Industry Insights

Get Ready for 5G

By Amelie Sutsakhan

Product Marketing Manager, Versa Networks
July 15, 2021

In a recent webinar, Nikhil Desai, Versa Senior Director of Product Management, discussed how to prepare for 5G, highlighting main requirements and use cases. As more organizations consider their own 5G environment, what guidelines are there to ensure a seamless roll out? 

Key takeaways: 

• 5G, the new technology standard promises faster speeds, greater bandwidth, and optimized mobility. 
• Organizations need automated solutions like zero-touch provisioning for rapid 5G deployment. 
• 5G network slicing guarantees meeting aggressive SLAs and provides end-to-end security.  
• 5G introduces security vulnerabilities, hence solutions that can enforce consistent security posture across public cloud, hybrid cloud, and on-premises environment will be key.  
• Secure SD-WAN is crucial to a successful 5G environment. 
• 5G solutions delivered as single-pass parallel architecture, single management interface, with on-premises, cloud, and hybrid deployment options, lower CAPEX and OPEX.  

5G is here 

The demand for enhanced digital experience along with the increase in personal, IoT devices, and workload transition to cloud, have driven the need for 5G. While still a fairly new technology, adoption rates of 5G is fast – currently at three times that of 4G [1]. 5G comes with promising advancements of greater speeds, higher bandwidth, improved connectivity, and lower latency, handling millions to billions of devices. Despite these advantages, 5G also introduces new challenges. 5G not only increases the number of devices but types of devices such as IoT devices; sensors, cameras, virtual assistants, etc. This expands the network’s attack surface, resulting in more network vulnerabilities. Therefore, it will be important to implement solutions that can enforce consistent security posture across public cloud, hybrid cloud, and on-premises environments. 

Considerations for a 5G-ready environment 

For all organizations, power outages, security breaches, or any accidents resulting in downtime can be extremely costly. Whether it’s an elementary school with lean IT, or a large global conglomerate, ensuring a rapid 5G rollout is crucial for an agile enterprise. 5G solutions built with automation capabilities like zero-touch provisioning enable rapid deployment.  

5G accelerates connectivity and SASE adoption. Secure SD-WAN, a SASE component, combined with network slicing guarantees SLAs are met and provides end-to-end security such as, UTM, IDS/IPS, Anti-Virus, and more.  

Furthermore, organizations can dramatically lower CAPEX and OPEX by choosing: 

• a single pass parallel architecture for maximum performance and lowest latency – only needing to decrypt the packet once which is necessary for optimal security, 
• a multi-tenant uCPE architecture resulting in centralized management, reducing appliance sprawl, and improved adaptability,  

• a solution with a single management interface to manage, configure, and monitor complete SASE services like Secure SD-WAN along with 5G.

Preparing for 5G can seem daunting so we hope these guidelines were helpful in suggesting what areas to focus on when implementing 5G. Watch the recording to learn more about 5G use cases, frequency band comparisons, benefits of native 5G modems, and more.

[1] Telecompetitor Report: 5G Sees Much Faster Adoption Than 4G LTE, 2021