SoftBank keeps up SDN push with Cradlepoint NetCloud offering

Cradlepoint, which supplies its routers and gateways for all kinds of M2M and Internet of Things (IoT) applications – including Redbox kiosks for movie rentals – just announced its NetCloud platform strategy that combines its existing software and cloud services with the SDN technology it acquired with the recent purchase of Pertino. The new strategy will be rolled out in phases over the next six months.

Japan's SoftBank, which is majority owner of Sprint, separately announced the commercial availability of WhiteCloud OneLayer on Cradlepoint NetCloud. The co-branded service lets customers instantly build branch, mobile and IoT networks in the cloud with a layer of policy-based services for end-to-end security and control. OneLayer on Cradlepoint NetCloud will be sold through SoftBank's direct sales organization in Japan and through subsidiaries and partnerships around the world.

"Cradlepoint's NetCloud lets us harness cloud, SDN and NFV technologies to rapidly deliver new services that meet our customers' evolving network needs in this new era of internet-centric IT," said Sadahiro Sato, senior vice president at SoftBank Corp., in a press release. "Instead of building and managing multiple physical networks, OneLayer on Cradlepoint NetCloud lets customers' deploy a single cloud-based WAN that can be configured in minutes to meet the specific needs of connecting remote sites, workers and IoT devices anywhere in the world."

With new standards coming out for LTE Narrowband IoT, how does that affect CradlePoint? The company is a leader in terms of connecting IoT devices to today's LTE infrastructures, including digital signage in large banks. As LTE derivative standards evolve for IoT, CradlePoint will be there first, just like it has been with Band 14, said Todd Krautkremer, senior vice president of strategy and strategic partnerships at Cradlepoint.

Last month, Axon, a business unit of Taser International, announced a partnership with Cradlepoint whereby it's using Cradlepoint's wireless router platform to provide a secure means for officers to connect and offload video from Taser's Axon cameras in the field using Wi-Fi, commercial LTE and/or FirstNet's Band 14 LTE. Taser is one of the biggest suppliers of body cameras for the "connected cop," if you will.

Besides connecting things to LTE, "the biggest challenge we face with IoT today is security," Krautkremer told FierceWirelessTech. He added that by being able to have this cloud-based overlay network that connects all the IoT devices as well as providing security that locks down those devices, you can start to see the logic of combining the LTE physical devices with the SDN overlay networks for IoT use cases.

For more:
- read the Cradlepoint release

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