Infoblox Offers Simplified Network Operations Through Collaboration with Ciena

DUBAI, UAE, 5th May, 2020 – Infoblox Inc., the leader in Secure Cloud-Native and Cloud-Managed Network and Security Services, today announced expanded market opportunities through a collaboration with Ciena, combining the benefits of the Infoblox DDI Platform to dynamic NFV environments with Ciena’s universal customer premise equipment (uCPE). In this initial release, Infoblox DNS, DHCP, and IP Address Management (“DDI”) and Secure DNS capabilities are available for the Enterprise branch office edge, improving service agility with highly-available and dynamic DNS, DHCP and IP address assignment through a validated NFV software instance that runs on the Ciena 3906 and 3926 Platforms.

In a hybrid cloud architecture, enterprises continue to become more decentralized and operate across multiple platforms. While technologies such as SD-WAN can be a simple and cost-effective way to provide enterprises with reliable and optimized connectivity to cloud-based applications such as Office 365, without upgrades to their underlying DDI infrastructure, users can experience poor application performance due to inadvertent connections to geographically distant service endpoints in the cloud.

“Enterprises are moving towards SaaS and cloud-based applications, requiring branch office networks to evolve their DDI infrastructure to provide an optimal end-user experience,” said Dilip Pillaipakam, vice president of service provider products at Infoblox. “Service providers are driving uCPE deployment discussions with medium and large enterprise clients focusing on SD-WAN managed services to help these highly distributed organizations evolve their network architecture to address the visibility, reliability, and management challenges of their remote locations.”

The Infoblox DDI NFV solution, leveraging Ciena’s 3906 and 3926 Platforms, enables service providers to offer enterprise customers the ability to simplify management of highly distributed remote networks and to optimize the network performance of cloud-based applications. Through additional third-party virtualized network functions (VNFs), enterprises can replace traditional hardware-based appliances with SD-WAN connectivity, advanced firewall/UTM capabilities, secure DNS, and WAN optimization features, all hosted on a single, reliable, and secure Ciena host platform. Further, Ciena’s 3906 and 3926 Platforms delivers MEF 2.0-compliant and MEF 3.0-compliant Ethernet connectivity, respectively, alongside VNF hosting. Ciena’s 3906 and 3926 Platforms are compact, carrier-grade CPEs optimized for 1 gigabit and 10 gigabit Ethernet connectivity applications, respectively.

“With an ongoing surge in demand for network connectivity and services, driven by high-bandwidth content and business-critical applications, the industry is witnessing firsthand how digital transformation impacts the network,” said Brian Lavallée, senior director of portfolio marketing at Ciena. “CSPs and enterprises are actively modernizing their network assets to be increasingly intelligent, agile, and adaptive. With Infoblox, we make this journey possible.”

“There is significant and increasing demand for mission-critical functionality that reduces business and operational, and service providers continue to look to Infoblox to support them with their network virtualization efforts,” added Pillaipakam. “Our validated NFV solution on Ciena uCPE platforms enables us to support service providers with operational simplicity, making it easier to deliver a secure and reliable connection to their subscribers, while reducing network operating expenses.”