Silver Peak SDWAN basics

Why to learn and adopt Silver Peak SDWAN

Business intent drives your applications, not your network, and network resources are priority-driven to match the business criticality of every application.

• Top-down approach: performance, security and routing dictated by top-down business policy, not bottoms-up network constraints
• Application-specific routing: ensures business intent overlays power a virtual WAN for every class of application
• Centralized orchestration: delivers sophisticated management and reporting

Learn the Basics of Silver Peak in this course .

Business-first Networking Model vs. Basic SD-WAN

In the past few years, the industry has seen more than 60 companies market SD-WAN as part of their offerings. Most include basic SD-WAN features such as the ability to use multiple forms of transport, dynamic path selection, centralized management, zero-touch provisioning and encrypted connections. However, they do not deliver on the vision of a business-first networking model. A business-driven SD-WAN follows the tenets of the top down, business-first networking model described earlier. There are some key differences:

Lifecycle Orchestration and Automation — Most basic SD-WAN offerings provide some level of zero-touch provisioning. However, most do not provide full end-to-end orchestration of all WAN edge functions such as routing, security services including service chaining to advanced third-party security services and WAN optimization. A business-first networking model provides full orchestration and lifecycle management of all WAN functions. When the enterprise deploys a new application or when a QoS or security policy change is required, a business-first networking model centrally configures and implements the required changes to the WAN in a few hours instead of weeks or months.

Continuous self-learning — A basic SD-WAN solution steers traffic according to pre-defined rules, usually programmed via templates. However, to deliver optimal application performance under any network condition, a business-driven SD-WAN continuously monitors and self-learns the state of the network to deliver optimal application performance, even when network changes, congestion or impairments occur. A self-learning SD-WAN not only detects a resource deterioration or an outage, for example a WAN transport service or even a third-party cloud security service, it automatically remediates to keep traffic flowing while maintaining continuous compliance with business policy.

Consistent Quality of Experience — A key benefit of an SD-WAN solution is the ability to actively use multiple forms of WAN transport. A basic solution can direct traffic on an application basis down a single path, and if that path fails, or is underperforming, it can dynamically redirect to a better performing link. However, with many basic solutions, failover times around outages measures in the tens of seconds or longer, often resulting in perceptible — and annoying — application interruption. A business-driven SD-WAN more intelligently monitors and manages transport services. It has the ability to overcome the problems of packet loss, latency and jitter to deliver the highest levels of application performance and Quality of Experience to users, even when WAN transport services are impaired. A business-driven SD-WAN handles a total transport outage seamlessly and provides imperceptible, sub-second failovers that don’t interrupt business-critical applications such as voice and video communications.

End-to-end Segmentation — While basic SD-WANs provide the equivalent of a VPN service, a business-driven SD-WAN provides more comprehensive, end-to-end security capabilities. In addition to supporting a zone-based firewall within the platform, the SD-WAN platform should orchestrate and enforce end-to-end segmentation spanning the LAN-WAN-Data center. Centrally configured security policies are far more consistent — due to far fewer human errors — than with a device-centric WAN model or a basic SD-WAN model that often require configuring policies device-by-device. If a policy requires a change, it is programmed once with a business-driven SD-WAN and pushed to 100s or even 1000s of nodes across the network, providing a significant increase in operational efficiency.

Direct internet breakout to cloud applications — Many basic SD-WANs provide some application classification capabilities based on fixed definitions and manually scripted ACLs to send SaaS and IaaS traffic directly across the internet. This approach might work fine when initially deployed, but cloud applications change constantly. A business-driven SD-WAN must keep pace by continuously adapting to these changes, doing so with daily application definition and IP address updates. If they are not updated, the application breaks, users are disrupted and satisfaction sinks as does productivity.

Holistic unification of all WAN edge functions — The WAN edge consists of a number of network services and functions including routing, WAN optimization, a multitude of security services, connectivity to DNS servers, application and network performance monitoring, load balancing and more. Many of these network services or functions are well-suited to be unified within a single SD-WAN platform. However, more sophisticated functions often require specialized technologies. To support all of the WAN edge requirements at branch offices, the SD-WAN should be able to seamlessly service-chain with network functions provided by industry segment leaders. This requires not only extensive business partnerships but oftentimes, custom developments that simplify and streamline the integration of network functions with the SD-WAN platform.