Networking

HPE Aruba SD-WAN: EdgeConnect and the WAN Optimization Legacy HPE Aruba’s SD-WAN story starts not with a networking giant but with a WAN optimization specialist. Silver Peak Systems spent years solving the hard problems of enterprise WAN performance — deduplication, compression, TCP optimization, application acceleration — before pivoting to SD-WAN as the technology shift made the market ripe for a new architecture. HPE acquired Silver Peak in 2020 for approximately $925 million, integrating the technology into the Aruba portfolio as Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN. ...

Cisco SD-WAN: Catalyst SD-WAN and the Enterprise Architecture Approach Cisco’s path to SD-WAN runs through one of the more significant enterprise networking acquisitions of the last decade. In 2017, Cisco acquired Viptela — a purpose-built SD-WAN startup — for approximately $610 million. That acquisition became the foundation of what Cisco now calls Catalyst SD-WAN (previously known as Cisco SD-WAN, and before that Viptela SD-WAN). Understanding the Viptela heritage helps explain both the architectural strengths and the operational complexity that characterizes Cisco’s platform today. ...