Nuage Networks today announced a deal with Asavie to extend its SD-WAN beyond the branch to remote workers, mobile devices, and IoT. It will see Nuage pair its SD-WAN 2.0 offering with Asavie’s SD Edge platform that was announced last week.

The combination will allow mobile users to securely connect to enterprise clouds and applications without the need for a virtual private network (VPN). It also comes at a time when hundreds of millions of workers around the world are finding themselves working from their homes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With the rapid increase in remote working and mobile professionals caused by COVID-19, the Asavie SD Edge mobile connectivity service is a great addition to the Nuage SD-WAN 2.0 enterprise offering,” said Sunil Khandekar, founder and CEO of Nuage Networks, in a statement.

Khandekar explained that the partnership will allow IT managers to “focus their management policies on end users, no matter the devices they are using, ensuring they enjoy a seamless and consistent experience, which they’ve come to expect from Nuage.”

Asavie’s clientless connectivity service is designed to integrate and extend enterprises’ existing SD-WAN, secure access service edge (SASE), or zero-trust security deployments beyond the branch office without relying on VPNs.

“We developed this solution to meet the demands of our service provider partners and end-user enterprises,” said Asavie CEO Ralph Shaw in a statement. “As a result of 5G technologies they are managing accelerated growth in the number of mobile endpoints and mobile traffic.”

According to Ray Mota, CEO and principal analyst at ACG Research, who was cited in Nokia’s announcement, the combined offering will expand Nuage’s addressable market and provide service providers with greater opportunities to upsell customers.