Talari SD-WAN Virtual Appliance Now Available on AWS Cloud

Talari Networks is making it easier for businesses to connect to the Amazon Web Services Cloud by offering its software-defined WAN technology on the AWS Marketplace.

By using the Amazon Machine Image for Talari’s Virtual Appliance CT800 that is hosted on the Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), organizations can more easily build an on-demand pathway from physical locations, data centers and private clouds to the AWS Cloud. The pathway is essentially an overlay that sits atop network resources, according to Talari officials. Data that runs over the pathway is encrypted and prioritized, then sent along the best available route to and from the AWS Cloud.

The goal is to improve performance while simplifying the network, officials said. In addition, data on the performance of connections and application traffic can be collected, giving organizations a more complete look into the network.

Talari’s CT800 “gives AWS Marketplace customers a secure, on-demand connection from any office to their VPC instances,” Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Gavin said in a statement. “This makes setting up access from any location to the cloud simple, while ensuring that the connection is reliable, high performing and secure.”

The virtual appliance is available now on the AWS Marketplace through an hourly subscription, Talari officials said.

A growing number of vendors—including Silver Peak, Glue Networks and Viptela—are offering SD-WAN technology portfolios as alternatives to Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), which is the primary way most organizations link the data center and remote offices. SD-WAN proponents argue that while MPLS is solid and secure, it doesn’t fit in a world where applications are housed in the cloud and accessed via the Internet, and where speed is increasingly important.

It can take months to connect a new branch office to the corporate data center via MPLS, and connection between the remote office and the Internet still goes through the data center, an inefficient method. With SD-WAN, the remote office can connect directly to the Internet, supporters argue. SD-WAN can be used to complement MPLS or to replace it, according to vendors.