news release

11th June 2021

In the last few months, Vodafone Fiji has seen a sturdy growth in business customers opting to use cloud-based solutions. These range from simple email and office applications to the more complex Infrastructure and Software as a Service. In addition to the existing wide area networking and various business grade internet connectivity options, customers can now benefit from using software defined wide area networking solutions (SD-WAN). This is a revamped enterprise grade connectivity solution that provides more options in terms of secure and reliable connectivity to Vodafone business customers.

Ronald Prasad, Chief Commercial Officer said, “SD-WAN has been a game changer, a solution that uses software with centralized control function to securely and intelligently direct traffic. It increases application performance, delivering much improved user experience, resulting in increased business productivity, agility and IT cost optimization and reducing skills gap. When applications reside on-physical data centres with connected branches, MPLS has always been the preferred choice, however, as more businesses move to the cloud, the application delivery model has to keep up”.

Unlike traditional router-centric architecture, the SD-WAN model is designed to support applications hosted on-premises, public or private clouds. It allows businesses to leverage any combination of transport services, including MPLS, LTE and broadband services. Businesses are always looking at keeping things simple, especially now, the environment we operate in. SD-WAN has been in Vodafone’s product portfolio for some time now but started gaining traction in the last few months.

Jasneel Singh, Vodafone’s ICT Sales Manager said, “The response from the market in recent times has been great. We have successfully onboarded a few customers and there are more leads in the pipeline. For most of our early adopters, the business case was compelling, with SD-WAN offering some of the best combination of performance, price, and flexibility”.

Vodafone has had most success with customers well into their cloud journey. One such customer is Vinod Patel Group who operate retail, distribution, and manufacturing businesses across the Pacific. Jekin Patel, GM Digital Transformation & Strategy said, “Vodafone’s SD-WAN/Wi-Fi solution has equipped us to better respond to our customers and employees, as we transition our tech service to the cloud. This requires high performing infrastructure that can be deployed quickly at any site and be managed centrally which significantly improves service levels, reduces downtime, and reduces cost and complexity of administration. Vodafone has raised the bar on services, level of support and outcomes delivered on this project”.

Vodafone’s SD-WAN solution is delivered using the best technologies available in the industry. It is bundled with other value-adds and offered as a managed service to provide end-to-end solution delivery. Vodafone partnered with technology providers Fortinet to offer fit for purpose solution, designed specifically to address integration of networking and security in one single solution.

Matt Harrison, Client Director for Fortinet for New Zealand & Pacific said, “We are excited to be working with Vodafone Fiji to build solutions that simplify cloud, networking and security, resulting in flexibility and agility for the end user”.

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