Versatility 2023 - Protect. Connect. Simplify.
Unified SASE Platform to Protect and Connect Users and Devices to Applications Anywhere, Anytime
keynote presentation (53:55 min)
kumar mehta, founder & cdo, versa networks
IT leaders are struggling to connect and protect their enterprises by using several products for SD-WAN, SWG, ZTNA, CASB, NGFWaaS and DLP. Such a bolt-on approach weakens security posture due to increased complexity brought about by use of multiple consoles and inconsistent security and network policies. Additionally, it results in increased TCO. According to Gartner, 65% of enterprises will have consolidated individual SASE components by the year 2025. This session will provide the essential blueprint that CIOs/CISOs can use to build a workplace for the next generation hybrid workforce.
Featuring
Kumar Mehta
Founder and CDO, Versa Networks
Kumar is the founder and Chief Development Officer at Versa Networks. His vision, work ethic, and leadership resulted in multiple blockbuster product deliveries, including the market-leading Metro and Carrier Ethernet solution, the MX series. Kumar is a graduate of the Executive Program at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He has a Master’s degree in Engineering from Virginia Tech and a Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Versa Innovations – Recent & Upcoming
keynote presentation (59:56 min)
with apurva mehta, founder & cto
and srinivas dodamani, vp engineering
Versa continues to innovate rapidly in SD-WAN and Security to address your needs of protecting and connecting users, devices, sites to workloads in any cloud, anytime. This session will provide you highlights of some recent and upcoming innovations the Versa team has been working on to address your evolving needs.
Featuring
Apurva Mehta
Founder and CTO, Versa Networks
Apurva is the Chief Technology Officer at Versa Networks. He brings technical leadership with over two decades of experience leading complex development products creating billion-dollar revenue streams. Prior to Versa, he was CTO and Chief Architect for Juniper Networks Mobility Business Unit where he led and delivered the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) product line, including the MX series, one of the most successful products in Juniper’s history. Apurva has a Master of Science in Computer Science from University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology.
Srinivas Dodamani
VP Engineering, Versa Networks
Srinivas leads the Versa engineering organization in India. He has 20 years of experience in engineering and product development at companies such as Motorola, Juniper and Versa. He holds a Master of Science degree in Networking and Telecommunication and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science.
AIOps to Secure, Simplify, and Automate management and operations for your SD-WAN or SASE Deployment
breakout presentation
with sridhar iyer, dir engineering, ml/ai
Versa has innovated a new approach to modernize and simplify your infrastructure by integrating security & networking. Now Versa is enhancing the management and operations of your infrastructure using Machine Learning and Artificial intelligence. Some of these enhancements are evolutionary to maintain familiarity and comfort levels of the end users while others are revolutionary to kickstart a new generation of tools.
Verbo and VANI are new innovations that help you achieve proactive performance monitoring by understanding your data and connecting performance insights with business outcomes.
Featuring
Sridhar Iyer
Dir Engineering, Versa Networks
Sridhar leads the Machine learning and AI team at Versa Networks. He is also the architect of Quality-of-Service infrastructure on Versa OS. Sridhar is a versatile technologist and holds 8 patents at Versa Networks. Prior to Versa Networks, he was with Cisco Systems. Sridhar holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from Syracuse University.
Observability for Today’s Branch & Hybrid Work Architectures
breakout presentation
with roopa bayar, vp engineering
Hybrid work & hybrid cloud are forcing a rethink of the network & security architecture for enterprises. In this new environment where users and applications can be anywhere, it is critical for operations to have near real-time visibility for reducing the mean-time-to-innocence, but also have historical insights to track usage patterns across the enterprise footprint for reporting and cost allocation.
In this session, you will learn more about observability capabilities that will proactively identify the root cause of issues related to users, networks, sites and applications. We will also dive into important observability use cases and see how a unified data lake can help provide enhanced user and administrator experience, lower TCO and improve operations agility.
Featuring
Roopa Bayar
VP Engineering, Versa Networks
Roopa is our Chief Software Architect for Versa Analytics. Versa has been lucky to have Roopa on the Versa team for the past seven years. Prior to Versa, Roopa was a distinguished engineer at Juniper.
