INTERVIEW
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP PARTRICK GRILLO, SENIOR DIRECTOR, SOLUTIONS MARKETING AT FORTINET, ON SOME OF THE KEY CONSIDERATIONS TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE CHOOSING AN SD-WAN SOLUTION.
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hat are the key SD-WAN trends to watch for? The biggest trend must be about the full integration of networking, SD-WAN, with advanced security functionality – NextGeneration Firewall (NGFW). Fortinet is providing a full-featured SD-WAN and NGFW solution powered by the new SOC4 security processor to accelerate and enhance cloud and WAN connectivity. The FortiGate 60F Next-Generation Firewall consolidates SD-WAN, advanced routing, and advanced security capabilities into a single appliance, coupled with zero-touch provisioning that enables network leaders to deploy Secure SD-WAN quickly and easily. This is another major trend, zerotouch provisioning, which significantly simplifies the rollout of the SD-WAN network, especially as most remote sites do not have any technical staff. What should IT executives keep in mind while evaluating SD-WAN solutions? It can be challenging to make an “apples to apples” comparison of different SDWAN solutions. Security capabilities are undoubtedly one key point to look at – is security native to the solution or through a third-party/cloud capability? Look for a solution with multiple security features, including integrated NGFW, an IPSec VPN solution that can span across and between various locations, IPS, web-filtering, and highspeed SSL inspection performance. Another critical consideration is if the SD-WAN solution can provide segmentation at the remote site. In retail, for example, segmentation at the remote site is necessary for PCI-DSS compliance.
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CXO INSIGHT ME
JUNE 2020
BY MANAGING SD-WAN FROM A SIMPLE USER INTERFACE, SUCH AS A SINGLE PANE OF GLASS MANAGEMENT AND ORCHESTRATION CONSOLE, IT TEAMS CAN DRASTICALLY REDUCE MANAGEMENT COSTS, SIMPLIFY CONFIGURATION, AND ACCELERATE DEPLOYMENT CYCLES.
A third is the level of integration of the SD-WAN solution with the existing security infrastructure. There are some other features to evaluate to ensure your SD-WAN solution provides a balance of quality, security, and value: Provisioning prowess: Ease the burden on time-strapped IT teams with a solution that automates device provisioning. Better yet, look for a centralised controller that can quickly provision branches and scale easily with zero-touch deployment. Deployment made easy: Accelerate deployment with a solution that offers single-pane-of-glass deployment, management, and monitoring for all components of SD-WAN, including networking, traffic management, and
security components and policies. Bandwidth relief: Forget about planning weeks or months in advance to deploy additional multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) bandwidth for a traditional WAN. With the right SD-WAN solution, organisations can quickly take advantage of widely available business broadband offerings to increase available bandwidth and ensure optimal network and application performance. Peak performance: Make businesscritical applications a priority with the help of application steering. The right application-aware SD-WAN solution can support a broad range of applications, thereby improving cloud application performance and enabling branches to directly communicate to the Internet, especially when using latency-sensitive applications such as voice and video. Great reliability: By gathering granular WAN path information, an SD-WAN solution can automatically failover to the best available WAN link. This path awareness intelligence ensures reliable network connectivity for greater business continuity. Comprehensive policy management: An SD-WAN solution with a management console can ensure IT teams manage and maintain universal policies on everything from security to application filtering across thousands of devices and applications, even across multiple locations. Flexible connection options: SD-WAN allows traffic to be routed efficiently over multiple channels, including not only existing MPLS circuits but also the public Internet via LTE and broadband. The result is a more efficient approach to managing WAN connectivity and overhead by leveraging more flexible and often lower-cost broadband options.
