SD-WAN – MEC Networks Corporation

Gartner Magic Quadrant Recognizes Fortinet as the SD-WAN Leader for 4 Consecutive Years

Kait Donieto — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 09:00:41 +0000

MEC Networks is proud to congratulate Fortinet for their remarkable achievement in the world of SD-WAN. They once again secured their place in the coveted Leaders Quadrant of the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant report for SD-WAN. This marks the fourth consecutive year that they have been recognized as a leader in the field and a remarkable distinction of being the sole leader placed highest on Ability to Execute for three consecutive years.

In an era where networks face mounting complexity, heightened threats, and the demands of a hybrid workforce, Fortinet’s recognition is well-deserved. The network attack surface has expanded rapidly, leading to numerous challenges like staffing constraints, complex network architectures, and legacy security solutions. Many organizations have found it challenging to keep pace with these developments.

The Role of SD-WAN in Modern Networks

Modern networks require a strategy that simplifies operations, reduces complexity, and combines networking and security solutions. Secure access, reliable connectivity, and superior user experience are paramount for remote workers accessing widely distributed business applications and corporate resources. While SD-WAN can address these concerns, not all SD-WAN vendors can provide the combination of functionality, security, and support that organizations require.

Experience Success with Fortinet Secure SD-WAN

The Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet stands out as the first solution to tackle these challenges. Built on a common OS that ensures consistent functionality and centralized control, this solution seamlessly integrates advanced network connectivity and world-class security. It even offers integrated ZTNA to enable hybrid and multi-cloud connectivity, accelerating your digital-first journey.

Fortinet’s deep integration and flexible deployment allow security policies to follow transactions end-to-end. Unlike most SASE solutions that stop at the network edge, Fortinet’s approach simplifies your network architecture and management overhead, accelerating deployment.

Additionally, their Secure SD-WAN solution enables the transition to 5G wireless WAN while maintaining reliable and secure connectivity, including full inspection of encrypted audio and video transmissions. The CyberRatings.org report further demonstrates the solution’s exceptional performance, even in challenging network conditions.

Beyond SD-WAN, Fortinet’s solution offers advanced capabilities such as AIOps and digital experience monitoring (DEM), seamlessly integrating into existing networking and security environments. This functionality shines in Gartner’s Critical Capabilities for SD-WAN Use Cases, where Fortinet ranks #1 in On-Premises security-sensitive WAN and WAN for small branches for three consecutive years.

More Than Just SD-WAN

Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN is not just about network interconnectivity. It serves as the foundation for broader organizational goals, including SASE and SD-Branch. By integrating these solutions, they empower users and devices to securely access resources and applications with end-to-end visibility and control, regardless of location. This unique approach makes everyone’s job easier and sets Fortinet apart from the competition.

MEC Networks proudly celebrates Fortinet’s consistent leadership in SD-WAN. Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition!

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HPE (Aruba) Triumphs as a Six-Time Leader in Gartner’s 2023 Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN

Kait Donieto — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 09:00:00 +0000

MEC Networks is thrilled to extend profound congratulations to HPE (Aruba) for their exceptional achievement in the realm of SD-WAN. They have secured the prestigious position of Leader in the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN for the sixth consecutive year. Their remarkable feat makes them one of only two companies to be named a Leader in the Gartner SD-WAN Magic Quadrant for all six years.

In Gartner’s evaluation, which considers Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute, HPE (Aruba) has consistently proved exceptional prowess. The report provides a comprehensive assessment of each vendor’s Strengths and Cautions.

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Meets Modern IT Challenges

The challenges of the modern IT landscape demand innovative solutions, and Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN rises to the occasion. This powerful networking platform is designed to optimize cloud-first, connected IoT (Internet of Things), and security requirements across the WAN (Wide Area Networks), enabling enterprise IT organizations to drive digital transformation.

With the advent of sustained hybrid work, the norm now is to provide a consistent quality of experience and security policy enforcement. Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN brings a secure network foundation for Zero Trust and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), encompassing advanced SD-WAN and integrated next-generation firewall functions.

