Meru Networks and NEC are announcing today that they will team up to build SDN-enabled wired and wireless enterprise access networks.

They plan on using OpenFlow to achieve what they claim will be a seamless interoperability between NEC’s ProgrammableFlow switches and Meru’s 802.11ac equipment while also creating a more open network.

Meru and NEC also happen to be the first companies awarded with the Open Networking Foundation (ONF)'s OpenFlow certification. The companies note that SDN can offer customers better agility and benefits from third-party development, which ultimately leads to more choices and better control.

After Meru presented at the Open Networking Summit in March, NEC looked to Meru for assistance on applications it was working on.

“[NEC] saw the vision that they could sell what they have on the wired side, but if they wanted to take this beyond the data center and into the enterprise, they needed a strong wireless partner,” says Manish Rai, vice president of marketing at Meru. “Similarly for us, for us to make an impact, because enterprises are asking for unified wired and wireless, we needed a strong wired partner to complete the solution for the enterprise.”

Meru has had several installations with NEC in the past, but none in an SDN environment.

“I’m pretty excited because this unified wired/wireless network has been a pipe dream, and people said the only solution was to buy everything from one vendor,” says Ajay Malik, senior vice president of worldwide engineering and quality assurance at Meru. “But now because of SDN and OpenFlow, now it is in reach of everybody.”