Managed SD-WAN offers premier capabilities beyond traditional firewalls, including centralized control, scalability, and enhanced security. It enables better application performance, simplifies network connectivity, and reduces networking costs.
Traditional networking approaches require traffic to be returned or backhauled to a data center for security inspection, which can cause latency and reduced application performance. SD-WAN eliminates this requirement, allowing for quicker deployment and simplified maintenance.
Security
SD-WAN firewalls can protect data that’s sent over the Internet. This is important because it means that even if someone could intercept the information, they wouldn’t be able to use it. For example, credit card numbers or healthcare records could not be stolen if sent over the Internet.
The security aspects of SD-WAN firewalls include securing the connection, preventing threats, and stopping malware. This can be achieved by implementing next-generation firewall technology built into an SD-WAN solution. This technology is designed to provide complete visibility into all network traffic across multiple connections and protocols – such as MPLS, cellular, broadband, and wireless WAN (4G, 5G) – to prevent data leaks or attacks.
In addition, it enables enterprises to prioritize critical applications over the most efficient paths to reduce latency and boost performance. This can be accomplished by leveraging the built-in support for multiple types of connections to route traffic over more cost-effective ones when available.
A managed SD-WAN solution with a secure firewall will offer centralized visibility and reporting capabilities to simplify network monitoring, capacity planning, and troubleshooting. This can help businesses to make better decisions about the future of their networks and improve their operations. It can also reduce costs by enabling companies to consolidate various point networking and security products at the edge of their WANs.
Scalability
When it comes to networking, scalability is vital for the enterprise. A secure SD-WAN solution allows the network to connect users to applications over any transport service – MPLS, dedicated Internet access (DIA), broadband, or wireless. This enables IT to be far more agile, deploying sites in minutes, scaling rapidly, and reconfiguring networks instantly.
Firewalls must be able to scale with the demands of the network. This is especially true as enterprises expand their operations to multiple locations and the cloud. In addition, an SD-WAN firewall with a comprehensive security platform provides the scalability required to ensure a secure and consistent network connection across a distributed organization.
The most advanced solutions, exemplified by Seattle managed IT services, offer a centralized management console and deep integrations with cloud on-ramps to accelerate cloud connectivity. This capability not only reduces complexity but also facilitates the implementation of a uniform network monitoring and troubleshooting strategy.
A high-quality SD-WAN solution should provide complete visibility into traffic, inspecting the lower layers of data to identify malicious activity and potential data leaks. It should also prioritize and direct traffic to the fastest channels based on application needs, improving bandwidth and reducing latency for critical business applications. This is a far more effective approach than legacy firewalls, which have limited visibility and only inspect higher data layers, leaving them vulnerable to sophisticated threats.
Flexibility
A managed SD-WAN delivers a more agile network, enhancing application performance, simplifying the management, and ensuring strong security measures. The solution eliminates the costly hub-and-spoke approach of traditional WAN technologies, which routes traffic to data centers for inspection and control. Instead, SD-WAN directs traffic over low-cost and private internet connections to remote offices or cloud applications. It also speeds up connections and reduces latency. The managed SD-WAN can help businesses save costs, improve the overall network experience, and allow IT teams to redirect resources toward strategic initiatives.
A business-driven SD-WAN platform should support a next-generation firewall and offer end-to-end segmentation across LANs, WANs, data centers, and the cloud. This helps to protect against cyberattacks, malware, and other dangers by preventing unwanted traffic from entering the network. It also enables enterprises to configure and enforce policies consistently on a device-by-device basis rather than on a central server, which can lead to inconsistent security measures.
The managed SD-WAN should provide a centralized dashboard with complete real-time visibility into the core functioning of the network, including the topology and connected devices, as well as detailed usage metrics. This allows IT professionals to monitor the network and optimize performances with ease actively. It also helps them to detect issues quickly and take corrective actions. The centralized dashboard should also provide complete visibility into the lifecycle of configuration changes and orchestration, which can help minimize human errors that may compromise security or performance.
Centralized Management
Firewalls and SD-WAN are distinct technologies that perform different functions, but integrating them improves network availability, optimizes performance, and boosts security. Combining these innovations reduces complexity and costs, making managing your organization’s WAN easier.
Combined firewalls with managed SD-WAN provide centralized management by combining network security services into a single virtual platform. This eliminates the need for distinctive security appliances and simplifies configuration.
A secured SD-WAN solution establishes a secure overlay network that encrypts all traffic. It also features independent data services to connect locations with the most common types of Internet connections (fiber, xDSL, cable, 4G/LTE, and MPLS). The SD-WAN solution uses intelligent traffic steering to prioritize mission-critical applications over non-mission-critical ones. It also uses real-time line monitoring to collect and analyze performance statistics, including latency and packet loss.
In addition to delivering network agility, an integrated SD-WAN provides comprehensive data analytics and predictive capabilities to enable IT specialists to detect potential outages. These tools can significantly shorten resolution times and lower IT costs for your organization.
A unified SD-WAN solution with a firewall as a service delivers affordability by reducing the need to purchase costly MPLS lines. It also allows businesses to reduce WAN bandwidth costs and redirect budgets to other crucial initiatives. Its robust hot failover mechanism ensures business continuity by switching to a backup connection during a transport outage.