BOISE, ID — (Marketwired) — 04/20/17 — , the global leader in cloud-based network solutions for connecting people, places, and things over wired and wireless broadband, has introduced Release 6.3 of its NetCloud OS router software, part of the Cradlepoint NetCloud platform, with extended SD-WAN functionality for 4G LTE-dependent networks. The company also announced that its SDN-enabled network solutions have been recognized by Gartner in their 2017 WAN Edge Infrastructure Guide, which was published in March. The new router software functionality and recent Gartner recognition bolsters Cradlepoint–s leadership in software-defined 4G LTE network solutions for Connected Enterprises.
“SD-WAN represents the most significant transformation of enterprise WAN architecture in several decades,” said Ian Pennell, Chief Marketing Officer and head of product at Cradlepoint. “Today–s branch networks are not confined to a building anymore. They now span vehicles, pop-up stores, smart cities and mobile operations facilities, making 4G LTE — and nascent 5G wireless services — essential infrastructure. Our new NetCloud OS Release 6.3 provides several unique router features that make it easier to deploy 4G LTE for primary, hybrid and failover connections within SD-WAN environments while controlling performance and data plan consumption, and starts to pave the way to a 5G future.”
Cradlepoint–s strength in integrating wireless services into SD-WAN topologies, including 3G, 4G LTE and Wi-Fi-as-WAN, played a factor in the company–s inclusion in Gartner–s newly released WAN Edge Infrastructure Guide: “Cradlepoint is representative of an established cellular router vendor that is evolving its offering to address emerging requirements, including SD-WAN and OTT delivery of services”.
Today, Cradlepoint–s routers have a wealth of policy-based traffic prioritization, filtering, shaping and steering capabilities built into the NetCloud Traffic Control function. NetCloud OS Release 6.3 extends these critical SD-WAN router capabilities with several new 4G LTE-optimized functions:
Network administrators can see and analyze LAN-attached devices on both Ethernet and Wi-Fi. This new feature provides enhanced visibility, secure and control of on-site PCs, servers and IoT devices and aids in determining 4G LTE failover policies and remote troubleshooting from NetCloud.
In a hybrid WAN environment where individual wired and wireless links may have widely differing speeds, it can be difficult to effectively control quality of service (QoS) in all scenarios, especially for latency-sensitive applications. Cradlepoint–s new Auto-QoS feature implements an advanced traffic queuing algorithm that automatically adapts to differing WAN speeds of primary and failover links to ensure latency-sensitive traffic, such as voice over IP and PoS applications, always performs optimally.
A new traffic steering mechanism optimized for wireless connections. For most SD-WAN solutions, 4G LTE and Wi-Fi-as-WAN connections are essentially a black box, offering little in the way of data needed for efficient traffic steering decisions. Worse yet, using synthetic transactions over 4G LTE to deduce link performance can consume multiple gigabytes of a customer–s monthly data plan. SWANS operates at the Connection Manager level (layer 2) and uses statistics captured directly from the modem and other interfaces combined with lightweight “pings” to measure latency and jitter and data plan consumption to precisely control traffic steering behavior across 4G LTE links without excessive overhead.
In the age of Digital Transformation, the definition of a wide-area network (WAN) is changing within both enterprise and government organizations. WANs are extending beyond private datacenters and fixed branches to connect cloud services and mobile sites — such as vehicles, pop-up stores, smart city infrastructures and mobile command centers — as well as remote sensors, surveillance cameras, digital signage and kiosks. The need to securely connect people, places and things everywhere is driving the convergence of SDN and cellular technology today, which sets the stage for realizing the benefits of 5G in the future.
Emerging 5G services promise up to a 10X increase in WAN throughput over today–s average 4G connection while delivering one millisecond latency and ten year battery life for IoT devices. Cradlepoint–s new Business Intelligence Report — “” — details this leap in cellular technology, which will enable many new and unimaginable use cases, including gigabit-per-second wired WAN replacement, augmented reality, remote-controlled robotics and revolutionary advanced healthcare.
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Cradlepoint is the global leader in cloud-based network solutions for connecting people, places, and things over wired and wireless broadband. Cradlepoint NetCloud is a software and services platform that extends the company–s 4G LTE-enabled multi-function routers and ruggedized M2M/IoT gateways with cloud-based management and software-defined network services. With Cradlepoint, customers can leverage the speed and economics of wired and wireless Internet broadband for branch, failover, mobile, and IoT networks while maintaining end-to-end visibility, security, and control. Over 15,000 enterprise and government organizations around the world — including 75 percent of the world–s top retailers, 50 percent of the Fortune 500, and 25 of the largest U.S. cities — rely on Cradlepoint to keep critical sites, workforces, vehicles, and devices always connected and protected. Major service providers use Cradlepoint network solutions as the foundation for innovative managed service offerings. Cradlepoint is a privately held company headquartered in Boise, Idaho, with development centers in Silicon Valley and Kelowna, Canada, and offices in the UK, Australia, and Japan. Learn more at cradlepoint.com or follow us on Twitter.
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