Secure SD-WAN reduces an enterprise’s attack surface by segmenting the network so that security policies can be enforced on a per-application basis
Today’s increasingly digital and distributed enterprises face a big connectivity challenge. Mobility, big data, social media, cloud and the Internet of Things (IoT) are transforming business models and, in the process, massively extending the traditional enterprise perimeter.
As a result, many organisations find themselves face-to-face with a new conundrum—finding a cost-effective, easy and fast secure way to implement new digital services and connect remote sites, without compromising security.
Unfortunately, while traditional virtual private networks (VPNs) have served companies well in the past, in today’s hyper-digitalised age they’re proving inflexible, time consuming and expensive to scale. All of which risks throttling the ability of the enterprise network to deliver the fast-paced innovation and agility that business users need.
The trouble with VPNs in the digital age
Firstly, connecting new applications and locations is difficult to do. Especially as each location will have multiple devices, all with different configurations and various security requirements. Tackling the task typically requires a dedicated army of highly knowledgeable IT staff to deploy, manage, troubleshoot and support each new location.
It’s a similar story when it comes to adapting a VPN for changing network needs. These traditional infrastructures are highly inflexible and require labour-intensive efforts to support changing network conditions, especially when it comes to remote locations. What’s more, the introduction of multiple touch points for manual security configurations opens up the network to security risks.
Finally, the cost of supporting the variety of point product solutions that are required for VPNs is high. That’s a problem for organisations that are undergoing rapid expansion or digitalisation transformations, as implementing new VPNs adds up to escalating capex on hardware, public IP addresses, and software.
With limited IT staff and tight budgets, organisations need to find a better way to extend data centre-grade security to remote sites, deploy “plug and play” connectivity, and enhance the capabilities and reach of their network.
The answer is to make the move to a secure software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN).
Enable more agility and security
Combining security and simplicity into a single integrated solution, secure SD-WAN reduces an enterprise’s attack surface by segmenting the network so that security policies can be enforced on a per-application basis. Which means that any potential breach will be limited to a single application. But that’s not all.
The centralised virtual overlay approach utilised by secure SD-WAN eliminates the need for multiple manual configurations that all too often open up the network to security risks. It’s als easy to extend this multi-layered security approach from the data centre to the network edge, without any need for highly skilled IT professionals to be present at each branch.