ZT-LAN: Simplify & Scale a Zero Trust Deployment for Connecting Hybrid Workforce to Hybrid Clouds
breakout presentation
with dogu narin, vp products
and ramasamy ramanathan, avp engineering
Unlike the last past where users or applications were anchored, today enterprises have to design the infrastructure for a hybrid workforce connecting from anywhere, anytime, to workloads/applications in hybrid clouds. The rise in video concurrency in the workplace has changed traffic patterns and made it challenging to deliver a consistent user experience, plus the influx of personal devices into the enterprise has expanded the attack surface to inside the perimeter. Traditional approaches and architectures are unable to provide a holistic answer to address these challenges.
This session will cover how Versa Universal Zero Trust architecture can simplify how you can deliver a consistent user-experience while protecting the enterprises resources for a hybrid workforce that can be remote or on-premises. You will see how this can be easily deployed with minimal disruption to your existing architecture.
Featuring
Dogu Narin
VP Products, Versa Networks
Dogu is a seasoned product management leader with 20+ years of experience with various technology and product management leadership roles. Prior to Versa Networks, Dogu served as the overall Product Mgmt leader for various areas for Juniper Networks; most recently for the NFV, vCPE/uCPE and Cloud domains and associated products, and prior to that for Data Center, Routing Services, Application and Subscription Aware Services for wireline and wireless technologies and products.
Ramasamy Ramanathan
AVP Engineering, Versa Networks
Ramasamy Ramanathan is the engineering lead and chief architect of ZTLAN technology at Versa Networks. He is also one of the key architects of SDWAN. Prior to Versa, he was with Juniper Networks as a key architect and engineering leader in MX PFE team. He holds several patents in enterprise and data center switching/routing, SDWAN and IKE/IPSec areas.
Deploying a Large-Scale SD-WAN Network with Speed and Efficiency
breakout presentation
with srinivasa chaganti, vp engineering
To realize the benefits of digital transformation, enterprises need to rearchitect their network & security AND accelerate the transition to the new approach. Enterprises with large scale deployments often struggle with these migrations due to lack of built-in tools, thus prolonging the transition or requiring them to invest time & effort in building adjunct tools that can quickly become obsolete.
To realize the benefits of digital transformation, enterprises need to rearchitect their network & security AND accelerate the transition to the new approach. Enterprises with large scale deployments often struggle with these migrations due to lack of built-in tools, thus prolonging the transition or requiring them to invest time & effort in building adjunct tools that can quickly become obsolete.
In this session you will learn how:
- A large scale Versa SDWAN network can be deployed and monitored using Concerto
- Configuration changes can be propagated to thousands of devices with a single click
- To Monitor large scale deployment using a unified portal/single pane of glass"
Featuring
Srinivasa Chaganti
VP Engineering, Versa Networks
Srinivasa Chaganti leads Versa orchestration platforms Versa Director and Concerto. He brings technical leadership with more than two decades of experience in building complex networking and orchestration products. Prior to Versa, he has played key architecture and development roles in delivering Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and MX product lines at Juniper Networks. Srinivasa holds a Master of Engineering degree in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee and a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad.
Flexible Hardware Appliance Options for Versa Solutions
breakout presentation
with nikhil desai, sr. dir products
and haresh shah, sr. dir hardware engineering
Versa solutions can be deployed in a variety of physical (bare-metal) or virtual deployments. Today Versa has multiple options, including Versa CSG branded or certified hardware appliances from various partners available for our customers and we are continuing to work with our partners to innovate new devices that can be used to address your needs.
In this session you will hear from Versa experts (and partners) on the current and upcoming options for deploying Versa solutions that scale from 10s of Mbps to 100Gbps for SD-WAN, ZT-LAN and terabits of Ethernet switching capacity for SD-LAN all while running VOS™ to deliver the networking and security you need for the varying deployment environments.
Featuring
Nikhil Desai
Sr. Dir Products, Versa Networks
Nikhil is responsible for building CSG/CSX platforms powered by VOS™. He brings with him over 20 years of experience in networking semiconductors & systems, for SP, Enterprise and Datacenter markets. Nikhil earned his Engineering degree from Gujarat University (Electronics and Communications), MS diploma (Information systems) from City University, London and MBA (Marketing) from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Haresh Shah
Sr. Dir Hardware Engineering, Versa Networks
In his role, he leads hardware initiatives at Versa and is an accomplished professional with a successful broad-based career defining and guiding the implementation of best practices and standards to strengthen and drive expedited and competitive growth. He has a demonstrated track record of expertise in building and leading transition and transformation programs and has brought his extensive expertise to bear in leading cross-functional teams to achieve transformational solutions. He is a skilled trouble-shooter with a continual focus on identifying technical issues while simultaneously aligning end-user needs with long-term resolutions to complex challenges. His career spans tenures at Synoptics, Cisco, Juniper, Force10 and ONI networks.
