Next Generation SD-WAN in the AI Era

The advent of cloud native applications in the 2025 era (CRM, SaaS, storage, or ERP apps) and the public cloud has caused a re-architecture of traditional WANs based on popular Ethernet and IP across cloud boundaries. Arista has been the thought leader and pioneer of this leaf-spine cloud network for data centers, and now we can see a seamless extension of this concept to the WAN and inter data center using the same principles that have served our customers. The distribution of applications across AI, cloud, SaaS, edge, and enterprise environments creates new challenges for wide area networking architecture and Internet routing to refine branch and WAN networks.

Evolution of WANs in the Agentic AI Wave

Today, everything changes all over again. Traditional “who, what, where, and why” factors are upended for modern WAN connectivity. In the old days, people in remote locations accessed centralized data over the WAN, with SD-WAN introduced to help reduce costs compared to dedicated MPLS circuits. Traffic flows were simple, involving many-to-one conversations from many distributed users to a few centralized data sources.

In the new AI era, the concepts of what comprises a user and a site in a WAN have changed fundamentally. The introduction of agentic AI even changes what might be considered a user. In addition to people accessing data on demand, new AI agents will be deployed to access data independently, adapting over time to solve problems and enhance user productivity. WAN sites could be anything going forward, including a laptop or smartphone, a house, an airplane, or any other location on the move. Data and applications, located anywhere, add complexity, whether in a central company data center, the public cloud, or distributed branch office sites.

New communication options in the WAN will also drive changes in WAN traffic patterns. Instead of many-to-one conversations, the rise of agentic AI will ensure any-to-any conversations with bi-directional bandwidth utilization. AI agents can be deployed anywhere, including in the public cloud, adding extra layers of complexity to WAN network designs.

Arista and VeloCloud Coming Together

Today, Arista is taking an important and relevant step to bridge the gap between enterprise and cloud WAN access. We are pleased to announce the acquisition of VeloCloud’s novel WAN portfolio from our partner, Broadcom. The new Arista + VeloCloud combination will provide modern WAN solutions for customers globally. VeloCloud’s secure, AI-optimized cloud WAN portfolio will provide seamless, application-aware solutions to connect customer sites of any type, complementing Arista’s leading data center and campus wired/wireless portfolio.

Arista + VeloCloud: Better Together

With the completion of the VeloCloud acquisition, our customers will now have rich configuration choices such as leafs/spokes for branch sites. This modern WAN architecture delivers multipathing, encryption, in-band network telemetry, segmentation, application identification, and traffic engineering into a single atomic identifier for WAN hub/spine and spoke/leaf applications. This is a natural and next step for a consistent platform, as shown in the figure below:

“We have been using Arista and VeloCloud in production environments. The addition of the VeloCloud edge strengthens and scales the enterprise WAN network,” stated Alan Davidson, CIO of Broadcom, a leading and early customer.

VeloCloud has been an industry pioneer in secure SD-WAN connectivity, offering Security Service Edge (SSE) functionality for the Cloud WAN and working closely with SASE cloud security partners for the past decade. VeloCloud’s secure WAN heritage complements Arista’s zero trust enterprise for wired and wireless campuses, extending to branches as well. With the combined company, we look forward to delivering end-to-end zero trust networking across WAN and LAN domains.

MSP and Branch Offerings

The addition of the VeloCloud Edge for Cloud WAN and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) provides a portfolio of platforms with integrated security and wireless options, including both 5G and Wi-Fi, as well as a range of Ethernet ports and speeds for LAN and WAN connectivity. Announced today, brand-new POE-enabled campus switches with 1G, 10G, and 25G ports plus new indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi 7 access points, are the perfect options for customers to outfit branch offices using VeloCloud Cloud WAN products to connect each office back to headquarters using secure application optimization to protect and prioritize important business traffic.

VeloCloud products complement Arista’s broad campus wired and wireless product portfolio, as well as Arista’s cloud-native CloudEOS routing stack and EOS-based routing platforms. This combined portfolio will offer customers expanded options and deployment flexibility to meet any global WAN and LAN requirement from client to cloud.

The Road Ahead

In today’s AI era, customers need more than traditional SD-WAN. WAN silos will no longer be viable, as traffic caused by generative AI in data centers (either on-premise or hosted in the cloud) will increasingly impact the WAN. Arista and VeloCloud share a common vision for client to cloud networking across WAN and LAN domains as evidenced by the recent announcement of Google’s Cloud WAN. This is a fitting example of this trend. We are excited to warmly welcome the Velo family, led by founder and former CEO Sanjay Uppal, as our seventh and largest acquisition to date. Welcome to our cognitive campus/branch offerings that modernize WAN networks!

References:

Google Cloud WAN Partnership with VeloCloud

VeloCloud SD-WAN Product Brief

Arista Cloud-grade Routing Product Portfolio

Campus Press Release July 1, 2025