BT announced on Wednesday the launch of BT Agile Connect, a new SD-WAN service created for large organisations, as part of BT’s Dynamic Network Services programme. BT initially planned to launch the SD-WAN service early this year.
Built on technologies from BT and Nuage Networks from Nokia, Agile Connect equipment is currently live within the networks of several large global organisations and is now ready for volume deployment for existing and new customers.
Agile Connect uses SDN on a national or global scale to dynamically determine the most effective route for traffic to take across a customer’s wide area network. Its dynamic routing allows organisations to meet bandwidth demand by making it significantly easier to introduce new access services to their network or by making better use of what previously were back-up connections.
Customers prioritise applications or manage use of access services via an interactive portal. They also gain an improved visibility of application performance. Changes are implemented centrally without the need for expensive local technical support.
Agile Connect includes a BT pre-built controller infrastructure hosted on the internet and on BT's multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network. It also uses BT pre-built MPLS Internet gateways to offer simple cloud-based connectivity between Internet-connected and MPLS-connected sites.
In the future, Agile Connect will support virtual network functions (VNFs), with new services deployed virtually to the Agile Connect device, removing the need to install multiple boxes.
Maria Grazia Pecorari, President, Digital, Global Portfolio & Marketing
We invest all our efforts in giving customers choice, security, resilience, service, and agility in the roll out of high performance networks that support their digital transformation — what we call Dynamic Network Services. Today’s announcement is an important stage in the acceleration of that investment.
