Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) vendor Viptela today unveiled Cloud onRamp to help enterprises connect to the cloud, accessing infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and cloud applications.

Cloud onRamp sits on Viptela Fabric, the same fabric that provides its customers with SD-WAN, and it has many of the same capabilities such as application visibility, traffic steering, policy management, and connectivity. The only difference is that it extends these capabilities into the cloud to optimize access to applications sitting in the cloud rather than the data center.

“The primary idea of SD-WAN has been to simplify the ability to add multiple transport solutions and an overlay on top of that, but the cloud and application pieces haven’t been a natural part of the solution itself,” said Lloyd Noronha, head of global marketing at Viptela.

Although Viptela’s SD-WAN fabric already had some cloud connectivity pieces built in for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, now customers can manage that same policy framework for cloud applications in one place and ensure application performance. “Consistency in policy is a big part of this,” said Noronha. “Customers don’t own the cloud entity, but with onRamp you actually own the infrastructure.”

For cloud applications like Microsoft 365 or Salesforce.com, Cloud onRamp uses virtual routers in branches or regional data centers to monitor the performance of applications as well as identify the best path for the apps to be accessed.

The SD-WAN piece of Viptela’s fabric gives users the ability to connect branch offices using a variety of transports. Cloud onRamp uses that same connectivity to access the cloud from the branch rather than making the cloud an extension of the data center, Noronha said.

This new capability is designed to give enterprises a foundation for moving to the cloud. Users could be existing SD-WAN customers that are transitioning to the cloud, or they could be organizations that want to optimize connectivity to cloud applications. However, Noronha said that most of its Cloud onRamp customers are existing SD-WAN customers because it makes it easier to manage policy and configuration for both branch and cloud environments.

It’s worth noting that Cisco intends to acquire Viptela for $610 million in cash.