Trends in Global Connectivity

At the end of October, I had the opportunity to represent Melita during the Capacity Europe conference in London. This event brought together more than 2,500 attendees representing over 650 companies from 90 countries. Capacity Europe served as an ideal forum for global carriers, data centres and internet exchanges to share and foster the latest technologies and best practices in this industry, whilst facilitating bilateral meetings.

Our connected world is built through a large mesh of regional infrastructure providers linked together and running the same networking protocols, here’s an update on just one of the latest trends in global connectivity, and one which generated a lot of interest at Capacity Europe.

Embracing SD-WAN

Over the years, the demands for access to services across an enterprise WAN have changed dramatically. Traditional WAN setups are built by connecting all branch networks with the main node in a hub-and-spoke topology via a secure MPLS or VPN link. This means that a branch can only access any networking service via the main site.

The emergence of Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is challenging the traditional WAN approach by simplifying the deployment of enterprise WAN topologies through a software-defined approach. Within an SD-WAN setup, a branch would typically have direct access to cloud-based services without needing to go through the main node. This alleviates the load on private point-to-point links used for secure data traffic exchange between a branch and the main node. Complex enterprise networks can now scale better and be easier managed by maximising the availability of any connectivity medium in a particular site. Furthermore, traffic can be managed better through a single cloud-based dashboard.

The connectivity provider of choice

As a key technology enabler, Melita has invested significantly to keep providing the best possible solutions through its fibre network in Malta and beyond. Capacity from Malta to mainland Europe is transited over two diverse submarine cables to Sicily and subsequently over multiple diverse paths in mainland Italy terminating at the Melita POP in Milan. Through this POP Melita is peered directly with tier 1 providers such as CenturyLink, Telia Carrier, Cogent & Google amongst others.

Get in touch

At Melita, we have built an enterprise network capable of providing multiple connectivity solutions around your business needs. Whether your company is after enterprise-grade dedicated internet, international point-to-point links over MPLS or carrier ethernet.