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN simplifies provisioning and operations by delivering a unified SD-WAN fabric across locations of all sizes. This results in significant operational benefits, improved business productivity and agility, reduced business risk, and lower overall WAN costs.

Combining the EdgeConnect SD-WAN platform with HPE Networking SSE creates a unified SASE solution that streamlines networking and security functions. This consolidation eliminates complexities, reduces costs, and enhances cross-functional collaboration, facilitating a single-vendor SASE architecture with Zero Trust built-in.

What Sets Aruba Apart

Aruba’s exceptional offering empowers organizations to:

1. Gain choice and flexibility

The EdgeConnect SD-WAN platform delivers advanced networking capabilities crucial for cloud-first organizations. These include Path Conditioning to overcome dropped packets and poor network conditions, Tunnel Bonding for best application performance, First-packet IQ for intelligent packet routing, Dynamic Path Control for maximum bandwidth use, App Express for optimized user experiences, Multi-cloud Networking to simplify WAN integration with public cloud providers, and WAN Optimization for reduced latency and improved bandwidth efficiency.

2. Leverage Secure SD-WAN capabilities

EdgeConnect SD-WAN offers a comprehensive security service to consolidate branch network and security functions. This ends the need for legacy firewalls and routers in branches. Embedded security features include a next-generation firewall, fine-grained segmentation, rule-based Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDS/IPS), DDoS detection and prevention, and seamless integration with major SSE cloud security providers.

3. Implement a single vendor SASE Solution with Zero Trust

The era of disparate networking and security solutions is propagating. A unified SASE solution from a single vendor simplifies operations, reduces complexity and cost, and improves cross-functional collaboration. Combining the EdgeConnect SD-WAN platform with HPE Networking SSE promotes a unified SASE solution. Aruba Zero Trust, integrated from edge to cloud, enforces role-based traffic segmentation. HPE Aruba Networking SSE provides ZTNA, SWG, CASB, and added cloud security capabilities. This approach allows organizations to deploy a unified SASE architecture at their own pace, ensuring consistent, business-driven security policies for all users, devices, and applications without compromising performance or functionality.

Celebrating Customer Validation

While Gartner’s recognition is a testament to Aruba’s excellence, it is also the voice of the customer that truly counts. HPE Aruba has garnered a remarkable 4.9/5.0 rating on Gartner Peer Insights based on customer reviews. This validates their impact on tech solutions in the real world.

Ultimately, MEC Networks delightedly acknowledges HPE (Aruba) for their consistent leadership in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN. We congratulate them on receiving this well-earned accolade!

Take the Next Step with Aruba

Click here to delve deeper into the world of Aruba and explore the innovative solutions they offer. The future of networking and security awaits—don’t miss the opportunity to be part of it.

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Aruba SD-WAN Orchestrator

MEC Digital — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 02:15:00 +0000

A simplified model using Aruba Central

SD-WAN inherently addresses many of the configuration issues in operating a large distributed network. It utilizes transport-independent overlay tunnels and centralized traffic routing, based on policies that take into account both user and application roles. This alone simplifies WAN management.

The Aruba SD-WAN Orchestrator is based on a cloud-native, multi-tenant control plane that scales in line with customer growth. Competing orchestrators are virtual machine (VM)-based control plane elements that must be scaled manually as requirements grow and exceed the limitations of the VMs.

The benefit of the SD-WAN Orchestrator is that WAN links are automatically discovered and tunnels are orchestrated based on business and topological needs, such as mapping data centers to branch offices. The Orchestrator only sets up tunnels between sites that need them. Similarly, routes are only advertised between gateways that have reachability between each other.

