Palo Alto Networks CloudGenix SD-WAN
Deploy and manage any WAN using policies built on business talent
Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) connects your sites and applications over any WAN transport with performance, security, compliance, and agility, managed with business-centric policies, enabling tomorrow's WAN today.
Overview:
CloudGenix Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) is the industry's most complete solution for customers that want to build hybrid networks consisting of MPLS private WANs and commodity Internet connections for cloud application adoption, remote office high availability, application performance, and end-to-end visibility. Powered by CloudGenix Instant-On Networks (ION) devices deployed in locations where visibility and control are desired, CloudGenix SD-WAN allows you to create policies based on business intent rather than a series of fragmented networking features, enables dynamic path selection using the highest performing network, and provides visibility into performance and availability for applications and networks.
A secure application fabric, AppFabric, is established amongst all ION devices, creating a virtual private network (VPN) over every WAN link. Policies are defined that are aligned with your business intent that specify performance, compliance, and security rules for your applications and sites. ION devices will automatically choose the best WAN path for your applications based on business policy and real-time analysis of the application performance metrics and WAN links.
FIGURE 1: CLOUDGENIX AUTOMATICALLY SELECTS THE BEST PATH ACCORDING TO POLICY, WAN HEALTH, AND APPLICATION TRANSACTION PERFORMANCE METRICS.
Features:
USE ANY WAN TRANSPORT
CloudGenix AppFabric gives you the freedom to incorporate any type of WAN into your branch office-including MPLS, broadband Internet, and cellular-allowing you to make connectivity decisions based on the price and performance demanded by each branch office and each application.
SELF-BUILDING, SELF-HEALING NETWORK
CloudGenix ION devices automatically establish secure connectivity amongst your sites and continually monitors the health and performance of WAN links and applications to dynamically choose the best performing path. When a problem arises, AppFabric will automatically self-heal and divert traffic to another appropriate path according to policies you define.
BUSINESS POLICIES, NOT NETWORK CONFIGS
AppFabric is built using top-down policies that map applications, sites, and WAN links to requirements for performance, security, and compliance. No need for complicated routing protocols or lengthy router configs.
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE USER EXPERIENCE
AppFabric allows confident integration of apps regardless of where they reside-in your data center, in the cloud, or as software as a service (SaaS). AppFabric makes sure your users get the best performance possible, and provides insight into how those apps and how your WAN links are performing to address problems when they arise.
HIGH AVAILABILITY AND LOAD-BALANCING
AppFabric takes advantage of all allowed WAN paths for an application. With multiple WAN links, AppFabric provides both high availability and load-balancing meaning WAN links aren't sitting idle waiting for a failure to happen.
Benefits:
The CloudGenix SD-WAN solution provides a wealth of benefits for your business.
IMPLEMENT A SOFTWARE-DEFINED WAN
CloudGenix ION allows you to take advantage of a diverse set of WAN transports including MPLS, LTE, and broadband to build a secure, unified, high-performance, highly-available hybrid WAN for your enterprise. With CloudGenix ION, WAN paths are dynamically selected based on policy and real-time performance measurement while configuration of complex routing protocols and fragmented networking features are virtually eliminated.
CONFIDENTLY DEPLOY CLOUD AND SAAS APPLICATIONS
CloudGenix ION allows you to meet the performance and availability demands that are required when deploying cloud and SaaS applications, including remote office WAN high availability, bandwidth, and consistent latency. With CloudGenix ION, the best path for your cloud and SaaS applications is used, including direct Internet connections, unburdening your private MPLS links while improving end-user performance.
REDUCE REMOTE OFFICE INFRASTRUCTURE
CloudGenix ION can help reduce the number of devices required in remote offices by replacing routers and zone-based firewalls. Any WAN link with an Ethernet connection can be connected directly to the CloudGenix ION; any WAN link with a non-Ethernet connection will require a modem or equipment from your provider to directly connect to the CloudGenix ION. Along with reducing remote office hardware, management and operational costs are reduced.
UNIFY POLICIES ON BUSINESS INTENT
CloudGenix allows you to configure policies for performance, compliance, and security based on business intent rather than low-level network characteristics. By defining policies according to application, sites, and networks, risks of misconfiguration or misinterpretation, commonly encountered when configuring routers and firewalls, is avoided completely. With CloudGenix ION, you can move closer to a software-defined enterprise.
REDUCE DEPENDENCY ON PRIVATE MPLS WANS
CloudGenix ION allows you to take advantage of diverse WAN transports in the remote office and data center, including broadband and LTE. By integrating these transports and defining application policies for performance, private MPLS links can be reserved for internal applications while Internet connections can be used for cloud and SaaS applications. Further, Internet links can be used as primary or backup VPN connections between sites. With CloudGenix ION, your dependency on private MPLS WANs is reduced, creating an opportunity for substantial cost savings.
UNDERSTAND NETWORK HEALTH AND USAGE
CloudGenix ION continually monitors the health and performance of your WAN links within each site and can be viewed within the CloudGenix cloud management portal. With visibility into usage by WAN link type, overall link health, link-level statistics (bandwidth, loss, latency, jitter), top applications, and concurrent flows, you can quickly see how your WAN links are performing and glean actionable insights.
GAIN INSTANT VISIBILITY INTO APPLICATION PERFORMANCE
CloudGenix ION dissects application flows to measure key performance indicators for dynamic path selection and visibility into application performance. CloudGenix provides visibility into the elements contributing to application response time, overall application throughput, quality and health, and transaction statistics. Visibility into these metrics helps understand how applications are performing and identify the root cause of performance issues for data center and cloud applications alike, eliminating finger-pointing.
HOW DOES CLOUDGENIX SD-WAN WORK?
CloudGenix software defined WAN (SD-WAN) with AppFabric connects your sites securely with application awareness to seamlessly integrate cloud, take advantage of broadband Internet, align WAN management with business priority, and reduce remote office hardware and operational costs.
Documentation:
Download the Palo Alto Networks CloudGenix SD-WAN Overview Datasheet (PDF).