Secure SD-WAN Operational Excellence Capabilities such as Deploying, Monitoring and Resolving Issues at Scale with Automation
breakout presentation
with matthew lakhov, sr se manager
and naveen kumar, dir engineering
The convergence of networking and security has simplified the infrastructure.However, the evolution of the workforce and cloud to a hybrid approach requires you to adapt your capabilities to deploy and operate your infrastructure. In this session, Versa subject matter expert will cover SD-WAN operational excellence capabilities such as deploying, monitoring and resolving issues at scale with automation and Versa Verbo.
Featuring
Matthew Lakhov
Sr. SE Manager, Versa Networks
Matthew is an SE and has been with Versa for four years. He is involved with large customers, product architecture enhancement, documentation and educational materials development. Matthew created and maintains POC and DEMO environments for Versa projects. He also helps manage deploying solutions for customer production.
Naveen Kumar
Dir Engineering, Versa Networks
Naveen is a QA Engineer and has been with Versa for eight years. He is involved in the design, development, and testing of Versa products. He also helps manage deploying solutions for customer production.
How to Deploy, Monitor and Resolve Issues at Scale with Automation in a SASE Deployment
breakout presentation
with matthew lakhov, sr se manager
and naveen kumar, dir engineering
The convergence of networking and security has simplified the infrastructure. However, the evolution of the workforce and cloud to a hybrid approach requires you to adapt your capabilities to deploy and operate your infrastructure. In this session, Versa subject matter expert will cover SASE operational excellence capabilities such as deploying, monitoring and resolving issues at scale with automation and Versa Verbo.
Featuring
Matthew Lakhov
Sr. SE Manager, Versa Networks
Matthew is an SE and has been with Versa for four years. He is involved with large customers, product architecture enhancement, documentation and educational materials development. Matthew created and maintains POC and DEMO environments for Versa projects. He also helps manage deploying solutions for customer production.
Naveen Kumar
Dir Engineering, Versa Networks
Naveen is a QA Engineer and has been with Versa for eight years. He is involved in the design, development, and testing of Versa products. He also helps manage deploying solutions for customer production.
Fireside chat with Kumar Mehta – How SASE can Protect, Connect & Simplify
keynote presentation (29:33 min)
with kumar mehta, founder & cdo, versa networks
and dr. dan walden, superintendent/president, victor valley college (vvc)
A candid conversation about how the cybersecurity threat landscape has evolved and what organizations should be doing to protect and connect their users, devices, and sites everywhere to workloads and applications anywhere. Over the last decade, we have seen a rapid migration of applications to the public cloud. We continue to see an increase in cloud adoption as part of the application modernization approaches that organizations are embracing. Additionally, the pandemic has enforced a work-from-anywhere culture, which continues to be a mainstay even in the post-pandemic scenario. Let’s break these problems down to understand how these trends affect security teams and how new technologies such as SASE enable security teams to address these challenges successfully and empower them to modernize their entire network and security infrastructure.
Featuring
Kumar Mehta
Founder and CDO, Versa Networks
Kumar is the founder and Chief Development Officer at Versa Networks. His vision, work ethic, and leadership resulted in multiple blockbuster product deliveries, including the market-leading Metro and Carrier Ethernet solution, the MX series. Kumar is a graduate of the Executive Program at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He has a Master’s degree in Engineering from Virginia Tech and a Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Dr. Dan Walden
Superintendent/president, victor valley college (vvc)
Dan assumed his role as Superintendent/President at Victor Valley College (VVC) in January 2019. Among his many accomplishments during his time at VVC he has overseen the construction of a new “one-stop” student services facility, led the college to become a Hispanic Serving Institution, broke ground on a new stadium and Event Center, and inspired college employees to reach for Aspen Prize recognition. He has a Ph.D. in Education with a focus in Higher Education Administration from Claremont Graduate University.
