Cisco scored two more deals for its Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), which is enabled by technology from Tail-f, a company that Cisco acquired in 2014.

Microwave networking firm Aviat Networks will use Cisco’s NSO to deliver NETCONF/YANG interfaces for the ConfD Management Agent. Aviat also will partner with Metaswitch for its control plane and will integrate Cisco’s NSO with Metaswitch’s software stack.

Aviat says that using Cisco’s Tail-f will allow more automation of the microwave network and help migrate Ethernet and IP/MPLS networks to SDN.

Similarly, Level 3 will use the Tail-f NSO to power its on-demand network-as-a-service (NaaS).

Basically, using Cisco’s NSO, Level 3 will be able to use its wide area network (WAN) to automate different services and network devices from a variety of vendors. Examples of those services include hybrid cloud connectivity, capacity on demand, data backup and recovery, and application deployment.

When Cisco acquired Tail-f in 2014 some carriers were concerned the company might lose its multivendor support. Those fears seem to be waylaid as Cisco has continued to rack up operator deals. Besides Aviat and Level 3, the company has recently announced deals with Softbank and Telefónica Business Solutions.

Plus, research firm IHS Markit recently named Cisco as one of its top picks for software-defined networking (SDN) orchestration systems.

NSO provides an abstraction layer between network services and the underlying infrastructure components. It can be used to automate any service or device — even in complex, heterogeneous operator environments.