China Telecom Global (CTG) selected Versa Networks as its primary vendor for software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) and software-defined security. CTG is the global subsidiary of China Telecom, one of China’s state-owned telecommunication companies.

This is a significant win for Versa Networks as China Telecom has worked closely with China-based Huawei for decades; and Huawei provides SD-WAN.

Nemo Lin, director of the cloud team at CTG, said Huawei’s SD-WAN works in conjunction with Huawei’s existing routers that are widely deployed. But this was not the kind of solution CTG was looking for.

“We saw significant transformation happening in United States; like AT&T has Domain 2.0 for SDN,” said Lin. “Comcast has a similar plan. We saw an opportunity for CTG to change the business of communications technology growth internationally.”

Lin also said China Telecom has created an internal strategy document that guides the whole China Telecom Group to “be more IT-like and not just a traditional telecom solution provider.”

Kumar Mehta, co-founder of Versa Networks, said that big telecom vendors such as Huawei have jumped on the SD-WAN bandwagon at least initially by working with their existing routers. “What they have come up with is a proprietary, manual CLI [command line interface]-based approach,” said Mehta. “This is a new SDN world with more of an automated approach that only the new age vendors can provide.”

CTG shopped for SD-WAN technology from a number of different vendors. But the pedigree of the co-founders of Versa Networks was one of the compelling factors in its selection. “Because we saw Mr. Kumar is from Juniper; they understand the control plane and the data plane,” said Lin.

Versa’s multitenant SD-WAN and SD-security will be deployed in 15 CTG cloud hubs globally. At its customers’ branch offices, CTG will deploy Versa’s software on x86 appliances.

CTG serves customers all over the world. Many of these companies have Chinese connections. But it also serves local businesses from its more than 30 branch offices. The SD-WAN software will help CTG’s customers connect their branch offices to their headquarters and also help customers connect to public clouds.