Fireside chat with Evan Fromberg: Real World Deployment & Operation Experience
keynote presentation (22:24 min)
with yoga mahadevan, system architect, site it services, exxonmobil it, malaysia,
eston stiles, sr. infrastructure manager, nordstrom,
alex heidenreich, sr. infrastructure manager, vs&co
and evan fromberg & svp north america sales, versa networks
Deploying SD-WAN can be smooth & seamless when done right. There are a lot of moving parts in this journey, including WAN connectivity, branch logistics (power, rack, CPE, onsite person, etc.), provisioning, ZTP, and live traffic cutover. Ensuring a seamless path to “Business critical applications such as POS” is extremely important in this journey. In this session we have a distinguished panel who successfully transformed their multi-vendor legacy network deployments into nimble Versa SD-WAN deployments. This panel will include Eston Stiles from Nordstrom, a luxury retail chain operating in US & Canada and Alex Heidenreich from Victoria’s Secret &Co, a major retail chain with a worldwide footprint and Yogavanam Mahadevan from Exxon. In this session, we will get their insights on how they successfully transformed their networks.
Featuring
Evan Fromberg
SVP North America Sales, Versa Networks
Evan Fromberg is the SVP Sales for North America. He has worked in the computing networking and cyber security market for over 20 years, helping to bring emerging technologies to market. His previous work experience includes sales leadership roles at Pulse Secure, Veracode, Fortinet, and 3Com, where he helped scale their GTM operation and increase revenues and customer satisfaction. He is also a recognized as a Channel Chief by The Channel Company (CRN.com).
Yoga Mahadevan
System architect, exxonmobil it, Malaysia
Yoga is employed by ExxonMobil Business Support Center (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. and is based out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has been in the IT industry focused on enterprise networking for the last 27 years. In the 2-3 years he has been actively involved in leading the SDWAN design and rollout for his enterprise. He has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.
Easton Stiles
Sr. infrastructure manager, Nordstrom
Eston Stiles has been in the network and security infrastructure space for over 20 years with successful stops at various manufacturers, partners, and customers. He spent 10 years at Cisco and as Solutions Architect, he helped lead the US West Security Services team. While at Cisco, Easton led product improvement for Anyconnect and Identity Services Engine. Recently he led the rollout of over 720 Versa appliances across a fleet of locations for Nordstrom stores, corporate, and fulfillment locations.
Alex Heidenreich
Sr. infrastructure manager, vs&co
Alex Heidenreich has led multiple global teams within both the Support and the Infrastructure/Architecture Engineering spaces. He has managed globally distributed WAN deployments with traditional carriers and managed services. More recently, he helped manage the architecture and deployment of over 2,500 global SD-WAN sites in just over a year. He has wide-ranging passions in various activities from participating in Digital Ocean's Hacktoberfest to working on his family farm with his parents, wife, and three kids.
Panel with Martin Mackay – Business Needs & IT Priorities in the Current Climate
keynote presentation (47:40 min)
with martin mackay & chief revenue officer, versa networks
eston stiles, sr. infrastructure manager, nordstrom,
don sutton, director, network services, enbridge,
and michele wynston, director network architecture, fiserv
The post-pandemic era has evolved further with geopolitical instability and the macroeconomic but business must continue to operate seamlessly. As business priorities evolve, there is a shift in the focus within IT; nevertheless, the need to protect enterprise resources and connect to workloads become even more critical. In this session, we will have a conversation about how IT priorities are evolving and how IT leaders are adjusting to this new normal.
Featuring
Martin Mackay
Chief revenue officer, Versa Networks
Martin leads the Versa global sales organization and overall go-to-market. He has a track record driving growth in security, networking and SaaS enterprise software. Prior to joining Versa, Martin held senior leadership positions with Proofpoint, CA Technologies, Verisign, NorthgateArinso, PeopleSoft, and has lived and worked in multiple countries.
Easton Stiles
Sr. Infrastructure manager, Nordstrom
Eston Stiles has been in the network and security infrastructure space for over 20 years with successful stops at various manufacturers, partners, and customers. He spent 10 years at Cisco and as Solutions Architect, he helped lead the US West Security Services team. While at Cisco, Easton led product improvement for Anyconnect and Identity Services Engine. Recently he led the rollout of over 720 Versa appliances across a fleet of locations for Nordstrom stores, corporate, and fulfillment locations.
