Background
As the business world has moved towards further digitalization, the competitiveness of enterprises heavily relies on application serviceability and network performance. In fact, it is the application awareness or even intelligence that drives SD-WAN to be more flexible than conventional WAN architecture in terms of visibility and control to set priority over the network. With application awareness, SD-WAN effectively reduces bandwidth burden and OPEX/CAPEX for IT management.
To realize an application-aware SD-WAN, the architecture must integrate several functionality including network visibility, real-time configuration, application prioritization, end-to-end security, and performance optimization. Thus, the next part of this article will address the technological requirements for an application-aware SD-WAN.
Requirements
An industry leader in SD-WAN solutions cooperated with Lanner to jointly build up a revolutionized network platform. The collaboration aims to replace legacy WAN architecture with application-aware SD-WAN, that will simplify hybrid WAN and implement end-to-end security. The solution is integrated with both hardware and software factors
Application Prioritization
To prioritize selected application, the SD-WAN must be programmed with Dynamic Path Selection to ensure that critical applications will flow through the optimal network path. Performance will be boosted as application traffic is routed through the least intensive path.
Zero-Touch Provisioning
Under Zero-Touch Provisioning, the devices to be deployed are pre-configured so that the hardware and software are directly plugged onto the existing protocols. All the essential elements, such as policies and instructions, are downloaded instantly. All the installation and management costs have been reduced by ZTP.
Optimizing Existing Hybrid WAN
The application-aware SD-WAN solution optimizes existing hybrid WAN by making efficient use of bandwidth. In fact, SD-WAN can be implemented across network architectures, such as DSL, cable, and LTE, while reducing the dependence on MPLS.
Advanced LAN Bypass
LAN Bypass is a fault-tolerant mechanism to ensure critical business communications can remain operating while a network link is disrupted. To ensure traffic between LAN and WAN, the SD-WAN device shall provide hardware-based LAN Bypass.
Redundant Power Supply & High Availability
SD-WAN architecture runs 24/7, and thus redundant power supply and high availability designs like dual management ports, hot-swappable cooling fans and power units, are critical.
Onboard Intel® QuickAssist Technology
Hardware-assisted Intel® QuickAssist feature can ensure secure communications with encryption and compression measures including RSA, DH and ECC.
Lanner Solution
During the collaboration, Lanner supplied a wide range of SD-WAN hardware devices to meet various WAN optimization needs. For instance, Lanner’s NCA-1510 is ideal for small branch office due to its compact form factor. For medium-sized WAN infrastructure, NCA-2510, an 1U rackmount white-box, offers virtualization optimization with needed hardware specifications for SD-WAN application awareness. For large-scale, multi-WAN architecture, NCA-5710, powered by dual Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable Family, is the optimal solution for performance-demanding applications.
Featured Products
NCA-1510
Fanless SFF Desktop Network Security Appliance for SME Edge Security
| CPU | Intel® Atom® C3000 Series 2~8 Cores (Denverton) |
| Chipset | SoC |
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NCA-2510
Virtualization-optimized Network Appliance for vCPE, uCPE, SD-WAN and SD-Security
| CPU | Intel® Atom™ C3000 Series 4~16 Cores (Denverton) |
| Chipset | SoC |
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NCA-5710
1U Rackmount Network Appliance for Network Traffic Management and Virtualized Network Security
| CPU | 2nd Gen Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable Family (Skylake-SP/Cascade Lake-SP) |
| Chipset | Intel® C621/627 |
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