Zayo put its freshly acquired assets from QOS Networks to work, trotting out a new portfolio of edge solutions which includes SD-WAN and secure access service edge (SASE) capabilities. It also inked a new partnership deal with Cloudbrink to deliver its new edge solutions with just 5 to 20 milliseconds of latency. The moves come as the company works to transform itself and capture a mid-market opportunity it had previously left on the table.
The company said in a press release its new SD-WAN and SASE solutions are being offered in collaboration with VMware, Palo Alto, Fortinet and Versa, which makes sense given QOS had existing relationships with all of those vendors when it was acquired in January. Frank Cittadino, SVP of Edge Services at Zayo, told Fierce the partnerships “not only expand the core capabilities of our offerings, but it also ensures our customers have a choice when it comes to selecting a vendor. We heavily focus on providing the right solution for our customers, rather than trying to force the customer to fit a one-size-fits-all approach.”
Zayo’s other new edge offerings include managed circuit aggregation, remote access-as-a-service, unified communication-as-a-service (UCaaS), a cloud access security broker (CASB), Network Firewall and distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection.
Notably, Zayo is looking to improve delivery of all of these through the aforementioned arrangement with Cloudbrink. Cittadino said that deal “brings some unique capabilities to help address last and middle mile performance challenges experienced by remote workers.” Specifically, he noted it will help mitigate transport issues to provide better throughput and latency. Cloudbrink’s Ephermeral Edge will also improve performance for remote workers on the go without compromising on security.
The rollout comes as Zayo continues an effort to revamp its business and target new market opportunities. Cittadino said the transformation began when Zayo was taken private in 2020, adding it is “no longer a typical telecom provider.”
“We’re continuing to innovate and provide the digital experience our customers need to connect from edge to edge, edge to cloud, cloud to edge and everywhere in between,” he stated. “As part of this, we’ve launched a comprehensive product strategy for mid-market where Zayo was traditionally focused on big pipes to big customers.”
The company currently has about 134,000 miles of fiber across North America and Europe, including a 75,000-mile backbone in the U.S. which it has been working to upgrade with 400G capabilities. It also has nearly 200,000 devices and circuits managed in customer edge networks across 51 countries; 250,000 UCaaS endpoints; and over 2 million voice lines deployed.
Zayo recently hired a new Chief Product Officer to refresh its portfolio. At the time, the company told Fierce he would focused on building the company’s capabilities around network observability and automation, multi-cloud and edge-to-core-to-cloud.
According to Vertical Systems Group data, the company is up against market leaders AT&T, Comcast, Hughes, Verizon, Windstream and Lumen in the U.S. carrier managed SD-WAN arena. The latter has notably touted its ability to deliver 5 milliseconds of latency to its U.S. enterprise customers, a capability Zayo is clearly looking to replicate.