Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 07 | Page 49

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// FEATURE: SDN

for Vera Wang.“ Aruba’ s SD-WAN solution removes the burden of building out a distributed infrastructure.”

Integrated, best-in-class security and new cloud UTM partnerships

The rise in mobility, IoT devices and cloud-based applications in the branch requires an automated and comprehensive way of approaching security. Aruba is uniquely positioned to provide user and device context for consistent role-based enforcement across the LAN and WAN. Aruba ClearPass policy manager simplifies and automates how policies are applied across different layers of network and application access, removing the need for time-consuming manual configurations.

“ I’ m excited about Aruba’ s edge-to-cloud vision and integrating SD-WAN functionality. This will help us solve our performance and deployment problems at a fraction of the cost,” added Corey Hasberry, IT Manager for Vera Wang.“ Aruba’ s role-based security for our Wi-Fi and WAN infrastructure will help us bring a consistent experience to our employees and customers.”

Additionally, all network traffic within a branch can be forwarded to the Aruba Branch Gateway for deep packet inspection using the built-in stateful firewall. IT organisations can easily assign policies for specific device types to segment their traffic up to the application layer. In a retail environment, this easily helps limit the malicious use of in-store security cameras or designate where a Point of Sale( PoS) device can send traffic.

To solve security vulnerabilities outside the branch perimeter, Aruba has expanded its Aruba 360 security exchange technology partner programme with the addition of Zscaler and new integrations with Check Point Software Technologies and Palo Alto Networks. These ecosystem partners provide cloud-based firewall functionality and unified threat management to secure organisations’ sensitive traffic heading for public Internetbound destinations.

Optimised branch experience: New Aruba Branch Gateway delivers WAN insights and control

Providing improved user experiences starts with delivering unmatched reliability. According to Gartner, a network outage can be more than an inconvenience and evidence shows that these can cost anywhere from US $ 1,000 to US $ 1,000,000 per incident in lost productivity or revenue, depending on location and enterprise use case.

By leveraging context to gain insight into the health of the customers’ entire distributed branch network – wired, wireless and WAN – IT organisations can dynamically optimise the user experience in real-time before any impact to the business occurs.

Embedded in the new Branch Gateway, Aruba’ s unique context-awareness capabilities go beyond granular role-based network access and application security to deliver unmatched quality of service( QoS) experience from the LAN to the WAN. This allows IT professionals to satisfy the needs of end-users while simplifying IT operations.

Additional Branch Gateway features such as policy-based routing and dynamic path selection can now leverage this contextual data and awareness to dynamically route traffic across the WAN based on user, device or group affiliation. For example, retail organisations can easily prioritise PoS system and video traffic versus guest traffic, while hotels can prioritise voice traffic for anyone involved with customer service.

Pricing and availability

Without having to upgrade Aruba access points or switches, IT professionals can integrate new SD-WAN capabilities into their branch networks. Aruba’ s SD-Branch solution is delivered as a part of Aruba Central with subscription-based licenses applied to a branch gateway at each site and a headend gateway hosted centrally.

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