SD-WAN FEATURED ARTICLE

SD-WAN Solutions Suppliers Focus on Security

April 05, 2018

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

SD-WANs are becoming adopted by more and more businesses. This network overlay technology has gained popularity in light of its ability to help organizations affordably and reliably connect their branch offices and other sites to each other and to cloud resources. When those same businesses drop their MPLS services, they can save money too. SD-WAN also can offer security.




Some SD-WAN suppliers have talked about security from the start. But recently, SD-WAN suppliers are really hammering on the security message – and forging new partnerships and introducing new products related to security.

For example, MegaPath (News - Alert) in October announced new security capabilities for its Managed SD-WAN service, called SD-WAN Enterprise. That’s enabled via the carrier’s integration with Fortinet’s (News - Alert) cyber security solution.

“Organizations are increasingly adopting SD-WAN technology to keep up with shifts in enterprise traffic usage towards the cloud, but integrating secure SD-WAN can be a challenge for highly distributed enterprises and branch offices,” said John Maddison, senior vice president of products and solutions at Fortinet. This integration addresses that challenge, he added.

The Advanced Security service is available with MegaPath’s SD-WAN Enterprise service, including MegaPath RED. That’s its premium SD-WAN package for businesses in need of 100 percent uptime and financial guarantees related to that level of availability. The company also sells a service called SD-WAN Pro. It provides other network and security capabilities at lower price points.

Late last year, Riverbed (News - Alert) announced a joint SD-WAN solution with security company Zscaler.

SimpleWAN has been discussing the importance of security since it first introduced its SD-WAN solution. And, it is enhancing that solution.

VeloCloud, in the fall, announced it had added Palo Alto Networks, Symantec (News - Alert), and others to its SD-WAN Security Technology Partner Program. And VeloCloud, early last year, announced an interoperability partnership with NetFoundry, a Tata Communications (News - Alert) venture. That allows them to deliver solutions that leverage the SD-WAN technology from VeloCloud and the secure packet routing software of NetFoundry.

Shamrock Consulting Group’s Paul Cooney says businesses shopping for SD-WAN solutions should ask their prospective suppliers if they deliver DDoS protection and detection, dynamic IPSec tunneling, dynamic rekeying, end-to-end event correlation, malware inline detection and protection, secure key management, stateful firewall and/or application firewall capabilities, and tools for analyzing and reacting to security events.

“After undergoing a fundamental upgrade to your IT infrastructure, it makes sense to overhaul your existing security procedures and re-educate your entire staff on the vital importance of tight information security,” he writes. “You might even want to create a new cyber security training package or bring in an outside training company to do the educating for you.”




Edited by Mandi Nowitz

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