What is SD-WAN (Software-Defined WAN)?
Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) is a transformative technology that simplifies the IT infrastructure control and management by delivering a virtual WAN architecture that securely connects users to their applications.
The hallmarks of SD-WAN are simplified branch office connectivity, increased reliability, optimized application performance, and increased network agility. SD-WAN lowers total costs, by providing more resource usage and a more automated branch and WAN architecture that is required to fulfill modern IT business initiatives.
SD-WAN aggregates diverse network circuits, like broadband, DIA, and LTE. These circuits can be added to existing MPLS to create a hybrid network, or they can be an alternative to MPLS using all-Internet wired and wireless connections.
How Does SD-WAN Work?
SD-WAN creates an overlay to virtualize the WAN with centralized control to simplify the management and deployment of branch-office services.
Overlay Network
SD-WAN creates a WAN transport agnostic overlay network and can replace legacy branch office routers simplifying the WAN infrastructure. SD-WAN provides greater control and management, providing application-layer control of application service policies, to ensure optimum application performance.
Application Awareness
A key element of SD-WAN is application-awareness. SD-WAN understands individual applications and their SLA requirements and translates them into policies that the network must adhere to. This provides active network and application experience monitoring that ensures optimal traffic delivery and QoE – whether on-premises, private/public cloud, or SaaS.
Policy-based Framework
SD-WAN also provides an automated policy-based framework that is propagated from unified control and management, all from a single-pane-of-glass interface. Visibility is enhanced, allowing better IT insights into applications, devices, users, and networking, to ensure adherence to their business goals and objectives. This simplifies ITs ability to define, control, and change business requirements across their branches, data centers, and cloud/SaaS.
Why SD-WAN?
SD-WAN solutions often offer the following:
- Lower circuit costs by using broadband, DIA, LTE
- Increase network agility by simplifying control of the entire WAN
- Create an active-active hybrid network with MPLS, broadband, DIA, LTE for increased bandwidth capacity and more efficient and higher per-site resiliency/availability
- Automate operations, while templates simplify IT workflows
- Eliminate branch office device sprawl and complexity
- Provide reliable and secure Internet access to cloud and SaaS applications
- Deliver network circuit and carrier independence
- Centralize and unify the entire WAN for simplified management, deployment, and change control
Rather than spending time and resources tediously by configuring and managing networks, an effective SD-WAN solution allows enterprises to focus on deploying applications, like IoT, VoIP, unified communications, and edge computing services.
Focusing on improving these business-oriented services, rather than managing WAN complexities, IT can add these (OTT) services to automated and programmable cloud-native platforms. Secure SD-WAN is a cloud-native platform that provides IT with an automated policy-driven, virtual WAN infrastructure. This transforms the network from a bottle-neck impediment to a business service implementation engine.
What are the Benefits of Secure SD-WAN?
Secure SD-WAN adds features that provide a self-healing architecture all while natively inserting network and security functions into the WAN. Secure SD-WAN accomplishes this by being application user-experience driven, monitoring the applications and network, and improving and increasing the security posture with an integrated platform.
Driven by application-based policies, the WAN and branch dynamically adapt to ensure network uptime, application reliability, and optimal user experience all while protecting the organization from threats and vulnerabilities.
Benefits and advantages specific to Versa Secure SD-WAN:
Secure multi-cloud connectivity that supports cloud-to-cloud, branch to multi-cloud, and business to multi-cloud
Embedded and robust next-generation security features such as Universal Threat Management and Role-Based Access Control
Micro-segmentation across the entire network to reduce risk zones and lateral movement
Secure private/public cloud connectivity, regardless of cloud platforms, applications, and transports
Full multi-tenancy for micro-segmentation of line of business, tenant, and control, with unique policies per segment
Context-based network and security policies, and traffic steering, based on users, devices, locations, and applications
How SD-WAN Solves Modern IT Network Challenges
Cloud, virtualization, mobility, IoT, and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning are all contributing massive amounts of traffic and data over enterprise WANs. Unfortunately, they are also creating network reliability and performance challenges and causing security breaches by exponentially expanding the attack surface.
These technologies have created the need for a simplified and consolidated IT infrastructure. Robust cloud-native VNF-based network and security services are needed in the service provider core, or central enterprise IT infrastructure, and within the network edges.
