SD-WAN, the Enabler of Branch–to-cloud Connectivity

For the past decade, most businesses around the globe have significantly benefited from SD-WAN–the virtual WAN architecture that gives enterprises complete control over all traffics within the corporate network. It successfully allows the business to leverage combinations of MPLS, LTE, and broadband internet services with enhanced performance including higher bandwidth, centralized management, network visibility, better traffic prioritization, and multiple connection types. Moreover, this cost-effective approach saves enterprises dearly on infrastructure costs.

Designed to manage the connections between enterprise branches and company cloud, SD-WAN proved to have successfully addressed the traffic issues that a typical corporate network has, in a more efficient and cost-effective way. However, times of unprecedented challenges have come for enterprises. As we are now at the beginning of the post-Covid-19 era, the need for a company network to support employees working from home has surged. Whether at home or on the go, employees and their end devices are everywhere. Hence came the extended requirement for remote workforce provisioning with the more complex security issues due to tens of thousands of remote connections.

A Distributed Network Architecture Needed

Today, what enterprises need is a distributed network architecture with higher performance; the networking architecture no more surrounds an on-premise centralized data center but moves its perimeter along with the end-users. Using SASE, SD-WAN capabilities are combined with critical cloud-native security services, protecting remote workers and their connectivity in motion.

SD-WAN, a Component of SASE

As a software-based approach for managing geographically dispersed branch offices, SD-WAN utilizes a virtualized network overlay to connect them back to the corporate network, offering traffic routing over MPLS, broadband Ethernet, or 4G LTE. Meanwhile, the SD-WAN architecture, by design, lies in networking appliances built for site-to-site connectivity and leaves the work-from-home user connections unaddressed by

Cloud-Native is What SASE Requires

SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) is a technology the design purpose of which is pretty much the same with SD-WAN’s--connecting scattering branches and other users to the enterprise’s resources. Despite some overlapping capabilities, these two technologies have some differences.  Compared to SD-WAN, whose mission is to offer connectivity flexibility, SASE can seamlessly deliver full security to every single endpoint on the network.

A company with forward-thinking should put aside the idea that SD-WAN with some security bolted-on can be enough for SASE. Networking and enterprise security are no longer two different disciplines; wherever users go, connectivity and security should get there. Therefore, enterprises should consider a cloud-native architecture the best combination which can deliver high-performance security and networking while protecting users on the go without compromising performance. For detailed SASE information please visit Lanner website: https://www.lannerinc.com/news-and-events/latest-news/secure-access-service-edge-sase-appliances-enable-the-most-agile-edge-security