SD-Branch What is SD-Branch?
SD-Branch is a solution that delivers a simple way to centrally automate the deployment, management, and operation of your wired, wireless, WAN, and security infrastructure under a single, software-defined framework for policy and segmentation to meet today’s IT, users, IoT devices, and business needs.
More than SD-WAN, SD-Branch addresses the entire remote branch experience from the edge to the cloud to the core, with strong security and software-defined performance benefits.
- How does SD-Branch work?
- Why SD-Branch?
- Is SD-Branch right for you?
- Key capabilities of SD-Branch
How does SD-Branch work?
Think of SD-Branch as enterprise SD-WAN + SD-LAN (wired and wireless networking) + edge-to-cloud security, all within a software-defined framework, centrally managed from the cloud, and designed to meet the needs of organizations with hundreds or thousands of branch locations.
A cloud-managed solution simplifies the management and operations of the full-stack of networking capabilities within each branch location, as well as connectivity across the WAN. Networking components managed by SD-Branch include branch gateways, headend gateways and cloud virtual gateways, local wireless access points, and switches.
Why SD-Branch?
SD-WAN alone can’t deliver high-end experiences for end users and IT teams alike. Simplifying IT operations from the edge to the core requires rethinking the approach to branch networking and security. IT needs a comprehensive solution that includes WAN and LAN management to ensure end-to-end security and reduce complexity—at scale—and without dedicated onsite IT staff.
SD-Branch benefits include:
- Visibility, automation, and security at the branch to enhance productivity for IT and users.
- A simpler, faster approach to replace MPLS links and reduce WAN management costs.
- An optimized user experience regardless of where users connect or which apps they use.
- Zero Trust and SASE frameworks to address the broadest range of use cases.
Is SD-Branch right for you?
SD-Branch can help your organization address the following issues:
- Tackle network complexity across disparate systems for wired, wireless, WAN, and security
- Reduce onsite branch IT support
- Simplify and automate secure multi-cloud connectivity to leading cloud providers
- Reduce troubleshooting time and effort
- Set up networking at new branch locations in minutes
- Decrease budget sensitivity, especially for small/micro branch installations
- Eliminate resource-intensive and error-prone VLAN-enforced security configurations
Key capabilities of SD-Branch
SD-Branch includes the following critical capabilities:
- Centralized Management—A single pane-of-glass provides unified management, AIOps, and security for wired, wireless, and SD-WAN and includes a centralized software licensing model.
- Simplified Deployment—Zero-touch provisioning with an installer app reduces the time, cost, and complexity of installing branch office networks.
- Dynamic Segmentation—Enforces context-aware zero trust policies, eliminating manual configuration of numerous VLANs with a single VLAN deployment.
- SD-WAN Orchestration—Automatically sets up IPsec tunnels between gateways, building the SD-WAN overlay for very large networks.
- End to End QoS—Provides application visibility and policy enforcement for over 3200 applications from Wi-Fi to WAN to the cloud.
- SaaS and IaaS acceleration—Dynamically identifies optimal paths for high priority SaaS applications and virtual gateways for AWS and Azure tunnels.
- Role Based Policy—Enforces security and also defines WAN policies.
- Unified Security—Embraces a scalable, flexible, Zero Trust and SASE methodology from edge-to-cloud, LAN, and WAN. Flexibility for organizations to adopt SASE at their own pace.