network solutions with its ‘embedded 5G’ and ‘SD-WAN and 5G: better together’ slogans. It reports more than 150 private mobile network customers.
• Mobile SD Edge is clientless and can be used in a self-serve fashion to create on-demand private mobile network slices. This is the first solution of its kind that we have seen at Clavem Research. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ASAVIE? 

• Asavie is also a recognized mobile transport innovator with a good list of existing clients, and joining forces gives both companies strengthened go-to-market clout and shared prospects.  
• For Asavie, having a commercial and product partnership with Nokia-Nuage is a powerful endorsement of the faith that a major global SD-WAN and 5G equipment vendor places in the Asavie SD Edge. 
• Nokia-Nuage Networks is a major route to market for Asavie, with several Tier 1 global services providers offering Nuage SD-WAN, such as BT, NTT, Telefonica, Etisalat, Telia Company, Globe and Telus. Nationwide providers Spectrum Enterprise, X by Orange, and Exponential-e also provide Nuage SD-WAN. 

WHAT SHOULD MANAGED SD-WAN SERVICE PROVIDERS DO?

• Managed service provider resellers of Nuage SD-WAN have an opportunity to revisit their go-to-market messages with a stronger and more modern emphasis on converged and integrated fixed and mobile managed SD-WAN services. 
• Bringing in visibility and control management of mobile and SIM-based IoT endpoints will allow service providers that offer Nuage SD-WAN to achieve differentiation against competitors that cannot offer a clientless on-demand software-defined mobile network slice (i.e., Asavie SD Edge). 
• Overall managed SD-WAN providers, including ones that do not sell Nuage SD-WAN, need to develop  better ways to offer convenience for mobile VPN customers and for managing IoT endpoints as part of the SD-WAN. 
• Existing technologies tend to be bulky and inefficient – demanding clients installed on the device, which is a pain, or directing all moving traffic to a URL or Web gateway, which introduces overheads and can cause bill shock. In response to this partnership, MSPs can consider adding Nuage SD-WAN into their range of SD-WAN proposals. This is fine. Many companies offer Cisco-Viptela because they have to, plus another SD-WAN. 

BUYER RECOMMENDATIONS

• Businesses that want to develop advanced mobile-first digital platforms can evaluate Nokia-Nuage’s capabilities in predictive maintenance, workforce efficiency and safety, asset optimisation, digital operations and hybrid cloud. With more than 150 private mobile networks deployed, Nokia has a lot of experience with supporting innovation, and its new partnership with Asavie is another arrow in the quiver. 
• For businesses, the Asavie SD Edge is an opportunity to think about bringing SD-WAN agility into the mobile realm. 

Link to the press release: 
Nokia’s Nuage Networks creates industry’s first SD-WAN solution for desktop, mobile and IoT devices, partnering with Asavie to meet increasing demands for remote working connectivity

Clavem Research together with Asavie published the following white paper: 'The Future is Mobile and Why SD-WAN is Flawed for Secure and Manageable Mobile and IoT Endpoints'