It’s Friday. You know what that means — it’s time for the SDxCentral roundup! Here, you’ll find all the news surrounding software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), and more. Get ready, ‘cuz it’s coming atcha:

Cisco added a new network service management tool to its Evolved Services Platform (ESP) this week. The Evolved Programmable Network Manager is central to the company's multilayer lifecycle management service, working alongside the Cisco WAN Automation Engine.

New research from IHS says that 45 percent of North American businesses plan on spending more on the software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) during the next two years. Additionally, by 2017, 71 percent of respondents said they aim to have software-defined storage products in use, which would mark a 15 percent increase from today.

White box server vendors had a successful first quarter, as one-third of North American server shipments were white box, Dell'Oro Group reported this week. This marks back-to-back annual first quarters with white box growth, almost doubling year over year. Dell'Oro points to cloud data centers as major drivers in the transition to white box, specifically the Big Four: Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.

Software-defined storage company Hedvig closed $18 million in Series B funding, bringing the company's total to $30.5 million. Investments were led by Vertex Ventures along with existing funders True Ventures and Atlantic Bridge. Vertex Ventures' In Sik Rhee also was placed on the Hedvig board of directors.

Sumo Logic is looking to capitalize on the IT operations market, and as Fortune reports, will be revealing $80 million in funding come Monday. With the latest investment, the cloud-based systems analysis startup has $160.5 million in funding.

The VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program welcomed its latest member, CENX.

Here’s what else SDxCentral covered lately: