Thursday, March 28, 2024

march, 2024

Executive Viewpoint 2019 Prediction: Versa Networks – Enterprise Networking Catches up to Cloud Computing with Secure SD-WAN Capabilities

The demand on digital networks is greater than ever. We want to stream, connect, communicate, compute, and process everything — and we want to make it faster, more reliable, and more secure. But budgets are tighter, cyber talent is harder to retain, and hackers are working overtime. Enterprises are heavily invested in digital transformation and seeking more efficient and effective ways to automate control, enforce policy, and prepare for the next disruption.

As innovative products and services continue to rise from the convergence of cloud-native business models and platforms, mobility, and IoT implementations, we expect to see complementary advances in enterprise networking:

Simplified administrator and user experience

Following on the success of cloud computing and SaaS-led transformations, the consumerization of IT in enterprise networking and WAN Edge is picking up steam. We expect enterprises will want the same easy set up and configuration that’s already available from smart home routers like the popular “eero”. As everything about networking continues to scale up and out, management and configuration must get more plug-and-play. The next two years will see a lot of activity and offerings around streamlining network implementation, especially for the WAN and cloud edge, branches and IoT initiatives. Enterprises embracing agile development will want to serve branch connectivity, networking and security services the same way they spin up web servers and cloud instances.

Contextual intelligence powers fine-tuned control

Evolved IT infrastructure should allow differentiated delivery and policies based on users, location, application and other variables. A CXO who travels frequently and works across multiple offices requires a different experience than the newly hired copywriter at headquarters. Global policies are an important baseline, but enabling more nuanced and contextualized control is especially important for cloud-. Current solutions require stitching multiple tools together, and don’t meet enterprise thresholds for speed, agility and holistic visibility. Over the next 24 months, we anticipate that enterprises will look for a simpler way of implementing and enforcing contextual policy that cuts across the entire network, not just the WAN edge.

Enterprises require integrated security that extends across the cloud and WAN edge on-premises

While security is already top of mind for all enterprises, current approaches are too resource-intensive and complex to be sustainable to meet the needs of hybrid and multi-cloud/multi-SaaS environments. Security and networking have to be interoperable, with overarching, software-defined visibility and control mechanisms that enable the same policy-based access and data protection throughout hybrid environments, extending to branches and the IoT edge. Additionally, enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU has ramifications for digital enterprises everywhere. Full, multi-function, integrated network security eases compliance and protects everyone from executives to end users.

Micro-segmentation enables finer control, efficient consolidation, and incident containment

Secure SD-WAN can be leveraged to segment the entire network by class of traffic and types of data or privileged communications, essentially setting up intra-enterprise multi-tenancy. Micro-segmentation across LAN, WAN, cloud and data center is a significant preventative maneuver to reduce vulnerabilities and risks rising from both external and internal threats. Segmentation and integrated security can limit the impact of data breaches by keeping ransomware and other kinds of attacks from spreading as quickly, and provides security teams more time to detect, block and purge unfolding exploits. Secondly, segmentation makes it possible to securely consolidate disparate physical environments into a single network; delivering different lines of service (e.g., IT and OT or guest Wi-Fi and business-critical traffic) across the same infrastructure while maintaining isolated management and control.

It’s safe to say that 2019 will be a busy year of experimentation and evolution in the field of enterprise networking. As the streamlining, automating, and integrating of digital systems continues, it becomes clear that simplified, automated contextuali policy-based control over the entire enterprise network infrastructure is more critical than ever before.

Versa Networks

Rob McBride
Rob McBride
Robert McBride is the Director of Enterprise and Telco solutions at Versa Networks, responsible for Versa's software-defined solutions portfolio — SD-WAN, SD-Security and SD-Branch. Rob has spent the last 15+ years designing, marketing, and launching solutions and products spanning SDN/NFV, SD-WAN, Voice (TDM/VoIP), and DC virtualization. He brings a wide range of experience from senior roles in sales engineering, field support, product management and marketing.

Related Articles

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Stay Connected

1,595FansLike
0FollowersFollow
24FollowersFollow
2,892FollowersFollow
0SubscribersSubscribe

Latest News