VeloCloud Networks

VeloCloud Networks, founded in 2012 by Sanjay Uppal, Steve Woo, and Ajit Mayya, established itself as a key player in the software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) market before being acquired by VMware in late 2017 for approximately $449 million. The founders brought together a wealth of experience from prominent technology firms. Sanjay Uppal, who served as CEO, previously held executive roles at Citrix, OnMobile Global, Webvan, and Hewlett-Packard. Ajit Mayya and Steve Woo also had extensive backgrounds in engineering and product development at various tech companies. The trio's collective expertise in networking and cloud technologies was instrumental in developing the company's vision to transform enterprise WAN.

The company's core business revolves around providing cloud-delivered SD-WAN solutions to enterprises and service providers. This technology addresses the challenges of connecting distributed branch offices to corporate networks and cloud applications securely and efficiently. The business model is primarily service-based, offering subscriptions based on the number of branch connections, though it also allows for product purchases for self-deployment. Clients range from large enterprises like Brooks Brothers and NCR to major telecommunications service providers such as AT&T and Sprint, who use VeloCloud's platform to offer managed SD-WAN services to their own customers.

VeloCloud's platform, now known as VMware SASE and VeloCloud, consists of several key components. At the customer site, enterprise-class appliances called SD-WAN Edges are deployed to provide secure connectivity. These are managed by the VeloCloud Orchestrator, a centralized, multi-tenant portal for configuration, monitoring, and policy automation. A global network of VeloCloud Gateways, deployed in cloud data centers, provides optimized and secure paths to cloud services like SaaS and IaaS. A signature feature is Dynamic Multipath Optimization™, which monitors network links in real-time and steers application traffic over the best available path, remediating issues to ensure consistent performance. This architecture allows businesses to use a combination of internet broadband, LTE, and traditional MPLS links, reducing dependency on expensive private lines while improving network agility and application performance.

Keywords: SD-WAN, wide area network, cloud networking, SASE, network virtualization, enterprise networking, VMware, branch connectivity, network automation, application performance