AT&T just made Cisco an SD-WAN partner in its managed services portfolio. Cisco joins VMware with that distinction.

Adding Cisco Secure SD-WAN gives customers a new option for controlling their application performance and optimizing their cloud connections.

Ravi Chandrasekaran, Cisco’s senior vice president of intent-based networking, said customers are moving more of their workloads to multiple clouds. Therefore, they’ll need faster and more secure access to their applications than ever before.

Cisco’s Ravi Chandrasekaran

“The new AT&T managed service based on Cisco Secure SD-WAN addresses this by providing businesses with the application optimization, integrated security and consistent intent-based networking policies for their hybrid, multicloud environments,” Chandrasekaran said.

An AT&T spokesperson confirmed that AT&T Partner Solutions members will be able to sell the solution.

Cisco Secure SD-WAN uses Viptela’s solution, which it acquired three years ago.

Cisco vManage will function as the controller for the service, which uses Cisco ISR and ASR routers and native security features. Those security features include malware protection and a firewall.

Mo Katibeh, AT&T Business chief product and platform officer, stressed the importance of security management.

AT&T’s Mo Katibeh

“AT&T SD-WAN with Cisco combines connectivity, SD-WAN and security, which allows businesses to expand and scale without worrying about the security of their branch locations,” said Mo Katibeh, who also serves as executive vice president.

Customers across the world can use the service. Moreover, they can combine the SD-WAN with AT&T Virtual Private Network MPLS, dedicated internet and other AT&T WAN services.

A Second AT&T SD-WAN Partner

The carrier first launched SD-WAN services in 2017 through a partnership with VeloCloud Networks. AT&T has led Vertical System Group’s Carrier Managed SD-WAN Services Leaderboard for the last two years. Hughes and Verizon have landed in second and third, respectively.

Light Reading’s Kelsey Kusterer wrote that service providers have entered a second phase of SD-WAN deployment. Most of them already introduced an offering with a different “pure-play” vendor years ago. But for many, the time has come to add a second provider.

For example, Telia recently added Cisco SD-WAN after previously tapping Nuage Networks.