Aryaka expands SD-WAN, SASE offer to SMEs | Computer Weekly

Despite the increased popularity over the past three years of software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) and subsequently secure access service edge (SASE), thanks mainly to the large Covid-driven surge in hybrid working, the services have not to date seen massive uptake in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and to address this, Aryaka is now tailoring its offerings for such an audience.

Aryaka believes SMEs face several challenges when it comes to networking and security, including limited budgets, a lack of skilled IT resources and a need for operational simplicity.

With entry pricing of less than $150 per site, Aryaka said that after a decade of deploying its services to large enterprises and Fortune 100 companies, it will be able to deliver a more comprehensive set of managed service capabilities compared with alternatives.

The offer includes application optimisation, network security, multi-cloud connectivity, cloud-based observability and control, all supported by lifecycle services management. The result is, said the company, that SMEs no longer need to choose between affordability, performance, and ease of use when adopting SD-WAN and SASE offerings.

Based on its global private backbone, Aryaka said its services can help SMEs as they increasingly adopt managed services. The company combines its in-house technology with a global managed service, eliminating the supplier-provider finger-pointing that can negatively impact business outcomes.

“As a customer-centric business, Aryaka both understands the specific networking and security challenges that enterprises of all sizes face, and actively takes steps to deliver products and services that address those challenges,” said Aryaka chief commercial officer Dennis Monner.

“No matter if 10 or 10,000 users depend on Microsoft 365, Salesforce or access workloads in a cloud to be productive and protected from security threats, one bad experience is one too many, and SMEs deserve a first-class service experience equal to large enterprises and multi-national companies while meeting their budgetary needs. Our revamped offerings bring our highly regarded agile deployment at an affordable price point to SMEs.”

The announcement comes on the heels of Aryaka announcing in February that it was increasing investment in its Hyperscale point of presence (PoP) footprint across the globe for cloud-based services delivery.

Designed to deliver managed services at the cloud edge, based on an architecture that integrates connectivity, compute and storage, Aryaka PoPs are said to be very different from conventional transport hubs or virtual ones, supporting peak performance from a more centralised PoP footprint. An outcome of this is full alignment with a SASE architecture that defines cloud-delivered security capabilities and a convergence of the overlay and underlay.

An outcome of this is full alignment with a SASE architecture that defines cloud-delivered security capabilities and a convergence of the overlay and underlay. Aryaka’s AppAssure technology will be deployed on PoPs, providing insights into jitter, latency and loss per app and per user for optimal application performance for both on-site and remote users.