Secure SD-WAN enables flexibility to be deployed as the uCPE platform to host other services, or as a VNF on a third-party uCPE or virtualization platform. Secure SD-WAN has the routing, SD-WAN, analytics, security, and more, all within a single software platform.
This provides a cohesive, virtualized network, and a multi-layered security approach that eliminates siloed, single-function appliances that add unnecessary risk, complexity, and cost.
SD-WAN Meets Business Objectives
Legacy WAN as Bottleneck
Any multi-location or digital-first organization that uses the WAN to communicate and connect with employees, customers, and partners, should have the business objectives directly influencing its entire WAN fabric. Yet, enterprise WANs, for the most part, unintentionally hinder their business goals. A legacy WAN becomes the bottleneck for the business operations because of an archaic approach to policy creation, adherence, and execution.
Business Intent Drives SD-WAN
With an SD-WAN-driven network, business intent and application experience drive the underlying policy architecture, automates the deployment, and creates a dynamic environment that can quickly adhere and execute on the business objectives.
So, how does an enterprise WAN adhere to become driven by business intent quickly and dynamically? Two key components are required to accomplish this; a business-aware architecture, and a simplified and consolidated platform.
Secure SD-WAN addresses network challenges by providing a secure cloud IP platform that simplifies management and administration. Secure SD-WAN brings business goals and intent into the WAN through our business-aware architecture. Secure SD-WAN simplifies network and security infrastructure with a multi-purpose platform with native networking and security apps and services capabilities.
Secure SD-WAN removes the complexity of maintaining uniform policies by ensuring that all policies are up-to-date and fit their objectives across all disparate platforms:
- Secure SD-WAN’s identity management ensures protection of credentials and therefore access control by binding contextual policies with users, applications, destinations, and paths, through an Active Directory integration.
- Secure SD-WAN includes advanced layers 3-7, with full routing, SD-WAN, and a next-generation security stack
- Everything is managed by an SD-WAN Director with orchestration and analytics, and all functionality is incorporated into a single view which is easy to configure and control the entire SD-WAN and WAN edge security
How To Deploy SD-WAN
Network architectures have always found ways to adapt to changing business dynamics to address modern requirements. Legacy WANs are no longer adequate to meet business needs and most organizations are deploying a hybrid WAN architecture. Hybrid WANs benefited from adopting a software-defined approach, which led to the automation, agility, and increased intelligence from SD-WAN architecture.
Today, SD-WAN has gained greater value through being delivered and managed from the cloud: allowing better speed, scalability, and flexibility. Cloud-delivered SD-WAN is a powerful automated, on-demand, and proactive business approach that enterprises leverage to streamline secure connectivity services that can greatly optimize branch offices and IoT.
SD-WAN devices are better at understanding application traffic flows than legacy WAN. This optimization in application traffic flow allows an administrator to use application and identity-driven policies to make intelligent decisions that adhere to business goals and objectives.
For example: to ensure voice service is always optimal, an administrator can analyze voice traffic to determine how well the user experience is or analyze network circuits to determine how well they are performing. Then, the administrator can correlate those together to make dynamic decisions that optimally traffic steer across the WAN. Application and identity-driven policies can be contextual to who you are, what you are using, and where you are.
Secure SD-WAN for Every Enterprise
Secure SD-WAN ensures application security, reliability, and performance for every industry, vertical, and use cases such as enabling healthcare records, banking systems, retail POS systems, airline reservations, transportation logistics, and much more. Whether the application is for internal business operations, commerce, customer relationship management, industrial and utility systems - everything today is network connected and can be enhanced by SD-WAN.
Secure SD-WAN frees IT from single-function and proprietary hardware, eliminating the need for dedicated hardware for each network function. Virtual network services can be provisioned on a universal CPE (uCPE), using an x86-based appliance that hosts Secure SD-WAN’s software and supports 3rd-party VNFs.
Enterprises can take advantage of a software-only solution, that gives them the cost and operational flexibility, and ensures they have the control to deliver on their business objectives. Furthermore, organizations can leverage an open-standard-based cloud-native, multi-stack solution for embedded and robust network and security capabilities that optimize application performance all while increasing security hygiene. Secure SD-Wan needs to integrate with existing brownfield networks at the underlay level while providing a migration to complete Software-Defined networking on-premises and in the cloud. By doing so, enterprises can meet the demands of a modern IT landscape.
Learn More
Find more research, analysis, and information on SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), networking, security, SD-WAN, and cloud from industry thought leaders, analysts, and experts.