Hybrid WAN FEATURED ARTICLE

The value of the wide-area network (WAN) has only grown in recent years, and doing more to put such a system in place—particularly for operations with geographically-dispersed locations like branch offices and the like—has become an increasingly high priority for many firms. To that end, OneAccess (News - Alert) Networks brought out its new OVP Design Studio, a system that will help both managed service providers (MSPs) and communications service providers (CSPs) bring out new services built around network functions virtualization (NFV).

OVP Design Studio puts a clear focus on ease-of-use, using that drag-and-drop style programming that we're increasingly hearing about lately;  Masergy and Cloudpipes recently got together to make a system that was about as easy to use in putting together communications apps for managing workflows. With OVP Design Studio, putting together virtual network function (VNF) chains becomes about as simple as a drag-and-drop interface can make it. Once the result has been properly tested, users can export the produce either as an XML template or a network service descriptor (NSD) for quick addition to current systems.

OneAccess Networks' chief marketing officer Pravin Mirchandani commented “Unless you've already wrestled with the tasks involved in creating and testing NETCONF-based services, it's hard to appreciate the game-changing nature of OVP Design Studio. It makes the process of creating service chains essentially painless. Within one elegant graphical environment you can use drag-and-drop techniques to rapidly create and prototype virtualized services and then export fully tested XML templates or NSDs into an orchestrator.”

That makes OVP Design Studio potentially huge for the hybrid WAN market; with several platforms—both physical and virtual—available to develop for, it becomes that much easier to bring out VNFs, which can be a major part of any hybrid WAN operation. Great news for the user base, and even better news for OneAccess Networks, who should see brisk business accordingly. It's kind of surprising to see so many programming systems be made more accessible for the less technically-inclined—it almost seems like these development tools are being dumbed down—but given Mirchandani's remarks, this may just be a time-saving effort to allow more development to take place in the same amount of time, which means lower costs and greater return on investment.

Whether OneAccess is preparing for a future where marketing is handling programming or just a means to allow developers to do more with less, the OVP Design Studio should end up doing the job quite well.