BTN'S CONTINUOUS SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF SD-WAN NETWORK
As the digital world becomes increasingly interconnected, businesses and enterprises consequently develop the need to enhance their communication and collaboration. It is for this reason that businesses have deployed Wide Area Networks, to ensure that their different branches are interconnected and can communicate privately, securely, and seamlessly.
WAN interconnectivity has consequently evolved over time, with the Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) being an overly successful variant of such evolution, delivering value by guaranteeing unmatched quality of Service and Quality of Experience Metrics.
SD-WAN
SDWAN became a buzzword in the Kenyan ISP space in 2019. During this time n BTN partnered with RAD Data Communications and successfully commissioned a fully functional SD-WAN solution for Safaricom PLC. This solution was designed to complement the existing MPLS connectivity options by adding a second option of connectivity to enterprises; the internet.
While the internet has been an alternative means of connectivity to branches, it posed a key threat to most users: security being the leading factor. Evidently, the public internet is largely insecure and overly exposed as a connectivity medium for enterprises that wish to relay sensitive data forcing enterprises to invest in security options such as firewalls.
SD-WAN took things a notch higher by securely making use of internet circuits and consequently guaranteeing security by encapsulating the internet-bound traffic in secure tunnels. In addition, SD-WAN was able to make use of additional connectivity technologies, to guarantee high availability within customer deployments.
Most importantly, a key benefit of SD-WAN for enterprises is the capacity to intelligently steer traffic through the multiple paths available through dynamic path selection, which optimizes the performance of an application by directing data traffic over the circuit with the best quality as rated by metrics such as load, packet loss, latency, or jitter
SUCCESS STORIES
BTN’s SD-WAN solution has been successfully deployed in multiple industries within the Kenyan business Arena including insurance and banking, healthcare, and even manufacturing facilities.
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WiMAX REPLACEMENT
The key win for the SD-WAN project is the replacement of WIMAX connectivity all over Kenya. In a bid to roll out 5G coverage, Safaricom re-farmed the spectrum used for Fixed Wireless Access service (WiMax) for use in 5G connectivity. The challenge at hand, therefore, involved identifying a suitable replacement for WIMAX technology, owing to the fact that a massive chunk of Safaricom’s customers were still actively using the service. In 2020, BTN and RAD delivered an LTE alternative to WIMAX, which would subsequently use the SD-WAN Core. Following successful trials, the product was?rolled out nationwide and continues to be used by over 400 enterprises all over the country.?
Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE)
In 2021, the Nairobi Securities Exchange successfully migrated to Safaricom SDWAN solution for its brokers, in a bid to boost trading volumes and level of activity at the bourse. The migration replaced the Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network that the entity had been using since 2011.
In a bespoke deployment case, the SD-WAN solution interconnected the NSE, the Central Depository and Settlement Corporation (CDSC), and all the Trading Participants in the market to offer higher trading platform availability. The SDWAN was deemed transformational for the market as it was bound to reduce connectivity costs to the brokers by approximately thirty percent, ensuring higher uptime and performance and increased network security.
Ultimately, The NSE leverages Safaricom’s experience and excellent service support to ensure a stable, secure, and resilient network infrastructure for securities trading.
The result: network stability, agility, and resilience with enhanced information security capabilities while reducing the cost of connectivity for all stakeholders.
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