05 April 2018

Arrow Electronics has launched a new platform that combines technologies from Microsoft and Riverbed to enable service providers to offer their end customers a globally orchestrated and optimised connection to cloud computing.

The new solution is focused on simply and securely connecting a company’s infrastructure and branches to Azure, and will initially be available in the UK along with France, Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. It leverages Riverbed’s SD-WAN solution SteelConnect, as well as the vendor’s SteelHeadfor hybrid WAN optimisation and SteelCentral Aternityfor end-user experience monitoring. 

Arrow says this provides the channel community with “powerful” hybrid cloud architecture for modular, distributed applications from a single source. It claims that the smart combination of Microsoft and Riverbed’s solutions offers a new level of visibility, network control and optimised performance of hosted applications.

The company adds that end customers benefit from easy access through an automatic VPN connection, fast and secure application deployment, reduced bandwidth costs, easy configuration and full visibility of network activities.

“The future of the cloud is hybrid and dominated by software-as-a-service offerings,” says Eric Nowak, president of Arrow ECS EMEA. “The better use of network resources and a full insight into application performance leads to higher efficiency and productivity. In addition, our partners benefit from a secure foundation to sell other solutions and services on top.”