Key Features

Major administrative cost savings

Greatly simplified management of WAN

Flexible topology choices include a hub and spoke and full mesh

Cloud-native, multitenant control plane scales in line with customer growth

Removes the need to manually set up VPN tunnels or routes between sites

Browse Aruba Networks Solutions

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Cato Networks: Hands-free Management for SD-WAN Service

MEC Digital — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 07:44:15 +0000

The previous Burger King jingle came to mind when pondering today’s introduction of Cato Hands-free Management for our global managed SD-WAN Service. Hold the pickles or the lettuce — it doesn’t much matter; Burger King gave you the burger the way you like it. And that’s true with how we allow you to manage your network.Unlike a conventional telco, Cato has perpetually let customers run their networks or, if they, preferred to share a number of their networking responsibilities with Cato or its partners. However, with Cato Hands-free Management, customers will outsource all networking and security configuration responsibilities to the expert workers at Cato or its partners.

Cato Hands-free Management is a part of the Cato Managed Services portfolio that includes:

Managed Threat Detection and Response (MDR) continuously monitors the network for compromised, malware-infected endpoints. Cato MDR uses a mix of machine learning algorithms that mine network traffic for indicators of compromise, and human verification of detected anomalies. Cato specialists then guide customers on remediating compromised endpoints.
Intelligent Last-Mile Management provides 24×7, last-mile monitoring. Just in case of an outage or performance degradation, Cato can work with the ISP to resolve the problem, providing all relevant info and keeping the client informed on the progress.
Rapid Site Deployment provides customers with remote help in deploying Cato Sockets, Cato’s zero-touch, SD-WAN device.

Regardless of the management approach, Cato retains responsibility for the underlying Cato Cloud infrastructure, upgrading, patching, or otherwise maintaining Cato software or hardware.

What’s the right approach for you?

Why so many ways to network management? because there’s no right approach, there’s only your approach. Companies, like people, have different needs. In some cases, running the network themselves could be a requirement in different cases, though, the very last thing the IT manager would like to try and do is take responsibility for every move and change. Each method has its strengths. With self-service, enterprises realize unexcelled agility by configuring and troubleshooting the networks themselves, doing in seconds what otherwise needed legacy telcos hours or days. For added help, co-management permits customers to trust current support from Cato or its partners without relinquishing control for overall management. And, of course, with Cato Hands-Free corporations gain the convenience of full management, though, they’ll still build changes themselves, if they want. With Cato, you do get to manage the network your way. And this says nothing regarding Cato’s wide selection of professional and support services.

Management designed for Digital Business

This kind of flexibility is strange for managed network services, which historically only offered full management. Telco-managed networks are too cumbersome, too complex to permit corporations self–service management of the security and network infrastructure. It needs a network designed from the bottom up for the needs of today’s digital business.And historically managed services place restrictions on customers, tying the overlay (SD-WAN or MPLS) to the telco’s underlay (last-mile and backbone services). Requiring use of the telco’s underly left enterprises subject to high costs, restricted geographic reach, and lengthy deployment times. Such an approach is, again, incompatible with a digital business that looks to be leaner and more agile, notably as the network should more and more connect clouds, mobile users, and branch locations situated outside of the telcos in the operation area.

Cato Cloud was unambiguously designed for the needs of the digital business and not simply in how we expect about management. Enterprises bring their last-mile access to Cato or procure last-mile services through Cato partners. They then connect to Cato’s global backbone through any local internet access, releasing them from the lock-in of traditional telco services. As a globally distributed cloud service, Cato seamlessly connects mobile and cloud resources, while not being in chains to specific geographical location or physical infrastructure.With Cato, organizations get the tomatoes and lettuce: the peace of mind of a managed service with the speed and agility of self-service. And, yes, you Wendy’s lovers, there’s lots of beef there also.

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Cato Networks: SD-WAN Provides An Alternative To MPLS (A Case Study)

MEC Digital — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 09:52:50 +0000

What’s transitioning like to SD-WAN? ask Nick Dell. The IT manager at a leading automotive parts manufacturer recently shared his experience transitioning his company from MPLS to Cato SD-WAN. throughout the webinar, we spoke concerning the reasons behind the decision, the differences between carrier-managed SD-WAN services and cloud-based SD-WAN, and the insights he gained from his experience.

