Zscaler, the leading cloud security company, recently announced the expansion of its SD-WAN partner ecosystem with the addition of industry players Riverbed, Nuage Networks from Nokia, InfoVista, and Talari Networks.
As applications leave the data center for the cloud and more traffic is destined for the Internet, companies are turning to SD-WAN to route traffic locally over the Internet to reduce backhaul over dedicated links and deliver a faster user experience. SD-WAN provides centralized management and uses software-defined policies to select the best path to route traffic to the Internet, cloud applications, and the data center.
According to Gartner, By 2020, more than 50% of WAN edge infrastructure refresh initiatives will be based on SD-WAN versus traditional routers, up from less than 5% today.
SD-WAN makes it easy to establish local Internet breakouts, but local Internet breakouts need to be secured. SD-WAN partners are turning to the Zscaler cloud platform to deliver the security stack as a cloud service, reducing MPLS backhauling and eliminating costly on-premises security appliances, said the company.
Zscaler offers jointly validated solutions with trusted SD-WAN partners Citrix, InfoVista, Nuage Networks, Riverbed, Silver Peak, Talari Networks, VeloCloud, and Viptela. These joint solutions offer customers the confidence to adopt new network architectures for Internet-only branches with speed and ease, without compromising security.
Punit Minocha, VP of Business and Corporate Development, Zscaler
Today’s cloud applications break traditional hub and spoke architectures. Apps like Office 365 and Azure require direct Internet connections to deliver a fast user experience, and organizations are turning to SD-WAN to provide those direct connections in their branch offices.