SD-WAN enables organizations to prioritize business-critical applications and improve WAN connectivity. This increases network performance, reduces costs, and enhances security.

It also helps businesses connect to cloud platforms like Salesforce or Office 365. This improves employee productivity and increases agility. It also protects against ransomware threats and data loss.

Automated Security Policy Enforcement

Automation is critical for a secure, reliable network infrastructure that protects data and prevents cyber threats. An SD-WAN solution can automate network functions so that they occur more quickly and with less human error. So, let us learn more about SD-WAN. 

For example, an SD-WAN solution can monitor the performance of network links and use probes to select the best path for application traffic based on latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth utilization. If a link is not performing well, the SD-WAN solution will automatically reroute the traffic over a different, more trustworthy link to ensure the best application performance.

An SD-WAN solution can also help you secure critical business applications and data by segmenting networks into domains. This can help reduce the impact of a security breach or malware infection by limiting its spread to a single part. For example, suppose an employee uses a personal Wi-Fi connection to connect to a work database server. In that case, the SD-WAN can route that traffic over a secure VPN to prevent unauthorized access.

An SD-WAN can also help you secure business-critical cloud applications by implementing a secure and reliable WAN connection. For example, suppose your organization uses an online point of sale (POS) system to process credit cards. In that case, an SD-WAN can use a secure VPN to create a private connection over the internet and avoid sending sensitive customer information over a public Wi-Fi network where it might be vulnerable to eavesdropping and theft.

Automated Threat Detection and Response

As remote workers have become a significant workforce component, IT teams must ensure data security and privacy. This means deploying technologies that can enable secure connectivity to their networks for employees who work away from the office. Secure connectivity allows them to access corporate applications and systems from any Internet-enabled device without worrying that the information they send over the public internet will fall prey to hackers or malicious actors.

SD-WAN offers many features that can help with this. One essential capability is its ability to automate threat detection and response by leveraging cloud-based centralized management and analytics. This enables IT to monitor network activity across the enterprise and quickly identify and respond to potential threats.

Another essential security feature of SD-WAN is its granular, application-based routing. This approach enables IT to prioritize traffic by application and route it over the best possible path. This can improve performance by reducing latency, improving reliability, and minimizing costs.

In addition, SD-WAN can provide a more secure link between branches and the central headquarters by offering dynamic routing based on real-time quality of service (quality of service) monitoring. This is an essential aspect of network security, mainly when dealing with sensitive information such as credit card numbers or personal health records that unauthorized parties could intercept. In addition, automatically detecting and responding to attacks on WAN links is critical for improving network security.

Automated Network Monitoring

SD-WAN can monitor traffic patterns to ensure security and performance policies are applied across the entire WAN. This helps to prevent unauthorized connections that may be used for attacks such as denial of service. It also tracks and logs activity to identify and resolve any lingering issues. For example, it can detect and report on network problems – such as loss of connectivity – that a standard troubleshooting procedure could not fix.

A basic SD-WAN solution will automatically steer traffic based on pre-set rules programmed via templates. But a business-driven SD-WAN continuously self-learns and adjusts in real-time to any changes that impact application performance. For example, if an internet channel begins to degrade and lose data packets, it can offload traffic to a higher-quality channel without disrupting the rest of the WAN.

Moreover, the ability to route traffic over multiple low-cost broadband internet connections means that organizations can quickly scale their WAN without costly hardware upgrades. This can reduce operational expenses and IT costs.

SD-WAN infrastructure enables remote users and devices to access cloud applications with excellent performance and reliability. However, this comes with the risk of exposing the organization to unintended security vulnerabilities. A comprehensive SD-WAN solution will integrate and centrally manage security functionality such as cloud web content filtering and centralized endpoint protection from a single device to mitigate this.

Automated Endpoint Security

SD-WAN allows you to safely and securely extend your network to remote workers, enabling employees to work from home, in the office, or while traveling on business. This can increase productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability while reducing risk.

It uses vCPE to connect to the cloud, providing a simple and affordable way to give remote workers access to the network and their applications. It delivers a unified solution that combines security, segmentation, routing, WAN optimization, and visibility and control functions.

In addition, SD-WAN can eliminate expensive MPLS backhaul costs and congestion by allowing traffic to burst over internet broadband or wireless WAN (4G/LTE) connections to central offices from branch locations. This reduces latency and improves application performance.

Unlike traditional networks configured with static routes that don’t change, SD-WAN supports a more dynamic best-path routing approach that updates in real-time as network conditions change. This can improve bandwidth efficiency, reduce latency and jitter and ensure real-time applications have priority over other traffic.

It also provides secure local internet breakout for SaaS and IaaS traffic, ensuring a high-quality experience even on low-bandwidth connections. This reduces cost and improves application performance, particularly for critical apps like voice and video. In addition, it offers automated account control, monitoring of all devices, and analyzing suspicious behavior, including MITRE ATT&CK integration.