26 April 2017, Shenzhen, China – ZTE Corporation (0763.HK / 000063.SZ), a major international provider of telecommunications, enterprise and consumer technology solutions for the Mobile Internet, today announced that it has released Elastic software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and Elastic virtual private network (VPN) white papers at the grand opening of the 2017 China software defined networking/network function virtualisation (SDN/NFV) Summit, which provide a theoretical framework to support enterprise customers in their digital transformation.

The development of digital strategies by enterprises heralds the advent of the big data era. Because more and more enterprise service data is stored in the cloud, enterprises are concerned about network and cloud synergy as well as data security. As Internet innovation increases, enterprises are developing fast and make frequent site changes. However, a network still must be built in one-to-two days. Traditional enterprise private lines and application models face the following problems: slow service launching (it takes 30 days from application to launch, which does not meet the fast service development requirement); complicated service deployment and O&M (large enterprises have complicated services). More than ten individual devices need to be deployed for local applications including a firewall, Internet behaviour management, wireless access point (AP) management, and wide area network (WAN) acceleration. There is a high hardware cost and long-term dependence on professional operations and maintenance (O&M) teams. Enterprises’ private line expenses take 50-70 percent of their ICT OPEX. Buying bandwidth and service devices is also expensive. Together with high maintenance fees, the total cost for enterprises remains high. With its insight into these trends and problems, and based on the latest SDN/NFV developments, ZTE proposes innovative Elastic SD-WAN and Elastic VPN solutions as outlined in its white papers released at the 2017 China SDN/NFV Summit.

ZTE proposes an innovative Elastic VPN private line service for SMEs. It gathers enterprise VPN and value-added service functions to the cloud; simplifies local devices, supports plug and play (PnP), automated service configuration, and automated O&M visualisation. The solution provides enterprises with on-demand service experience, which dramatically reduces service launch-time and greatly simplifies service deployment.

ZTE proposes its innovative Elastic SD-WAN for large enterprises. Based on the office-in-a-box concept, it turns original hardware devices into software, virtualising them and deploying them in the ZTE ICT integrated MCG (micro cloud gateway), which can deliver value-added services and easily manage the service needs of thousands of branches through a cloud management platform deployed in the cloud or at HQ.

The ZTE Elastic SD-WAN solution provides the most complete NFV value-added services in the industry. It supports virtual firewall, virtual WAN acceleration, virtual AP management and many enterprise IT applications. Using the cloud backup/cloud recovery function, enterprises’ data is encrypted and backed up in the cloud. All data can be recovered with one button when failure occurs, which helps guarantee data security. Elastic SD-WAN is based on open standards so can build an open and fast-growing ecosystem. The service provider can build and deploy new services more quickly and effectively with lower cost. ZTE will continue cooperating with global-leading value-added service vendors to build the eco-system. So far, it has cooperated with more than 50 value-added service software vendors, which all lead their fields.

Mr. Tao Wenqiang, ZTE BN High-end IP Product Planning Chief Engineer said: “ ZTE presents its Elastic SD-WAN and Elastic VPN solutions based on in-depth ICT integrated product architecture and a powerful comprehensive management platform. The two white papers illustrate ZTE’s deep understanding of on demand networks and on demand services. Network connection is one kind of service. We also provide virtual value-added services (vVAS) for WAN acceleration, security, cache, and IT applications such as flexibly customised OA, which can help operators build a rigid intelligent pipeline that saves O&M cost.”

The components in the solutions provided by ZTE are compatible with those from a third party. With the flexible connection, security and reliability, real-time service deployment, and integrated ICT deployment, the simple and agile network on-demand solutions can not only provide enterprises with simpler networks with lower cost, but also help operators increase revenue, creating a win-win situation.