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SD-WAN: The Key to Working Securely in 2021

SD-WAN: The Key to Working Securely in 2021 Image Credit: ktsdesign/Bigstockphoto.com

As we entered 2020, it was easy to foresee that SD-WAN would continue to be a crucial component in enterprise digital transformation across many verticals. The driving forces were clear and included aspects such as corporate applications shifting from private to hybrid or public cloud, the move from branch- to cloud-centric networking, the demand to support ‘any-to-any’ traffic patterns (both inside and outside the enterprise perimeter) and support for sustained traffic growth while working within restricted budgets.

SD-WAN has continued to see a rapid increase in adoption throughout the year as enterprises have not only realized the importance of a software-defined infrastructure, but it’s also seen as a means to grapple with the unexpected impact of many employees transitioning to remote work due to the global pandemic. Even as we anticipate the start of 2021, many companies are still working to adapt to our ‘new normal’ - and some are preparing to extend or even permanently shift to a fully remote workforce.

With this in mind, three trends emerged in 2020 which have been amplified by COVID-19 and the business environment of the ‘new normal,’ and are anticipated to continue driving growth for SD-WAN in the new year and beyond:

  1. A semi-permanent remote workforce calls for a more elegant, integrated network solution that scales seamlessly. Expect to see a continued increase in adoption of ‘branch at home,’ which moves beyond occasional VPN access with massive over-subscription.
  2. Prioritizing mobile user integration into corporate networks; because the office needs to be wherever the user is, and many of those users will be back in motion at some point in 2021.
  3. Network security has evolved from a branch/perimeter focus to a user/application focus. With enterprise applications, data in the cloud and users having the potential to work from anywhere, the need for network connectivity and security to be ever-present will follow.

#1: Branch at home: the new way to WFH

The most significant benefit of an SD-WAN-powered ‘branch at home,’ versus a traditional remote VPN client-based solution, is that the former provides an isolated business networking environment that is shielded from the consumer-grade network deployed in the household for personal use.

This isolated environment, which can be thought of as a micro-branch, can support multiple business devices (desktop, laptops, tablet, printer etc.) and appears identical on the enterprise WAN to a traditional physical branch office. After business devices connect to the SD-WAN gateway, all further decisions on where traffic can go and which applications can be accessed are centrally managed by the enterprise IT/networking team.

A ‘branch at home’ solution provides business leaders peace of mind that their staff’s home environments are as secure as the office – providing reassurance that sensitive business workflows are being completed securely, such as when:

  1. Working on intellectual property, business/product strategy or research and development
  2. Handling sensitive customer information
  3. Interacting with customers via call center and customer care functions

With possible use cases for ‘branch at home’ varying as much as the industry verticals that need home-based business network access, and future business environments featuring strong teleworking culture, the need for robust, scalable and secure home-based teleworking will continue to grow in 2021.

#2: Extend policy frameworks to mobile and IoT devices

Lindsay Newell
Head of
Marketing, Nuage
Networks,
Nokia  

The SD-WAN market is budding with the opportunity to bring cellular-connected mobile device users under the same application policy and security framework already being supplied to cloud, branch and teleworking environments.

Any ‘on-the-move’ corporate assets, including mobile phones and tablets, have traditionally been controlled via a separate set of IT tools focused on Mobile Device Management (MDM). This results in a unique domain with different IT policies from devices connected to the network in the branch, even when being used by the same employee.

By extending the SD-WAN policy enforcement framework used for cloud and branch IT assets to corporate mobile devices as well as to BYOD users, enterprises can standardize their IT policies and centrally manage all devices – resulting in a more seamless user experience and a more secure, robust perimeter.

A comparable approach can be taken with cellular connected IoT devices and sensors; allowing the consolidation of both IT and Operational Technology (OT) assets into a unified management domain with consistent network security, policy enforcement and application visibility.

#3: Post-pandemic network security

The final SD-WAN trend for our post-pandemic world in 2021 is a reimagination of how and where security is implemented across connected devices in the cloud, employees’ homes, the corporate office or on the go – once restrictions are lifted – via cellular connection.

Enterprise security has traditionally been deployed with a perimeter-based architecture. In this approach, WAN traffic is directed to central security appliances via a hub-and-spoke network topology, which worked well when all applications were hosted in corporate data centers and external traffic was limited. But today our modern, cloud-centric IT environments operate best with direct-to-cloud network topologies; which provide a direct, efficient path between employee devices and the business application, regardless of location. The result: a more mesh-oriented architecture with embedded security policies in the SD-WAN service that can be enabled for an individual user accessing a specific application remotely, rather than being tied to a firewall deployed at a specific physical location.

The industry is adopting Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) as the term for this evolution, which works in tandem with the SD-WAN infrastructure to provide a unified security framework for any user, device and application, regardless of location.

#4: The SD-WAN era continues

In the early days of SD-WAN, decisions were driven by strategic requirements such as replacing legacy equipment or reducing cost. Now, most forward-thinking enterprises are evaluating SD-WAN against their strategic IT goals that boost the digital transformation of the business, and with it, SD-WAN solutions are expanding to encompass ‘branch at home,’ mobile users, IoT devices and the SASE framework.

In 2021, this will provide enterprise network architects additional opportunities to implement a scalable and flexible network platform that can serve the business needs of all functions and employees across all device types for years to come.

Author

Lindsay currently leads the global marketing team for Nuage Networks from Nokia. He is responsible for all marketing and communications activities, including strategy, campaigns and content as well as co-marketing with Service Providers delivering SD-WAN solutions using Nuage Networks products and technology. Lindsay has been based in Silicon Valley for the past 20 years, leading product marketing for Nortel’s Enterprise Switching business, marketing at start-up TiMetra Networks, marketing at Alcatel’s IP Division, and product marketing for the Fixed, Wireless, IP/Optical and Software/Services businesses of Alcatel-Lucent. He began his career in the UK in various roles spanning network support, technical consulting and pre-sales and holds an HND in Electronics from City of Bath Technical College in England.

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