Switches complete Avaya SDN suite

Avaya* has pushed a bunch of switches out the door, and is taking aim at Cisco's ECI in its Fx – Fabric Anywhere – strategy.

The switches themselves are fairly straightforward: the ESR 5900 line is a stackable series in 24 port (up to Gbps Ethernet) and 48 port (ditto) configurations.

Avaya Australia's director, network solutions, Martin Claridge said the switches' support for the Avaya SDN Fx (software defined network) architecture fills out the vendor's capabilities that started with “point SDN products” to now being an “end-to-end solution”.

Claridge said Fx SDN now reaches from access networks across the WAN, while also covering off access control and authentication.

SDN customers, he said, “don't need the complexity of a Cisco ACI (application-centric infrastructure)", and with a simpler approach he argues that the question “how are you going to deploy it?” becomes easier to answer.

Vulture South asked why Avaya estimates it's got a magic potion to simplify SDN, and Claridge said the problem is that in-data-centre approaches don't easily stretch out the door to other DCs.