The company’s January acquisition of QOS Networks yielded the basis for the newly announced edge offerings
Zayo Group Holdings on Wednesday announced the launch of its edge network solutions portfolio. Zayo’s products include Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) and other capabilities, it said in a statement.
Frank Cittadino, Zayo’s SVP of edge services, said in a statement that the new portfolio’s creation was driven by Zayo customers’ demand for multi-cloud networking capabilities. “If you think you know Zayo, it’s time to take another look. Zayo is no longer just your typical telecom provider,” said Cittadino.
Zayo is flexing its edge computing muscle, touting the management of nearly 200,000 devices and circuits in customer edge networks operating in 51 countries around the globe, along with 250,000 UCaaS endpoints and more than 2 million voice lines.
Zayo’s zInsights Portal provides network operations teams with network intelligence, visibility and control of network health and performance. The portal leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) for IT operations, or AIOps, to offer comprehensive access across multiple platforms, domains, and silos from edge to cloud, Zayo said. By leveraging AIOps, Zayo says zInsights Portal can help reduce its customers’ network operations team workloads, and hasten incident outcomes.
The genesis of Zayo’s edge line started with its acquisition of QOS Networks, announced earlier this year. Zayo, best known for its fiber infrastructure operations, acquired QOS from M/C Partners for an undisclosed sum in January. QOS Networks, a managed services provider, specialized in delivering SD-WAN, security, edge analytics, network automation and management and monitoring tools.
Zayo promotes its partnerships with VMware, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and Versa as essential to its edge computing solutions ecosystem.
“Investment in Zayo’s partnership ecosystem not only expands the core capabilities of Zayo’s Edge Network Solutions but also ensures customers don’t feel vendor-stuck by providing them with flexibility and choice when selecting a vendor,” said the company.
The company also points to a new partnership it’s established with edge security specialist Cloudbrink. Cloudbrink’s solution is software-based, and doesn’t require proprietary edge hardware, Zayo explained.
“With Cloudbrink technology, Zayo can proactively provision software-only edges based on user demand and predicted use, ensuring end users are never more than 5 to 20 milliseconds away from enterprise access points and applications,” said Zayo.
Zayo’s efforts to bolster its edge portfolio didn’t start or stop with QOS. The company’s made other strategic acquisitions and alliances along the way, including the June acquisition of Education Networks of America, which specializes in connecting K-12 school districts, and Canadian fiber infrastructure business Allstream, which Zayo acquired back in 2016.
Speaking earlier this year at the Cowen 8th Annual Communications Infrastructure Summit, Zayo CEO Steve Smith said he sees edge computing as a supplement, rather than a replacement, to centralized cloud computing resources.
“My simple concept of the edge is, as the cloud continues to unfold…as users get further out in the home, away from headquarters, where the user experience is happening to me is the edge. The edge is going to be a lot of things” and “it all requires data center capacity, it requires networking and it requires other services,” said Smith.
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