Allied Telesis and Stratosphere Announce A Technology Tie-up in the SDN Solutions Market for Office Networks

Tie-up Overview

The two companies will combine their technological expertise to make office network management more efficient by using SDN technology.

1. Stratosphere will provide its OmniSphere platform, which uses SDN to enable flexible management and control of corporate LANs, while Allied Telesis will provide the equipment for testing the OmniSphere-compatible switches and wireless LAN access points.
2. Before the product is commercialized, interconnectivity and other testing will be conducted jointly to demonstrate how SDN can be used to enhance the efficiency of wired LANs and wireless LANs management.

Allied Telesis will be participating in the SDN JAPAN 2013 show to be held in the Ebisu Garden Hall from Wednesday, September 18, to Friday, September 20, where they will display their testing equipment, such as the IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n compatible wireless LAN access point AT-TQ3600, the gigabit intelligent stackable switch AT-x510-28GTX, and the Top of Rack data center switch AT-DC2552XS. OmniSphere, which was on exhibit at the Interop Tokyo 2013 show, will also be on exhibit at SDN JAPAN 2013 alongside Allied Telesis equipment, and Stratosphere will officially release OmniSphere ver.1.0.0.

Background

A growing number of cloud and data center operators, as well as telecom operators, are looking to SDN because it virtualizes networks and allows them to be controlled with software, thus dramatically increasing efficiency in network operation and management. Seeking to bring SDN technology to the corporate network domain, Stratosphere developed OmniSphere as the SDN solution for enterprises and proposed the creation of OmniSphere-compatible switches and access points to network equipment manufacturers. Allied Telesis has a strong track record in the development and sale of network equipment for enterprises and was the first to apply its expertise to the creation of OmniSphere-compatible equipment, bringing new value to the office-network market. Combining their respective and complementary technological developments, the two companies are responding to the needs for corporate network virtualization.

About OmniSphere

Stratosphere launched OmniSphere in June 2013 as an SDN solution for building a flexible virtual L2 network (*2) on top of the physical corporate network. OmniSphere allows clients to connect and manage a virtual network on the same physical and cloud servers from PCs, smart devices and other terminals across wide-area networks that connect offices on different floors or in different locations. This solution enables the automatic configuration of LAN and wireless LAN office networks by simply authenticating the user's (employee's) terminals, which previously had to be reconstructed and reconfigured every time the organization or the office layout changed, and will significantly reduce network operating costs.

• (*1) SDN (Software Defined Networking): A next-generation concept of network technology where software controls (defines) the entire network in order to dynamically set the network configuration.
• (*2) L2 (Layer 2): Second layer with a hierarchical structure for the communication functions of the computer in the "OSI reference model". The data link layer.

The two companies will continue to expand the SDN market and increase convenience.