Cisco is Evolving its SD-WAN and SASE Offerings

SASE and Cisco Engineers
SASE and Cisco Engineers

Cisco and SASE:

As a service, SASE provides SD-WAN capabilities and security.

Does the future of network security lay with SASE? The SASE system enables all employees to connect directly with the world.

Often, IT offices are confident in local environments, cloud computing, and adaptability.

It helps in moving data and applications to the public cloud. So the data can be accessed from anywhere. Companies can lease devices and network devices for communication.

Beyond simplifying access and the administration of the technology, SASE is expected to deliver a host of other benefits through integrating networking and security.

How the top vendors of SD-WAN and SASE are evolving

SD-WAN vendors are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. They are investing heavily in new capabilities that extend enterprise edge everywhere workers go. A branch office, a campus, a co-working space, mobile devices, etc.

The main trend in SD-WAN technology is the integration of both networking and security functions into one platform. Now called Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) by most vendors.

With SASE, a term coined by Gartner in 2019, SD-WAN can be combined with key security services. They include encryption, anti-malware, and firewalls. Firewalls-as-a-Service (FWaaS), Data Leak Prevention (DLP), Secure Internet Gateway (SIG), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).

Despite SASE’s leading vendors’ agreement with Gartner’s table stakes, they are also looking to gain a competitive advantage. It is only possible by developing innovative features, such as 5G networks. AIOps integration for automated troubleshooting and remediation as well as advanced practices- and context-based security.

Cisco: Orchestration and Automation

Market Position:

Cisco is an enormous company that produces so many different products. Each product line has different competitors. In some way, even “Facebook” is considered a competitor. Cisco is the main player in the market. It leads the market in almost every product line it produces. 

Let’s have a look at some product lines’ main competitors:

Starting with switching as the biggest product line for Cisco. HP is their main competitor then comes Dell, Juniper, Huawei, Brocade, Extreme, and Arista.

The vendor holds a 37% market share of the SD-WAN market. Its SD-WAN revenue will be $630.3 million in the first half of 2021, an increase of 20.3% from the same period in 2020, according to IDC.

Cisco SD-WAN revenue comes from internal SD-WAN development and several strategic acquisitions. That includes Meraki (2012), Viptela (2017), Duo Security (2018), and ThousandEyes (2020).

Current SD-WAN / SASE offerings:

SD-WAN options are available from Cisco. Among them are Meraki SD-WAN devices. The devices that connect to branch offices and public clouds automatically provided IPsec VPNs. And also SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp, a SaaS offering that links branches, colocation centers, and various clouds.

In Cisco’s cloud-managed SASE, networking, security, and observability are all integrated. Over the last few months, Cisco has added online health checks and GIS service levels. It sends proactive notifications if a GIS connection worsens. The Layer 7 Application Health Check helps customers automatically perform service level agreements.

Security for SaaS traffic can also be provided by Cisco Cloud OnRamp with Cisco Umbrella policy-based routing. ThousandEyes integration with Cisco SD-WAN allows Cisco to measure, test, and report on the connectivity and condition of internet circuits.

We all know that cloud technology is growing at a rapid pace and nowadays small organizations don’t want to buy and manage their own servers. So they are switching to clouds where the cloud owner will provide the user or organization with certain services.

They can be Database as a service, Security as a service, identity management as a service, etc.

If you choose Saas, you get infrastructure + O.S. + applications so you just need to customize the application in the initial phase, and then you are good to go. This is generally chosen by end-users.

New Features:

Cisco announced the Meraki Umbrella SD-WAN Connector in January, which combines networking and security into a SaaS offering. In organizations that have both Meraki MX and Umbrella SIG licenses, the Meraki Umbrella SD-WAN connector simplifies the implementation of cloud security in distributed locations. In the management dashboard, it’s just a matter of clicking a few buttons.

Cisco added Meraki’s virtual MX appliances (vMX) to the Google Cloud Platform in February. With Auto VPN, organizations can now securely connect branch offices to GCP resources through physical MX devices.

Additionally, Cisco’s SD-WAN portfolio includes cloud-native, zero-trust security tools. To secure access to applications without passwords, Duo Passwordless Authentication uses platform authenticators and device security keys.

Roadmap:

Cisco released a preview of an upcoming add-on for the Duo Network Gateway (DNG), Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) support. Remote access will be possible without VPN, secured with risk-based authentication including device attitude assessment and access control.

MSPs and large corporations will be targeted by Cisco’s SD-WAN enhancements. In addition to simplifying large-scale implementations, these new features will enable new services.

Investing in SD-WAN / SASE will focus on gathering orchestration beyond secure connections and application experiences. Cisco also plans to invest more in automating AI / ML-driven predictive inferences. So the network infrastructure responds to application requirements in real-time.

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is a cloud-based network model that combines both cloud networking (Network-as-a-service) and cloud network security (Network-security-as-a-service) technologies into a single framework.

Engineers working together in the field

On Fieldengineer.com, you can find one of the best freelancers for on-demand engineering. Join today and hire Cisco-certified network engineers from 195 countries. They are ready to connect with employers who offer the perfect opportunities.

As long as people can promote their skills and connect to their audience, the gig economy will continue to grow drastically. Moreover, businesses can hire talents from all over the world without worrying about the cost of training or extra costs for the benefits provides.

But in this economy, with these opportunities at our literal fingertips, most of us have dipped into freelancing at some point, or we should be.

Our SD-WAN trained engineers and technical personnel will help you in deploying, implementing, operating, and optimizing Cisco SD-WAN solution (Viptela), both in enterprise and Service Provider environments, including advanced features for Multi-tenant deployment, QoS, application performance routing, configuration templates, control policies and troubleshooting common operating issues. 

Where can I find SD-WAN managed service price?

The general opinion around something being cheaper is that it must be worse, however, SD-WAN is arguably a better option than MPLS regardless of cost. Traffic routes in an MPLS have to be provisioned, so once done it’s a nightmare trying to make changes.

You can get all the details on this from the FieldEngineer website. They are providing the best SD-WAN/MPLS SASE-based services at an affordable price.

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