Versa Networks joins growing list of networking vendors using Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN

Versa Networks has announced a partnership with Microsoft to offer Secure SD-WAN, through its Versa Cloud IP Platform. Versa users will be able to connect Site VPN Gateways in Azure and automate the process of downloading IPsec configurations from Azure for Versa Branch Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). Microsoft first launched Azure Virtual WAN along with Azure Firewall in July. The premiere of Virtual WAN was intended to make it easier for customers to connect their branch locations to Azure through SD-WAN and VPN.

The new offering uses automated IPsec tunnels to link on-premises devices, virtual appliances and workloads hosted in Azure. Users will also have the ability to automate the establishment of connectivity after the VPN settings are applied.

The initial launch of the Virtual WAN in July was conducted in partnership with major networking vendors Riverbed and Citrix. Other significant network vendors planned releases at the time.

Key capabilities included configuration management and automated connectivity. Yousef Khalidi, a member of the Azure Networking team, said in a statement that branch traffic can feed into Microsoft's network through a Microsoft edge site close to the branch office. Within the network, traffic ends up at a virtual hub and users have the option of choosing a virtual hub in an Azure region different from the one in which they are based. He demonstrated how one customer could use virtual hubs in both North Europe and West Europe simultaneously as part of the same Virtual WAN instance.

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