Cisco has updated its SD-WAN offering by adding network quality of experience (QoE) metrics and identity-based security. The updates are targeted at enterprises prioritizing scalability and optimized network performance.
The latest release adds a new capability to Cisco vAnalytics which provides automation for Microsoft 365 network routing by providing visibility into network QoE metrics and Microsoft telemetry metrics for each available path.
JP Shukla, director of product management for enterprise cloud and SD-WAN at Cisco, explained the addition allows users to access networking metrics on an analytics dashboard.
Shukla said Cisco provides QoE metrics – rankings on a scale from zero to 10 – based on the application family being considered. This allows users to analyze the performance of applications on a per-site basis.
Also new is the Cisco SD-WAN Multi-Region Fabric, which can divide a single Cisco SD-WAN overlay network into multiple regions and a central core-region network for managing inter-regional traffic. The fabric works for both mesh connectivity and hub-and-spoke connectivity models.
“Because of this, we can scale our fabric solution way beyond what anyone else could do. And optimize per region,” Shukla said. “These regions are then connected by your central region.”
Finally, Cisco has improved security by encrypting traffic from end to end.
Shukla said Cisco enables users to make “zero-touch network access-based policies that use usernames and user-group names to configure their networks.”
Cisco also extend the SD-WAN fabric over the private underlay into the cloud. Virtual SD-WAN routers are hosted in transit VPCs/VNETs across Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, and site-to-cloud traffic leverages the private backbone of middle-mile providers like Equinix and Megaport.
For information on all these enhancements, go to https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/sd-wan/index.html
