Deutsche Telekom : network with ngena reaches 200 countries worldwide

• Global telecommunications alliance ngena grows to 17 members
• New partners: A1 Telekom Austria Group, KPN, and VEON
• Telekom extends international reach and expands business services
• At MWC - Feb. 26 - Panel Discussion 'The State of SD-WAN'

The global telecommunications alliance ngena (Next Generation Enterprise Network Alliance - www.ngena.net) is growing to 17 members. The new members are the A1 Telekom Austria Group, KPN, and VEON, which has operations in Russia and Eastern Europe. With these new additions, Deutsche Telekom continues to expand its global network offerings for businesses. ngena and Deutsche Telekom announced this in the run-up to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (February 26 - March 1).

Through the ngena alliance, Deutsche Telekom now covers company sites in more than 200 countries worldwide, including Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, and South Korea. More countries will follow.

ngena is a global alliance of leading telcos that combine their networks to form a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) and control it with cloud technologies. Deutsche Telekom is a founding member of the alliance.

Patrick Molck-Ude, responsible for network business for Deutsche Telekom's corporate customers, says: 'Corporate customers need strong and secure global lines that they can manage flexibly. And they want to connect new company sites quickly. That's the new baseline for every international carrier, and with our software-defined network, we have our fingers on the pulse of our customers' needs.' Marcus Hacke, founder and Managing Director at ngena, says: 'Our global platform combines the advantages of ultramodern SD-WAN architecture with our alliance partners' local services. Based on Cisco's SD WAN portfolio, which already incorporates Viptela's leading technology completely, business customers get ultramodern software-defined wide area networks that are easier to operate, flexible to administer, scale seamlessly and are available more quickly.'

SD-WAN panel discussion at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

Interested companies will have the opportunity to find out more about software-defined networks at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona:

Feb. 26, 1:00 p.m., hall 3, Deutsche Telekom booth 3M3: Panel discussion 'The State of SD-WAN'. Participants: Gary Barton (Principal Analyst GlobalData) in dialog with Patrick Molck-Ude (Director, T-Systems) and Dr. Marcus Hacke (founder & Managing Director ngena).

Deutsche Telekom offers 'Smart SD WAN' in L and XL packages

T-Systems, Deutsche Telekom's corporate customer segment, was the first member of the alliance to offer networks based on the ngena platform last year. The solution is called 'Smart SD-WAN powered by ngena'. In this offering, businesses can choose between simple and redundant Internet and Ethernet connections, as well as a mix of these access options. Deutsche Telekom will soon begin to offer L and XL packages, effective immediately (for more information, see www.t-systems.com/access_designs_en).

The new packages make it easier to connect data centers or large company sites with the corporate network. With the standardized and automated 'Smart SD-WAN' offering, T-Systems is supplementing its existing classic IPVPN offering IntraSelect, which can be tailored to specific customer requirements.

The new network offering also supports other services in addition to secure worldwide networking of company sites. These include the secure regional gateway from the corporate network to the Internet, additional firewalls, and the intelligent management of network traffic depending on priority class.

Background: Software-defined networks for tomorrow's sensor networks

In the future, more and more machines and other objects will be equipped with connected sensors. Additional sensors mean more data traffic, higher demands for latency, and more bandwidth. This is in addition to potentially connected ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems with thousands of users, big data analytics and cloud services that access the network. Many historically evolved networks are hardly up to the task today. One reason is that network resources are not allocated dynamically. This is slow and expensive - it can take days, weeks, or even months before a reliable line is available for mission-critical use. Administrator will find it difficult to keep pace with future data flows. Software-defined networks (SDN) automate the configuration of individual systems by centralizing administration work, making SD-WAN technology the foundation for a new generation of automated company networks. The same applies to the development of wireless networks based on the upcoming 5G standard, which is only just beginning.