128 Technology Is Starting a Revolution for Secure SD-WAN, Networking

As SD-WAN matures, the more critical its security is becoming for enterprise customers. And while vendors are working on various strategies to secure the technology, 128 Technology believes that the best way for enterprises to protect themselves against threats is by eliminating tunnel-based approaches to SD-WAN. 128 Technology is a 4-year-old networking startup that developed a pure-software service to simplify routing and offer a different approach to the SD-WAN use case. Instead of using tunnels to connect different areas of a network, it uses something it calls multi-path secure vector routing. The software routes traffic across public and private networks, and then metadata communicates how to route packets from one private network to another. In addition, it doesn’t require overlay networks nor restrict the WAN to just one vendor. And while 128 is a pure software company, it has partnerships with a number white box companies to create universal CPE (uCPE) hardware to deploy. This includes Lanner, which it partnered with in October 2017, as well as Silicom, Advantech, and Kontron. When it first launched, it didn’t want to be referred to as an SD-WAN company. Patrick MeLampy, 128’s chief operating officer, has now backtracked a bit on that sentiment.