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Avaya SDN Fx™ Brings Businesses Closer to Enabling Unified Access and the Internet of Things

Announcement posted by Avaya 22 Apr 2015

 
  • Avaya adds new, next-generation, stackable Ethernet switch that supports new and emerging technologies, unified wired and wireless access and the Internet of Things
  • Avaya demos SDN Fx and Internet of Things (IoT) in action in Booth 2033 at Interop 2015, April 28-30 in Las Vegas, NV
 
Santa Clara, Calif. – April 21, 2015 – Avaya today announced an addition to the company’s SDN Fx™ architecture to help bring businesses one step closer to enabling Unified Access and the Internet of Things - minus the disruption found in many major technology transitions. A new line of next-generation, premium stackable Ethernet switches, the ERS 5900 series, optimized for Avaya Fabric Connect, allows companies to support new and emerging technologies as well as existing ones.
 
According to a recent global Avaya survey[1], 88 percent of respondents expect to put SDN into production at some point in the future, with the average timeline of approximately 1.6 years. Nearly 45 percent of respondents didn’t have a specific timeframe for deployment; however, 89 percent of C-level executives said that SDN deployment needs to be simple for them to consider adoption. 
 
Read the Blog: Is Your Approach to SDN Putting Lipstick on a Pig?
 
The Avaya SDN Fx architecture is the first to deliver automation and programmability from the network core to the user edge, providing “connect anything, anywhere” simplicity. An ideal foundation on which to build Internet of Everything strategies, this extensibility makes it much easier to accommodate and configure the escalating number of intelligent devices and users at the edge that need to be connected.
 
The Avaya ERS 5900 series of premium, stackable Ethernet switches takes another significant step toward full network automation by further extending Avaya Fabric Connect capabilities to the network edge. The ERS 5900 series enables enterprises to smoothly migrate to next generation architectures that unify the wired and wireless network while preparing organizations to adopt new Internet of Things strategies. Key features of the ERS 5900 series include:
  • Supports MACsec for enhanced security
  • Supports Power over Ethernet Plus (POE+) for 802.11 ac deployments
  • Extensible to support 60W of Power over Ethernet (uPOE) for emerging IoT deployments such as smart lighting, medical systems and high-end video surveillance   
  • Extensible to support the emerging 2.5GE and 5GE standard for 802.11ac Wave 2 deployments, as is the Avaya WLAN 9100 series
 
Intelligent Lighting Use Case
As part of the drive to implement sustainable, environmentally-conscious business practices, the universal effort to save energy and improve efficiency across facilities is boosted by new opportunities enabled by SDN architectures and IoT. For example, Avaya is collaborating with other companies on an intelligent lighting solution that eliminates the need for businesses to run expensive, separate high-voltage wiring and conduit for lighting. Instead, leveraging Ethernet cabling, Power over Ethernet and LED, lighting becomes one of the many ‘things’ on the network. Sensors in this solution will detect occupancy/vacancy and areas that need more or less lighting for a good user experience. Benefits include lower costs and energy utilization, much easier installation – simply plug and play with Avaya Fabric Connect – and greater visibility and control through detailed analytics capabilities.   
 
Avaya at Interop
The Avaya SDN Fx architecture and Fabric Connect technologies, including the new ERS 5900 series will be on display in Booth 2033 at Interop 2015, being held April 27-30 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV. At the booth, attendees can see the intelligent lighting demo enabled by the Avaya SDN Fx architecture, along with recently announced components of the architecture, including the Open Network Adapter (ONA), Fabric Extend and Fabric Attach, Unified Access and Wireless as well as the Avaya Collaboration Pod.
 
Quotes
“The clock is ticking for businesses that want a competitive edge through greater network agility. By some estimates, it’s expected that nearly 25 billion devices will be connected to the network in just four short years. That could mean massive complexity unless a company or organization has implemented a powerful, simplified SDN foundation such as the Avaya’s SDN Fx architecture. The ERS 5900 takes a major step towards delivering the simplicity and transitional ability needed as Unified Access for the Internet of Things moves into full force.”
Alan Hase, vice president, Unified Access, Avaya Networking
 
We are working with a number of customers who either have or are in the process of implementing Avaya Fabric Connect as the logical path to an end-to-end SDN network. The ERS 5900 will help them easily bridge their existing operations into their plans for the future, while providing cost savings from more efficient utilization of energy and new security capabilities to help ward off emerging threats to network operations.”  
David Rafferty, vice president, IPC
 
“SDN can offer a tremendous boon to businesses and an exciting growth opportunity for those channel partners who are ready with the skills and vendor support needed to deliver a complete solution to their customers. We see the Avaya SDN Fx architecture as an ideal solution for our healthcare and transportation customers – especially with the ERS 5900 switches to manage the potential complexity of their networks and connect the hundreds or even thousands of devices at the edge that are a growing part of their requirements.”
Val Robison, vice president, Sunturn
 
“Some of the most compelling use cases for SDN will likely be at the edge of the network. With Avaya’s introduction of the ERS 5900, they continue their momentum started with SDN Fx of driving practical use cases where the user lives.”
 Zeus Kerravala, principal, ZK Research
 
Additional Resources
ERS 5900 Fact Sheet
 
Tags: Avaya, networking, SDN, Fabric Connect, fabric networking, Internet of Things, Ethernet switches, intelligent lighting
 
About Avaya
Avaya is a leading provider of solutions that enable customer and team engagement across multiple channels and devices for better customer experience, increased productivity and enhanced financial performance. Its world-class contact center and unified communications technologies and services are available in a wide variety of flexible on-premises and cloud deployment options that seamlessly integrate with non-Avaya applications. The Avaya Engagement Environment enables third parties to create and customize business applications for competitive advantage.  Avaya’s fabric-based networking solutions help simplify and accelerate the deployment of business critical applications and services.  For more information please visit www.avaya.com.
 
Certain statements contained in this press release may be forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should" or "will" or other similar terminology.  We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While we believe these are reasonable, such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These and other important factors may cause our actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to Avaya's filings with the SEC that are available at www.sec.gov. Avaya disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.
 
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[1] SDN Expectations, Dynamic Markets commissioned by Avaya, February 2015.