Connectivity the WAN Edge

With more than 1.6 million branch offices in the U.S. alone, companies spend a combined $10 billion per year on branch networking solutions. Many organizations struggle with the price, performance and flexibility of their WANs. Company objectives like digitization initiatives and the adoption of public cloud services make internet connectivity business-critical. Skyrocketing WAN costs, complexity of network management, and reliability issues can all impact business continuity.

Organizations often utilize a hybrid WAN consisting of MPLS and backhauled traffic while seeking lower-cost options for connectivity. This complex network topology can be difficult to manage, and security often becomes an afterthought—leaving the network edge open to attack.

SD-WAN

Software-defined WAN solutions help organization make use of different routes to the internet: across service providers, physical locations, and networks. There are a number of different criteria necessary for an SD-WAN solution to meet:

• Routing
• Security
• WAN optimization

Solutions can include software, hardware and over the top (OTT), cloud-based services. Furthermore, overseeing WAN edge functions at scale requires centralized, cloud-based management tools.

Organizations can benefit from SD-WAN in a several ways. It gives administrators more control over the network infrastructure while reducing capital and operational expenditures. Futhermore, it enables them to take full advantage of the benefits of cloud-based software services, improving agility and responsiveness without the need for installed solution refresh cycles.

Untangling SD-WAN

Untangle’s NG Firewall and Command Center can provide SD-WAN capabilities to distributed organizations looking to reduce their connectivity costs and simplify the management of their network edge.

The typical WAN environment for a distributed enterprise can be very complex. Using software to define the routes to the internet simplifies what was once controlled by network hardware imperatives. SD-WAN enables administrators to simplify network traffic routing by creating and pushing out policies to manage various parts of the network. Controlled by cloud-based centralized manaement, these policies can be deployed automatically whenever a new branch is added or a business rule is changed. This eliminates the need for onsite teams or truck rolls to make changes.

Untangle makes SD-WAN initiatives easy with these key features:

• Secure site-to-site and site-to-cloud networking with Tunnel VPN
• Dynamic traffic routing based on tags and triggers
• WAN balancing, optimization and failover
• Secure, turnkey VPN connections for remote workers
• Cloud-based centralized management of all sites including policy management
• Remote site licensing, provisioning and deployment without truck roll
• Granular control over apps, users and devices
• Real-time reports and diagnostic tools
• Automated, dynamic monitoring & global alerts
• Audit log for all administrative changes
• Seamless software updates for NG Firewall with no downtime