Dell’s company has been in business for over sixty years and employs 2,000 individuals placed across 9 locations. Manufacturing plants needed non-stop network connectivity to make sure delivery to Ford, Toyota, GM, Tesla, and Volkswagen. Important applications included cloud ERP and VoIP.

Before moving to SD-WAN, the company used an MPLS provider that managed everything. The carrier provided a comprehensive solution to deal with the crucial uptime needs by having 3 cloud firewalls at every data center, and an LTE wireless backup at every location. After they signed the agreement with the MPLS provider, the solution appeared to be precisely what they needed to support their applications and uptime needs. However, they quickly discovered issues with the MPLS solution that were impacting the business.

The Catalyst to make a change

Dell noticed several challenges with the MPLS service:

#1 bandwidth — Usage would peak at certain times and therefore the provider’s QoS configuration didn’t work properly. Nick wished to add bandwidth, but for some sites, the MPLS provider offered solely restricted or no fiber connections. For instance, the MPLS provider would say fiber isn’t offered at a definite site, however, the local LEC delivered the T1s using fiber.

#2 internet Configuration Failures — the company also wished to provide OEM partners access the cloud ERP system, however, the MPLS provider was unable to successfully configure Internet-based VPNs for the partners. Internet failover also failed to work as promised. when sites would fail, not all components would switchover properly, making failures in application delivery.

#3 Authentication Failures — The user authentication functionality provided by the MPLS provider was purported to help once users would move their laptops or different endpoints from wired to wireless connections. However, the authentication method usually failed, leaving users without internet access. Only after 2 years did the provider propose a solution – software that would cost $5,000 and need installing agents on all the laptops.

These problems manifested themselves in everyday operations. Someone sending an email with a large attachment would cause the ERP system to be slow to respond, that successively caused delays in getting shipments out.

Dell and other leadership knew it was time for a change. They needed high availability internet with more bandwidth that worked as designed. Moreover, they needed a provider that will work in a partner relationship that would deliver 100 percent internet uptime, fiber to all or any locations, offer a lower-cost solution, and embody all-in-one security.

The Catalyst to make a change

Dell investigated 3 SD-WAN scenarios to switch the MPLS network.

Carrier Managed SD-WAN
Appliance-based SD-WAN
Cloud-based SD-WAN

Moving to SD-WAN with a similar carrier they were using for MPLS appeared like a simple move, however, Dell wasn’t inclined to deal with some of the same problems with poor service, and a “ticket-taker” attitude instead of problem-solving. The carrier conjointly couldn’t guarantee a 4-hour replacement window for the SD-WAN hardware.

The appliance-based SD-WAN solution would free them from the carrier problems, and ownership and management of the solution would fall to Dell and his team. The direct costs were high, and security wasn’t integral to the solution.

Dell also looked into different Cloud-based SD-WAN providers, however because of their size, the provider wished to put them with an MSP where SD-WAN isn’t their core business. The solution didn’t give full security so they would need to buy further security appliances. The provider could also not guarantee a 4-hour response time to exchange failed hardware.

Why Cato

With the Cato Cloud solution, Dell can decide on any ISP available at every location and now have fiber at all locations with 5-20x additional bandwidth than before. This has allowed them to possess additional redundancy to the internet and High availability (HA) – with each line and appliances – at every location. The bandwidth constraints are gone and QoS works. once there’s downtime, the failover process works of course.

Describing the deployment experience as quick and simple, Dell only needed a 30-minute lunch break to cut over one location that previously was one amongst the most troublesome with outages and backup problems.

One of the driving factors that convinced Dell to go with Cato was the support, that he describes as “transparent and fast to resolve” problems. “They hear us, they want to solve our issues,” says Dell. He was also pleasantly shocked that Cato was the sole vendor of all the solutions they investigated that didn’t try to attempt to cash in on a solution with a recurring fee.

