Barracuda and Microsoft have announced a new secure SD-WAN service built natively on Microsoft Azure that the companies hope will spur greater public cloud adoption while addressing security challenges. The announcement comes less than a week before Microsoft Inspire 2020, an annual worldwide partner conference that will be held virtually this year.
In the recent report "Secure SD-WAN: The Launch Pad into Cloud," Barracuda found that SD-WAN is being used by more than half of those who have added security to their public cloud. The report explains that "SD-WAN can help overcome the top two security challenges organizations are facing when it comes to public cloud: lack of access control and backhauling traffic."
Barracuda CloudGen WAN allows companies and service providers to create a pragmatic Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution in public clouds, according to a statement from Microsoft and Barracuda. This could pave the way for greater public cloud utilization, and enable enterprises, service providers and MSPs to shift quickly to public cloud deployments without compromising security, the company said.
Security and Pragmatism
Secure SD-WAN services built natively on the cloud combine ease of use, full security, and cloud-scalable SD-WAN connectivity to use the Microsoft Global Network as the WAN backbone instead of leased lines, according to Microsoft and Barracuda.
The new Barracuda CloudGen WAN is a highly scalable SaaS service deployed directly from the Azure Marketplace and administered centrally in the CloudGen WAN portal for all office locations and remote endpoints. Since the Microsoft Global Network is automatically provisioned as the backbone for anywhere, anytime application access, service providers can create a pragmatic SASE solution in the public cloud tailored to their specific needs, Microsoft said.
The Barracuda CloudGen WAN service is the first SD-WAN solution that runs inside Azure Virtual WAN Hubs. Those hubs can be interconnected through the Microsoft Global Network to replace more expensive and less flexible network connectivity circuits, according to Microsoft, and options are available to bill hourly through Azure Marketplace, Microsoft said. Since the entire network can be dynamically sized to match current traffic workload, the solution also can optimize network performance and minimize cost.
"With an all-in-one, secure SD-WAN solution natively built on the public cloud network, enterprises can finally make the shift to more public cloud deployments, both faster and more securely," said Hatem Naguib, COO at Barracuda, in the statement.
SD-WAN Services: Busy Week
Multiple companies made SD-WAN moves this week. For instance, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) this acquired SD-WAN specialist Silver Peak to diversify beyond traditional data center hardware, and Fortinet unveiled its own SD-WAN for multi-cloud services.
