Lumen has partnered with Versa Networks to bolster its range of network services and security solutions.
Versa specialises in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) software, which creates frameworks for integrating networking services and security solutions. Lumen will leverage Versa’s SASE software into its expansive network and cloud platform availability. The ambition is for users to have better control and visibility and simplified network and security management of cloud-based applications on any device.
Darren Wolner, senior director of SASE product management for Lumen, commented:
Lumen has provided Versa SD-WAN and security capabilities for more than eight years, so expanding into the SASE space was a natural fit. The addition of Versa to our SASE portfolio brings customers a greater selection of best-in-class software providers and enables them to choose the solution that’s best for their business.”
Lumen’s move to partner with Versa was prompted by the rise of hybrid and remote working and the security which accompanies using home and public networks. As businesses accelerate their digital transformation processes to adjust, especially in adopting data-intensive applications, cybersecurity and compliance have become more critical than ever. SASE solutions are invaluable in building secure platforms.
Wolner outlined how the partnership enhanced Lumen’s portfolio as Versa’s SASE software — ranked as the market leader in Unified SASE for the second consecutive year by market research firm Dell’Oro Group — complements Lumen’s established global IP visibility, threat intelligence capabilities, and experience in networking, cloud, and managed services.
Hemen Mehta, vice president of sales for managed service providers at Versa Networks, added: “With Lumen’s global infrastructure and Versa’s AI/ML-powered Unified SASE platform, we have jointly created a comprehensive suite of services that truly simplify how enterprises protect and connect their users, devices and sites to applications anywhere, anytime.
“We are excited to extend our partnership with Lumen to address a broad set of network and application-based attacks, including advanced threat protection, Zero Trust Network Access, Firewall as a Service and SD-WAN.”
Lumen Complement Partnership News With Solution Launch
Lumen has also announced the launch of Rapid Threat Defense, a proprietary capability that automatically blocks malicious traffic before it touches the customer’s environment.
It is not yet available across all solutions across Lumen’s SASE portfolio, but it’s currently offered through Lumen DDoS Mitigation Service, Lumen Edge Protect, and Lumen Network Firewall Solutions.
Lumen’s in-house threat intelligence team, named “Black Lotus Labs”, developed the threat intelligence technology. Traditional threat intelligence feeds are based on the visibility of a customer’s environment. Rapid Threat Defense’s capability to pre-empt malicious traffic derives from Black Lotus Labs’ capacity to discover and assess network-level threats outside a customer’s environment.
“Integrating Black Lotus Labs threat intelligence into our SASE solution gives our customers another safeguard against bad actors,” Wolner explained. “Black Lotus Labs employs some of the world’s most talented threat researchers and data analysts, and they are armed with a powerful weapon: unmatched visibility into threats across the Lumen internet backbone. Because we sit on one of the world’s largest and most deeply peered IP networks, we can see more threats. And because we see more, we stop more.”
Lumen Following up on a Significant 2022
Last year Lumen sold its EMEA business to Colt Technology Services for $1.8 billion and its ILEC business to Brightspeed for $7.5 billion. The former sale enabled Lumen to strengthen its financial position, while the latter opened up new growth and business opportunities.
Lumen also appointed former Microsoft executive Kate Johnston as its new CEO while adopting Alianza’s cloud platform to build out its voice service offering. A further addition to Lumen’s portfolio was the collaboration solution Lumen Solutions for Microsoft Teams, which leveraged the established solutions within Lumen’s platform with Teams’ functionality.