Dell demonstrated his ROI on the Cato solution in a few ways that. bandwidth has enhanced considerably, the accumulated network visibility lets him troubleshoot quicker, security is integrated, and at the same time, overall costs have been reduced by 25th. Users’ satisfaction is also down. Users are less annoyed because they’re not “being blocked from websites,” he says. As for IT, well, they’re also less frustrating because handling support and opening tickets are, as Nick place it, “…so simple now.”

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Cato Networks: How Traditional Telco Services Hinder Digital Transformation

MEC Digital — Thu, 04 Jul 2019 05:24:13 +0000

How are digital business transformation projects impacting enterprise networks? To answer that question, we asked over 1,600 IT professionals worldwide. The report, Telcos and therefore the future of the WAN in 2019 target those 432 who purchase telco services for organizations with MPLS backbones.

Repeatedly we heard that SD-WAN continues to serve as the basis of their digital transformation efforts. No surprise there. What’s perhaps more attention-grabbing, though, is the shift towards managed services. The necessity for foreseeable delivery across the global network to the site, cloud resources, and mobile users whereas at the same time developing a security design that may accommodate local internet access is pushing several companies to turn to managed SD-WAN services. The traditional source of these services, the telcos, inadequately address customer expectations around speed, agility, and overall value.

SD-WAN: It’s Not Just about Costs

Since SD-WAN burst onto the market, cost savings are routinely cited because of the reason for deploying the technology. Yes, SD-WAN will take advantage of reasonable internet connectivity to scale back network spend however there are several different advantages, particularly agility and improved cloud performance, that conjointly come with SD-WAN.

Respondents echoed similar results in this year’s survey. Solely a third of respondents indicated that their motivation for getting SD-WAN was to address excessive WAN-related costs. The other motives? The highest-ranked ones involved improving internet access (46%), followed by the necessity for added bandwidth (39%) and improved last-mile availability (38%).

WAN Transformation is the New Normal

No surprise then that a lot of companies ought to be adopting SD-WAN as the basis of WAN transformation. In fact, the percentage of organizations reworking their WAN has grown significantly since our last survey. Nearly half of respondents (44%) indicated that they’d or were considering deploying SD-WAN. Last year the amount was simply over a quarter of respondents.

With that said, digital transformation puts needs on the network that exceed the capabilities of SD-WAN. The overwhelming majority of respondents (85%) indicated they’d be braving networking use cases in 2019 that are neglected or out-of-step with SD-WAN technology.

Security could be a case in point. SD-WAN alone says nothing regarding defending the company edge. Half of the respondents will give secure internet access from any location with the largest security challenges being defensive against malware/ransomware (70%) and implementing corporate security policies on mobile users (49%). All of that is out-of-scope for SD-WAN alone. Taming those security challenges is essential for SD-WAN to enhance cloud performance and scale back network costs.

Managed Services are Going to be Essential for WAN Transformation

With such a large amount of components and complexities, most respondents (75%) are turning to service providers for their SD-WAN design and deployment. providers are typically higher equipped to integrate SD-WAN with different technologies to deal with broader IT challenges.

Legacy telcos are the factual source for managed SD-WAN services however not the preferred ones. Respondents stay overwhelmingly discontent with telco agility, velocity, and support:

Respondents gave telcos a 54 (out of 100) once asked if they thought network service pricing was honest. On overall experience, telcos scored lower (3.33 out of 5) than cloud application providers (3.70) and cloud datacenter providers (3.71). Only a pair of respondents indicated that telcos exceeded their expectations in delivering new features and enhancements. Day-to-day network operations prove tough with traditional telco services. Nearly half (46%) of respondents reported that moves, adds, and changes (MACs) need a minimum of one business day (8 hours or more). Nearly three-quarters of respondents indicated that deploying new locations needed three or a lot of business weeks.

Managed Service Blended with Cloud Attributes

There remains a robust interest in network services with cloud attributes of agility and self-service. versatile management models are essential to the present story. a lot of specifically,

71% of respondents indicated that telcos take too long to resolve issues.

48% complained regarding the lack of visibility into telco services.

