Mike Frane, VP of Product Management

About Mike

Mike is responsible for the company’s overall SD-WAN strategy, as well as the network and security service portfolios. Since joining the organization in 2008, he’s overseen the launch and lifecycle of services including LTE wireless, Ethernet and MPLS IPsec access elements, Secure WiFi & Analytics, Application Performance Optimization, IPsec VPN, and Unified Communications. Prior to Windstream’s acquisition of EarthLink, Mike led the launch of EarthLink’s SD-WAN service, their most successful product introduction in over a decade. Mike has a BS in Genetics and Cellular Biology from the University of Minnesota and was involved in gene therapy research at the Institute of Human Genetics before entering the telecommunications industry.

Firewalls: No Longer a Sufficient Cyberattack Defense Alone

September 17, 2018 | Mike Frane

The headlines are so common that we all understand clearly: Cyberattacks have become a constant fact of life. But with most of those headlines trumpeting attacks on major corporations and government agencies, it’s easy to...

SD-WAN Cloud Connect: A Truly Exceptional Networking Breakthrough

July 20, 2018 | Mike Frane

I don’t normally talk about product releases in my blog posts, but the new SD-WAN Cloud Connect service that Windstream Enterprise recently unveiled is something I’ve been championing for months. Because for me, SD-WAN Cloud...

My SD-WAN Predictions for 2018: Taking Stock at the Halfway Point

July 19, 2018 | Mike Frane

At the beginning of this year, I wrote a looking back/looking ahead blog post titled 2017: The year SD-WAN caught fire – get ready for more to come. Seems natural for someone with the job...

How SD-WAN Can Take On Branch Office Security Challenges

April 10, 2018 | Mike Frane

Prior to SD-WAN, multi-location enterprise networks needed to rely solely on local protection at the branch office level from a data security perspective. This typically meant point security appliances at the network boundary in the...

Tagging for Superior SD-WAN Visibility in the Cloud

March 15, 2018 | Mike Frane

Having recently returned from the first annual SD-WAN Expo, I can confidently say the SD-WAN market is on fire. And the numbers back it up (see my other recent blogs for more on that). But...

SD-WAN Will Assume a Key Role in Supporting the IoT

February 27, 2018 | Mike Frane

The automobile didn’t become ubiquitous because people needed to get to lots of places. Cars wouldn’t be everywhere if not for the simple fact that we created roadway infrastructure, which made it possible for cars...

SD-WAN, Security, and the Accelerated Transformation of Retail Networking

February 8, 2018 | Mike Frane

Any retail IT professional who is not already investigating software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) likely soon will be. Enterprises that embrace SD-WAN enjoy greatly increased bandwidth at lower cost, up to 100% uptime, and centralized...

2017: The year SD-WAN caught fire – get ready for more to come

January 29, 2018 | Mike Frane

2017 was quite a year for SD-WAN. By the year’s start, we were clearly moving beyond the early-adopter stage. SD-WAN technology from multiple vendors had established a solid foot-hold in the market. A growing number...

SD-WAN DIY vs Third-Party Service Provider: Lessons from the Field

December 22, 2017 | Mike Frane

Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) is rapidly replacing traditional WAN in enterprise networking, for good reason – including greatly reduced service costs and downtime, plus improved network security and flexibility. The question for most organizations isn’t...

DDoS as an Intrusion Smoke screen: Hackers Steal a Page from the Grinch Playbook

December 6, 2017 | Mike Frane

“You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,1″ begins the holiday classic song. How mean? So mean that his spirit lives on in sophisticated cyberattacks. ”How the Grinch Stole Christmas” isn’t just about theft. Stealing every present in Whoville was...