SonicWall allows highly distributed
organizations to build, operate and manage
secure, high-performance networks
elements and components of these networks can become a
weak link, exposing the greater organization to attack. These
elements include cloud connections to remote office users,
IoT devices, and remote sensors.
Also, the very lofty growth projections for SD-WAN
continue to attract new vendors into the market, some of
whom support only very basic security capabilities, such as
stateful firewalling and virtual public networks (VPN). Signing
on with such vendors means an enterprise must then
struggle to “bolt on” security for SD-WANs after the fact.
Branch users need central
office-grade security
Though there may be branch offices hundreds or thousands
of miles apart from company headquarters, branch users
still need protection including antimalware, intrusion
prevention, web filtering, inspection of TLS/SSL traffic,
and other requirements. Providing this after the fact with a
hodgepodge of security solutions can hopelessly complicate
branch office security provisioning. Plus, typical branch
offices have few if any security staff on hand to make all
this work.
The bottom line is that an enterprise should not consider
anything less than an SD-WAN solution that arrives
fully integrated with the business-critical protection the
organization must have. As Kerravala summarizes, “When
a business migrates to an SD-WAN, it should change the
architecture of the network. Moving away from the hub and
spoke and enabling local internet breakout lets users access
cloud services directly from the branch. This has a profound
impact on cyber security because the number of ingress and
egress points goes from one to hundreds or even thousands,
depending on the number of branch offices. Security can
no longer be looked at as something one does after the
deployment of an SD-WAN. Instead, it needs to be baked
into the architecture.”
What users want
Security, of course, is not the only SD-WAN criteria
CIOs covet. Application visibility in the hyper-connected
enterprise is essential for knowing who is using what
applications, and how well (or not) they are working.
Similarly, operations teams need end-to-end visibility to
identify problems as the crop up, so they can be resolved
before they blossom.
Also, application quality of experience (QoE) controls in
SD-WAN can help set priorities that line up with business
objectives, while identifying and prioritizing business-critical
applications from less essential ones. Lacking such controls,
network professionals must manually adjust the network as
the usage and the network environment changes. With the
speed of change today, and the lack of IT talent at branch
offices, QoE is essential.
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A basic requirement for SD-WANs is boosting performance
of nonreal- time applications while reducing bandwidth,
also called WAN optimization. Doing so can delay costly
network upgrades.
The SonicWall advantage
SonicWall has been securing network traffic for the
enterprise for 27 years. Now, SonicWall has brought to
market an SD-WAN solution that ensures branch office
users have instant and highly secure access to data and
applications running in the cloud as well as the data center.
These and other capabilities are offered with affordable and
easy centralized management without sacrificing application
availability and performance.
Secure SD-WAN from SonicWall allows highly distributed
organizations to build, operate and manage secure, highperformance networks that exploit readily available and
low-cost internet services. These include DSL, cable, fiber,
broadband and 3G/4G. Secure SD-WAN is available on
SonicWall next-generation firewalls.
Right away, Secure SD-WAN represents a low-cost
alternative to MPLS and other more costly and rigid branch
office solutions. In fact, enterprises purchased the initial
waves of SD-WAN solutions largely on the basis of such
cost savings. But the enterprise will derive equal, if not
greater, benefits from Secure SD-WAN. These include:
• Protecting the enterprise network from cyberattack.
Encrypted and unencrypted traffic run through a
SonicWall next-gen firewall to be inspected and scanned
for malware, ransomware and other threats. With a
separate SD-WAN-only solution from another vendor,
this vital security feature may not be integrated. Secure
SD-WAN uses the vaunted AES encryption standard to
secure intra-branch connectivity. For further security,
Secure SD-WAN also leverages SonicWall’s patentpending Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection.
• Achieving consistent, optimized application
performance. Branch users will realize faster and
more consistent performance for SaaS and businessessential applications including VoIP, video and
unified communications. Secure SD-WAN includes
deterministic application performance, which
automatically directs the application over less congested
internet links to combat troubling network conditions
such as latency, jitter and packet loss.
• Enhancing agility. By leveraging SonicWall’s ZeroTouch Deployment, bringing new remote sites online
is remarkably easy and fast. All hardware can be
provisioned remotely in minutes, preventing the need
to have IT technical staff onsite at the branch to do so.
Plus IT administrators are able to manage the entire
network, including Secure SD-WAN devices, through
a single pane of glass using SonicWall’s cloud based
management and analytics platform, Capture Security
Center. This platform also synchronizes all firewall
licenses and configurations to one single account.
Conclusion
The advent, and now broad acceptance, of SD-WAN in
the enterprise has turned network decision-making from
a tactical to a strategic endeavor, inviting senior IT leaders
into the network process. A critical element of SD-WAN
solutions today is an integrated security approach, the kind
found in Secure SD-WAN from SonicWall.
Learn more. To find out more about this highly secure,
innovative approach, visit www.sonicwall.com/sd-wan.
SonicWall has been fighting the cybercriminal industry for over 27 years, defending small and medium businesses, enterprises
and government agencies worldwide. Backed by research from SonicWall Capture Labs, our award-winning, real-time breach
detection and prevention solutions secure more than one million networks and their emails, applications and data, in more
than 215 countries and territories. These organizations run more effectively and are less fearful about security. For more
information, visit www.sonicwall.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
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