80% of most well-liked self-service or co-management models rather than full management model needed by traditional telcos. It’s why we have a tendency to believe so powerfully that managed SD-WAN services should use a cloud-native architecture. To find out a lot regarding cloud-native networks and therefore the results of that analysis, transfer Telcos and therefore the way forward for the WAN in 2019.

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Cato Networks: What is a Cloud-Native Network and Why Does It Matter

MEC Digital — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 07:37:09 +0000

It’s no secret that CIOs wish their networks to be more agile, better ready to accommodate new requirements of the digital business. SD-WAN has created vital advancements in this regard. And, yet, it’s also equally clear that SD-WAN alone cannot futureproof enterprise networks.

Mobile users, cloud resources, security services — all are crucial to the digital business and however, none are native to SD-WAN. companies should invest in further infrastructure for those capabilities. skilled security and networking talent are still required to run those networks, expertise that’s usually in brief supply. Operational costs, headaches, and delays are incurred when upgrading and maintaining security and networking appliances.

Outsourcing networking to a telco-managed network service doesn’t solve the matter. Capital, staffing, and operational costs still exist, solely now marked-up and charged back to the customer. And, to create matters worse, enterprises lose visibility into and control the traffic traversing the managed network services.

How then are you able to prepare your network for the digital business of these days — and tomorrow? Cloud-native networks provide some way forward.

Like cloud-native application development, cloud-native networks run the majority of their route calculation, policy-enforcement, and security inspections — the guts of the network — on a purposeful software platform designed to take advantage of the cloud’s attributes. The software platform is multitenant by design operating on off-the-rack servers capable of breakthrough performance antecedently solely possible with custom hardware. Eliminating proprietary appliances changes the technical, operational, and fiscal characteristics of enterprise networks.

5 Attributes of Cloud-Native Network Services

To better understand their impact, consider the five attributes a provider’s software and networking platform must meet to be considered cloud-native: multitenancy, scalability, velocity, efficiency, and ubiquity.

Multitenancy
With cloud-native networks, customers share the underlying infrastructure with the required abstraction to supply every with private network experience. The provider is liable for maintaining and scaling the underlying infrastructure. Like cloud compute and storage, cloud-native networks don’t have any idle appliances; multitenancy permits providers to maximize their underlying infrastructure.
Scalability
As cloud services, cloud-native networks carry no sensible scaling limitation. The platform accommodates new traffic masses or new requirements. The software stack will instantly make the most of additional compute, storage, memory, or networking resources. As such, sanctioning compute-intensive features, like SSL decryption, doesn’t impact service functionality.
Velocity
By developing their own software platforms, cloud-native network providers will quickly innovate, creating new features and capabilities instantly available. All customers across all regions benefit from the foremost current feature set. Troubleshooting takes less time since support and platform development groups are bound together. And because the core functionality is in software, cloud-native networks will expand to new regions in hours and days not months.
Efficiency
Cloud-native network design promotes efficiency that causes higher network quality at lower costs. Platform ownership reduces third-party license fees and nominal support costs. leveraging the huge build-out of IP infrastructure avoids the costs telcos incurred constructing and maintaining physical transmission networks. A smart, software overlay, monitors the underlying network providers and selects the optimum one for every packet. The result: carrier-grade network at an unmatched price/performance.
Ubiquity
Like today’s digital business, the enterprise network should be available all over, accessible from several edges supporting physical, cloud, and mobile resources. features parity across regions is important for max efficiency. Access to the cloud-native network ought to be using physical and virtual appliances, mobile clients, and third-party IPsec compatible edges. This way, truly one network will connect any resource, anywhere.

A Revolutionary, Not Evolutionary, Shift in Networking

By meeting all 5 criteria, cloud-native networks avoid the cost overhead and stagnant process of traditional service providers. Such advantages cannot be gained by just porting software or hosting an appliance within the cloud. It’s a network that has to be engineered with the DNA of cloud service from scratch. In this, cloud-native networks are a revolution in network architecture and design.

