The reason for the meeting was the “presentation in society” of the new SD-WAN service that the company has launched in the country (and of which it already has some clients).
SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) networks are the evolution of extended area networks -or wide-range private networks- that companies have/use to connect their different offices, premises, and facilities privately and safely. They can achieve this level of security by using providers found at websites like https://www.fusionconnect.com/products/networking-security/sd-wan/ as well as others. Networks other than the Internet over which it has control and over which only company traffic passes.
Networks that, until now, involved from the laying of specific cables to the installation of different physical elements to control and protect the information transmitted through them. Networks whose updating involves countless infrastructure changes, slow and costly.
While watching Claro’s management team, headed by its President Carlos Zenteno, talk about the benefits of SD-WAN -in terms of security, costs, and optimization of resources- thanks to the benefits of managing it almost entirely through starting from software protocols and not at the end of hardware, I could only think of that famous phrase from Marc Andreessen (the founder of Netscape and, today, one of the most successful investors in internet companies in history)
Software is eating the World
– Marc Andreessen. Watch Andreessen interview at kissnaime
Software is eating the world. The software has reached the point where it can replace physical objects, make them more dynamic and make them thousands of times more useful and powerful creating a disruption that seems to have no limit.
It is the first of the effects of Digital Disruption: the Dematerialization of physical objects of which we have already spoken. The telephone, the camera, the maps, the contact book have physically ceased to exist and have become pieces of software that function as an App within our computers (desktop, laptop or pocket).
But… private data networks?
Can a piece of software replace the laying of a fiber optic cable? Yes.
The SD-WAN technology announced by Claro (and which involved an investment of close to USD 12 million) dematerializes private data networks and a large part of the hardware components that until now have been part – perhaps the most expensive – of WANs that allow companies to work seamlessly despite the fact that their operation is distributed in different geographical locations and replaces them with software components hundreds of times more agile and powerful.
Components that allow changes to be made in real-time, with fewer costs and delays.
Consider this example of a bank: before being able to open a new electronic ATM, it was necessary to wait for the civil works to be carried out, lay the fiber optic, install the firewalls, routers and others in the new location. Now, with a connection as simple as that of a 4G modem and a router pre-programmed with the profiles of the corporate network, the ATM can go into operation. No delay. No additional costs.
Not only that. SD-WAN networks are intelligent networks on which you can implement changes on the fly or install new service features without having to go to all sites, physically change network components, or “downgrade.”
Any existing connection can be turned into a private, secure and scalable network with SD-WAN technology. And by eliminating layers and digitizing them, connection times, latency and response are radically improved, especially in Cloud environments.
Software is eating the world, even data networks.
One more thing that caught my attention from yesterday’s announcement: the investment made by Claro in Colombia is not only to be able to offer SD-WAN services locally, but to build the Hub in the country that will serve Central and South America and with the It expects to be a key player in a market that IDC says will grow 40% each year for the next 5 years.
