Effective WAN Transformation Depends on Security

Traditional wide area networks (WANs) were not designed to support the volume and velocity of traffic that is being pushed to branch offices and distributed locations as a result of greater digitalization and distributed applications. These outdated WAN architectures rely on expensive multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) connectivity and centralized security performed by backhauling traffic through the corporate data center. This hub-and- spoke architecture can lead to bottlenecks at the network edge, which results in sluggish performance for end-users—especially under the ever-increasing bandwidth demands that come with digital transformation. Many organizations are choosing software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) solutions to gain better distributed network performance. But all SD-WAN solutions are not created equally—especially when it comes to security considerations.