SD-WAN innovations

Silver Peak has introduced a series of advancements to the business-driven Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform. New capabilities include multi-fabric orchestration and management, one-click automation with leading cloud services, advanced segmentation and cloud-scale connectivity, enabling the world’s largest cloud-first enterprises to scale, automate and simplify the configuration, deployment and management of a modern WAN edge to 10,000 sites and beyond. 

“As the digital-transformation initiatives and cloud strategies of large enterprises mature and become increasingly sophisticated, SD-WAN offerings must be capable not only of scaling to accommodate large numbers of sites but also of providing multi-tenant and segmentation capabilities that the world’s largest enterprise customers demand for control, manageability, and consistent security across multi-cloud environments,” said Brad Casemore, vice president of research, datacentre networks at IDC. “With the latest enhancements to its Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN platform, Silver Peak is responding to the evolving requirements of its largest enterprise customers.”

Cloud-scale multi-tenant SD-WAN orchestration

The new Unity Orchestrator Global Enterprise management software is designed expressly for large-scale global enterprises with multiple divisions, business units or subsidiaries that each require a dedicated SD-WAN fabric. Each fabric can be individually orchestrated and managed, providing enterprises with centralised network-wide visibility and control, including aggregated observability of the entire network. Orchestrator Global Enterprise key capabilities include:

• Single sign-on view to all SD-WAN fabrics
• Secure orchestration-as-a-service
• Centralised alarm view across all SD-WAN fabrics
• Fabric independent software versioning, maintenance and upgrade cycles
• Granular role-based access control for network administrators

One-click automation with leading cloud services

As cloud-first enterprises continue to scale EdgeConnect deployments, they are also seeking to simplify network management through advanced automation. This is particularly true as it relates to configuring, deploying and enforcing consistent security policies across all network locations. Together with ecosystem security partners Zscaler and Check Point Software, network administrators can now automate the configuration of IPsec tunnels from branch locations to the nearest cloud-delivered security Point of Presence (POP) with a single drag and drop click within the Silver Peak Unity Orchestrator management interface. 

This level of advanced one-click automation now extends to public cloud workloads hosted in Microsoft Azure IaaS instances, enabling network managers to automatically identify, classify and onboard Azure-destined traffic to the nearest Microsoft Virtual WAN on-ramp in proximity to each branch location, assuring the highest quality of experience for application users. This combination of advanced one-click automation ensures consistent security and application policy enforcement across all WAN locations, reducing configuration time from hours to minutes and making IT more responsive to the business.

Advanced segmentation for the cloud-first enterprise

Silver Peak has reimagined virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) for the modern cloud-first enterprise, thoughtfully unifying advanced segmentation capabilities into the EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform. New VRF capabilities tie seamlessly with existing zone-based stateful firewall and Network Address Translation (NAT) capabilities, enabling network managers to apply advanced segmentation to routes and application traffic with just a few mouse clicks within the Orchestrator management interface. Network managers can now configure and manage separate addressing, routing and security policies consistently across end-to-end segments and micro-segments for traffic traversing large-scale multinational enterprises and federations of independent companies. Advanced segmentation eliminates the arduous task of manually stitching together VRF, firewall and NAT policies in a consistent manner, dramatically simplifying the management of diverse scenarios and providing unprecedented flexibility when contending with overlapping IP address spaces.

Cloud-scale 25G connectivity

The EdgeConnect Extra Large (EC-XL) regional hub and data centre 1U appliance is now orderable with up to six dual 10G/25G interfaces, aligning with an industry transition from 10G to 25G and enabling cloud-first enterprises to scale in line with increasing premises bandwidth requirements.

“As global enterprises shift IT spending toward modern cloud applications and services, many are coming to the realisation that a no-compromise WAN transformation strategy is required to achieve a multiplier effect on these investments,” said Damon Ennis, senior vice president of products at Silver Peak. “The Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform, with today’s expanded capabilities, is uniquely engineered to address the changing requirements of cloud-first enterprises, enabling them to scale, automate and extend SD-WAN deployments across multiple fabrics and cloud instances, while maintaining centralised control and complete observability of the WAN.”