Network security is top of mind with business networks connecting users from remote locations worldwide. SD-WAN is an innovative, scalable solution to help companies meet these challenges.
It helps IT teams manage devices and data from a single platform. This centralization enables real-time oversight of network security and performance.
Flexibility
SD-WAN offers flexibility to enhance network security. This is because it uses a centralized management approach and eliminates the need to send experts to each new branch office.
Instead of requiring complex and costly telecommunication infrastructure to connect the branches, all that is required is to place an affordable router in each branch with a secure overlay that is easy to deploy. This will help reduce the risk of cyberattacks by making it difficult for malicious actors to access the organization’s internal network.
A business-driven SD-WAN will enable enterprises to add next-generation security capabilities like Zero Trust Network Access, Secure Web Gateways, and Cloud Access Security Brokers without modifying the CPE. This is because the SD WAN will support service chaining of these features in the cloud rather than relying on them being built into the device. This flexibility will help maintain network security by ensuring these advanced security functions are always updated to the latest version. This is crucial because an out-of-date security function could leave the network vulnerable to attack.
Scalability
The workplace is constantly evolving, with employees able to work from home and use their devices at the office. Although this flexibility provides new business possibilities, it also comes with increased security risks.
SD-WAN offers scalable, integrated network security to address these challenges. The technology enables organizations to deploy next-generation firewalls and unified threat management (UTM) as virtual network functions (VNF) on their branch routers or a centralized cloud platform. This enables IT teams to implement strategies like micro-segmentation and zero trust access control.
In addition, SD-WAN supports Dynamic Multi-Path Optimization to improve WAN performance by assessing link conditions such as jitter, packet loss, and delay. This real-time path monitoring allows traffic to be steered to the best link, which can help businesses avoid costly backhaul penalties and ensure business-critical applications are always up and running. If a physical link fails, SD-WAN can quickly and automatically reroute data. This helps to ensure that business-critical applications continue to run, preventing productivity from grinding to a halt. It also helps prevent significant downtime, which can impact the bottom line.
Security
While workplace flexibility and the adoption of cloud applications enable new business opportunities, they also pose heightened security risks. With employees connecting from anywhere using any device, security systems must protect diverse connections from outside and inside the office.
When it comes to SD-WAN, security is a top priority. Fortunately, modern security technologies can help address these concerns. By using secure SD-WAN platforms, companies can integrate next-generation firewalls, VPN tunnels, and micro-segmentation of application traffic to safeguard their data. These technologies are combined into a centralized control function that can be programmed across numerous remote sites, ensuring that security measures are always enforced.
An SD-WAN platform can also prioritize application traffic, ensuring that voice and video applications travel over low-latency, high-bandwidth links and cheaper local internet for less time-critical applications. This increases the quality of your network’s connectivity and improves WAN performance. Finally, zero-touch provisioning and centralized management dashboards can be quickly deployed to bring new locations online in minutes. This significantly reduces human error and makes implementing operational policies that can be rolled out across an entire network easy.
Availability
Providing users with a network that’s always available to them is critical for business productivity. Without a reliable and secure network, it can be difficult or impossible for employees to work, especially if a cyberattack occurs.
A reliable and robust SD-WAN can improve availability. By enabling dual connectivity and centralized traffic steering, it can offload low-priority data over public Internet connections while reserving private links for mission-critical and latency-sensitive applications. This approach reduces reliance on expensive MPLS circuits and improves application performance.
Finally, an effective SD-WAN can support next-generation firewall solutions and provide centralized end-to-end security segmentation. This can help prevent malware from spreading to other network segments.
With a unified platform for network security, businesses can ensure consistent protection and simplify their IT infrastructure. This allows them to focus on lowering operational costs and increasing employee satisfaction and productivity.
Visibility
The explosion of workplace flexibility, remote workers logging on with personal devices and cloud-based applications, has created new opportunities for cyberattacks. But, when paired with strong visibility, SD-WAN can enhance network security by protecting data and systems from attacks.
For example, some SD-WAN solutions can provide a single platform for unified management and deployment of next-generation firewalls (NGFW), IPS/IPSec VPN tunnels, advanced threat protection, and micro-segmentation of application traffic. Organizations can use this centralized control to ensure each branch has a consistent security posture.
Visibility tools can also help optimize the channel quality of application traffic. This is a key advantage of an SD-WAN that supports granular traffic monitoring at the router level and can automatically route program traffic over channels with the best quality of service.
By reducing the need to backhaul traffic from remote locations to headquarters and improving application performance, SD-WAN can improve user experience, boost employee productivity and enable better business outcomes. With this in mind, it’s worth considering the options a well-established, reputable SD-WAN provider can offer to enhance your business network.