Don Sutton
Director, Network services, Enbridge
Don Sutton is the Director of Network Services at Enbridge with accountability for Enbridge’s Network Modernization program, and all network related services including routing, switching, firewalls, load balancers, and enterprise monitoring. He oversees the enterprise network which serves >15,000 users across North America plus six isolated Industrial Control networks that are responsible for controlling and operating the organizations energy delivery assets. Don has held many different roles during his 23-year tenure with Enbridge; primarily leading teams in the areas of OT (Operational Technology), Infrastructure, and Applications.
Michael Wynston
Director Network Architecture, Fiserv
Michael Wynston is the Director of Global Network Architecture for Fiserv. Fiserv is one of the world's largest Fintech Enterprises. Michael’s team at Fiserv has architects in every region of the globe delivering value driven, flexible, leading edge network infrastructure that enables Fiserv to drive the network as a revenue accelerator not just a cost. Michael Wynston has been in the infrastructure space for more than 30 years starting with as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in 1993, and his CCIE in January of 2000. Michael has worked for multiple Fortune 500 enterprises over his career including Merrill Lynch, Pfizer, Credit Suisse, New York University in Shanghai, Cisco, and Fiserv. With a strong focus on delivering value focused infrastructure Michael has led the development and deployment of multiple leading-edge technologies at these Enterprise companies. Michael is a regular speaker at WAN Summit, ONUG, and other industry events.
The Calculus of Global Deployments
keynote presentation
with verónica jiménez pontaza, telecommunications master engineer, calculus networks
The global industry of Telecommunications is a very versatile one. The need to adapt to its niches demands an incredible ability to diagnose and customize the best solutions for the client in the shortest of time. This is nothing new, but what if we tell you that there’s quite more to consider when deploying any solution and it has been our winning formula?. In this brief session we will share the best mix that has helped Calculus over the years to become a top integrator globally.
Featuring
Verónica Jiménez Pontaza
Telecommunications master engineer, Calculus Networks
Verónica Jiménez Pontaza is a Telecommunications Master Engineer by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her professional path has been strongly influenced by the seeking of the best innovative and sustainable technologies for telecommunications. She has specialized in SD-WAN and her work has left a positive footprint in the industry globally as she has been the Leader of the best network deployment projects of Calculus worldwide.
Building Secure AWS and Hybrid Global Networks at Scale
keynote presentation (39:25 min)
alexandra huides, principal networking specialist solutions architect, aws
A transition is underway in enterprise networking. Organizations are incorporating new, cloud-native, wide-area networking services into their infrastructure because of their ability to create and configure connectivity on the fly—with elastic capacity and consumption-based pricing. Moreover, this brings the need for a consistent way to connect, secure, and monitor communication between services, at scale, on AWS and in your hybrid network footprint. And Zero Trust requirements are creating additional challenges for network admins, application owners and security teams. In this session, learn how to use with cloud-native networks using the new AWS Cloud WAN and Amazon VPC Lattice services, and how you can use both to architect scalable, global networks, leveraging zero trust principles, and the security integrations you need.
Featuring
Alexandra Huides
Principal networking specialist solutions architect, AWS
Alexandra Huides is a Principal Networking Specialist Solutions Architect within Strategic Accounts at Amazon Web Services. She focuses on helping customers with building and developing networking architectures for highly scalable and resilient AWS environments. Alex is also a public speaker for AWS, and she focuses on helping customers adopt IPv6 and design highly scalable network architectures. Outside work, she loves sailing, especially catamarans, traveling, discovering new cultures, and reading.
Enbridge Infrastructure Transformation Journey
keynote presentation (45:04 min)
mike wiper, director, network services, enbridge
Enbridge Infrastructure Transformation Journey
Featuring
Mike Wiper
Director, network services, Enbridge
Mike leads the Network Planning group in Enbridge. Enbridge moves 30% of the crude oil produced in North America, transports nearly 20% of the natural gas consumed in the United States, operates North America’s third-largest natural gas utility by consumer count, and was an early investor in renewable energy. Mike's team supports business and operational demand for this vast network that spans from the Northwest Territories to Offshore Platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Enbridge’s Network team is critical in ensuring safe and reliable operations for the community and environment.
Lanner, Versa Partner
keynote presentation (19:20 min)
tom inglese, vice president, whitebox solutions bu
Lanner, Versa Partner
Featuring
Tom Inglese
Vice President, whitebox solutions bu
Sponsor Session - Neeco
keynote presentation (5:21 min)
bohumir krampera, product manager, neeco
Sponsor Session - Neeco
Featuring
Bohumir Krampera
Product Manager, neeco
