Pacnet on Wednesday announced the availability of its Pacnet Enabled Network (PEN) in data centers throughout Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and now the United States in response to strong market demand. Enabling Enterprise and Carrier customers to rapidly and cost-effectively create the foundation of a virtual, integrated data center, PEN is a fully automated software-defined network (SDN) providing a flexible and scalable service platform that is agile and lowers total cost of network operations.
 
Since its beta launch last November, PEN has garnered significant interest from customers spanning the IT, logistics, manufacturing and financial services sectors in Australia, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong, as well as the U.S. PEN allows customers to customize and configure their network resources based on performance and quality of service requirements under a flexible pricing model and industry-leading SLAs.
 
Through the PEN web-based GUI or Pacnet Connect, customers can provision network services between two locations in minutes without going through the traditional, long lead, manual provisioning process. PEN also enables customers to build network interconnects with bandwidth and performance characteristics tailored to their unique business requirements.
 
PEN offers customers access to Pacnet’s extensive network of data centers and major carriers, creating a virtualized, cross-connected Asia-Pacific ecosystem. It also has the capability to extend enterprise-class data centers and private clouds to any external cloud vendors with its OpenFlow-based software controller, offering customers the flexibility to instantly provision cloud compatible networks throughout the region.
 
“The launch of PEN enables customers to build the high-performance and cloud-ready networks needed to overcome networking challenges prompted by the growth of cloud computing,” said Jim Fagan, President of Managed Services at Pacnet. “With PEN, Pacnet brings cloud provisioning to the network, empowering on-demand, scalable bandwidth provisioning based on customers’ unique performance and QoS requirements.”
 
According to Transparency Market Research’s new market report “Software Defined Networking (SDN) Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2012 – 2018”, the global market for SDN is expected to reach US$3.52 billion by 2018, growing at a CAGR of 61.5 percent from 2012 to 2018. This market growth is primarily driven by the increasing demand for cloud services. As a result, today’s businesses are expecting network gear purchased to be ‘SDN compatible’ or upgradeable.
 
Pacnet will continue to expand PEN’s availability on a global scale throughout the rest of the year, with the next geographic rollout planned in Korea and Taiwan - providing customers with scalable bandwidth, integrating software-enabled intelligence with Pacnet’s unsurpassed network of data centers and undersea cable infrastructure.