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SonicWALL Secures Hybrid Clouds

MEC Networks Corporation — Mon, 10 Jun 2019 08:09:15 +0000

SonicWALL Expands Capture Cloud Platform to Include Zero-Touch Deployment, Secure SD-WAN, Personalized Threat Intelligence, Next-Gen Virtual Firewall for Public Cloud

Recently, SonicWall introduced new Capture Cloud Platform capabilities that encompass Zero-Touch Deployment and Secure SD-WAN (software-defined WAN) designed for distributed enterprises and businesses with hybrid cloud environments. The organization additionally announced enhancements to the Capture Security Center with personalized Risk Meters that supply company-specific, real-time threat intelligence and danger scoring, as well as Hyper-V, Azure, and AWS guide for its virtual firewall series.

“Organizations are invested in hybrid cloud strategies where they’re able to harness the power of both public and private clouds, but they require solutions that help simplify and secure their cloud migration initiatives,” said SonicWall President and CEO Bill Conner. “Whether they are pursuing the benefits of a vendor’s specific capabilities, looking to reduce the cost of hiring staff or seeking to reach compliance standards, SonicWall helps protect their migration while simultaneously giving more visibility and control of their environments.”Whether they are pursuing the benefits of a vendor’s specific capabilities, looking to reduce the cost of hiring staff, or seeking to reach compliance standards, SonicWall helps protect their migration while simultaneously giving more visibility and control of their environments.

Reducing Cost with Zero-Touch Deployment

SonicWall Zero-Touch Deployment permits companies to rapidly and securely configure firewall hardware at new locations without requiring superior and costly on-site personnel. Once new merchandise is delivered online in remote locations, administrators can manage nearby and distributed networks through a single pane-of-glass the usage of Capture Security Center, SonicWall’s flagship cloud-based management and analytics SaaS platform.

“We are very excited about the recent addition of Zero-Touch and SD-WAN from SonicWall. Cerdant has been deploying SonicWall next-generation firewalls for over 15 years and these new additions will allow us to deliver even faster deployments for customers,” said Cerdant Vice President of Technology and Operations Joshua Skeens. “The agile and simplified deployment capabilities will help reduce labor costs with centralized cloud management.”

To reduce wire clutter and the complexity associated with PoE injectors and switches, the company is introducing SonicWall TZ300P and TZ600P unified threat management (UTM) firewalls that provide power directly to connected PoE/PoE+ enabled devices, such as wireless access points, point-of-sale (POS) terminals, printers, cameras and other IP devices.

Leveraging Public Networks Securely

With sturdy and tested security provided by using SonicWall, SD-WAN can be leveraged to use readily-available, low priced public web services to reduce the value and complexity generally related with constructing allotted personal networks based totally on MPLS technology.

“SD-WAN is a highly effective technology for distributed organizations like retailers, banks, manufacturers and campuses to simultaneously improve performance and reliability while reducing operational overhead,” said 451 Research analyst Mike Fratto. “However, the use of the direct, connected public internet for business opens up security challenges for organizations.

“For SD-WAN to be a viable alternative to private WANs, enterprises need to ensure they have the same level of inspection and enforcement at the branch and remote sites as they have at the data center. Integrated security features with SD-WAN are table stakes for most enterprises adopting the technology.”

A new capability of SonicOS 6.5.3, the operating system for SonicWall next-generation firewalls, SonicWall Secure SD-WAN permits distributed organizations to safely set up and join branches and remote sites for sharing data and improving the resiliency and overall performance of applications and services. SonicWall Secure SD-WAN ensures the constant performance and availability of business-critical and SaaS applications with intelligent failover, application-based load balancing and first-class of provider (QoS) capabilities.

Personalized Threat Intelligence, Risk Scoring

The rising increase of applications, endpoints, mobile gadgets, and databases also capacity a large assault floor for cybercriminals. To reduce it, the SonicWall Capture Security Center Risk Meters provider affords companies and SMBs with data-driven evaluation about evolving chance vectors that include networks, web, clouds, applications, endpoints, mobile devices, and databases.

