Tom Long, Cisco, with Edel Creely, Arkphire Services

Arkphire to develop Cisco-based SDN centre of excellence

Dublin centre will employ up to 20 engineers
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Tom Long, Cisco, with Edel Creely, Arkphire Services

28 October 2020

In a first-of-its-kind deal for the UK and Ireland, IT solutions and managed services company Arkphire is to develop a dedicated Cisco based software-defined networking (SDN) centre of excellence in Dublin.

Located in Arkphire’s 24×7 network and security operations centre, the SDN lab will facilitate training and education for engineers and will allow Arkphire to provide real world proof of concepts and demonstrations to clients without impacting their day to day operations.

Employing up to 20 engineers, the lab will consist of the latest in Cisco routing, switching and wireless technologies including the Cisco DNA Center management platform. Arkphire said it will begin work on the lab imminently, with completion aimed at January 2021.

This latest collaboration sees a six-figure investment from both Arkphire and Cisco to accelerate the adoption of the latest software-defined networking technology. The investment will facilitate engineering programs, a new lab facility, marketing activity and training, enabling Arkphire to enhance their network services offering. 

This unique partnership initiative will have a specific focus on software defined access (SDA) and software defined wide area network (SD-WAN) across Cisco’s enterprise networking architecture, and support organisations with diverse branch sites and locations. Arkphire will become the leading experts in Cisco DNA and Cisco Viptela technologies, achieving the highest Cisco partner status.

“Rapid advances in technology such as automation and artificial intelligence are radically changing the way networks are deployed and operated,” said Edel Creely, managing director at Arkphire Services. “This latest SDN architecture is designed to make networks more flexible, secure and easier to manage, driving greater efficiencies for organisations to deploy new applications and services, enabling automated provisioning and multi-cloud access.  In turn, this requires new skillsets for networking professionals.”

Tom Long, head of enterprise, public sector & partnerships at Cisco, added: “A Cisco Gold Partner for over 25 years, Arkphire are perfectly positioned to build the customer networks of the future and to secure and scale network connectivity for what we expect will be the biggest wave of network transformation seen in decades.”

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