Because no two businesses are alike, SonicWall Risk Meters deliver personalized threat records and chance ratings that are adapted to individual conditions and environments, promoting immediately and particular shielding actions.

To better guide business and security goals in a more well-timed manner, computed threat scores and chance levels are constantly updated based on live danger records relative to present protection capabilities. Organizations can leverage their scores when performing protection effectiveness planning, coverage and budgeting decisions.

Virtual Firewall Extended to Cloud Deployments

The SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform continues to deliver security for businesses of any size and now extends next-generation virtual firewall capabilities to cloud deployments, including Hyper-V, Azure, and AWS, with the NSW Firewall Series.

As an added benefit, new and existing customers using SonicWall NSA or NSsp next-generation firewalls and who also have active Advanced Gateway Security Suite (AGSS) or Comprehensive Gateway Security Suite (CGSS) services, will receive a SonicWall NSA firewall for one year at no additional cost.

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Cato Networks: How SD-WAN Conquers Last Mile Limitations

MEC Networks Corporation — Sun, 05 May 2019 07:22:22 +0000

As more businesses require day in and day out uptime of their networks, they can’t bear to “put all their investments tied up on one place.” Even MPLS with it’s vaunted “5 9s” SLA, has battled with last-mile accessibility. SD-WAN offers a path forward that fundamentally improves last-mile uptime without obviously expanding expenses.

Early Attempts To Solve The Problem

Starting endeavors to take care of the problems and restrictions of the last mile had constrained achievement. To improve by and large webpage accessibility, network directors would match a MPLS connection with a backup Internet connection, viably squandering the limit of the Internet backup. A failover likewise implied all the present sessions would be lost and commonly the failover procedure and time allotment was not exactly perfect.

Another early endeavor was link-holding which totals various last-mile transport administrations. This improved last mile data transmission and excess however didn’t make any advantages for the center mile transfer speed. Working at the link layer, link-holding isn’t itself software-defined networking, however the idea of consolidating various transports made ready for SD-WAN that has demonstrated itself to be an answer for the present computerized change.

How The Problem Is Solved Today

Working off the idea from link-clinging to consolidate various transports and transport types, SD-WAN enhances the idea by moving the usefulness up the stack. SD-WAN totals last-mile administrations, speaking to them as a solitary pipe to the application. The SD-WAN is in charge of making up for contrasts in line quality, organizing access to the administrations, and tending to different issues while accumulating various sorts of lines.

With Cato, we enhance the last mile utilizing a few methods, for example, approach-based steering, crossbreed WAN help, dynamic/dynamic links, bundle misfortune moderation, and QoS (upstream and downstream). Cato can advance traffic on the keep going a mile, yet additionally on the center mile which gives a start to finish improvement to augment throughput on the whole way. The requirement for high accessibility, high data transfer capacity, and execution are accomplished by empowering clients to organize traffic by application type and link quality, and powerfully appoint the most proper link to an application.

The Cato Socket is a zero-contact SD-WAN gadget sent to physical areas. Cato Socket utilizes various Internet links in a functioning/dynamic design to amplify limit, bolsters 4G/LTE links for failover, and applies the separate traffic enhancements and parcel misfortune disposal calculations.

Willem-Jan Herckenrath, Manager ICT for Alewijnse, portrays how Cato Cloud tended to his organization’s network prerequisites with a solitary stage: “We effectively supplanted our MPLS last-mile links with Internet links while keeping up the nature of our superior quality video conferencing framework and our Citrix stage for 2D and 3D CAD over the organization.”

SD-WAN Leads The Way

The highlights and capacities of Cato Cloud engage associations to break free from the requirements of MPLS and Internet-based network last mile difficulties and opens up potential outcomes for improved accessibility, deftness, security, and permeability. Data transfer capacity-hungry applications and relocations to the Cloud have made a WAN change unrest with SD-WAN driving the way.

The post Cato Networks: How SD-WAN Conquers Last Mile Limitations appeared first on MEC Networks Corporation.