As companies adopt cloud applications like Office 365, they need to deliver a fast user experience no matter where their users are located. This sounds like common sense, but in practice, it can be a major challenge, especially over a traditional network architecture.
Most users going to an Internet app from a corporate environment are actually travelling over the corporate network to a central security gateway before going to the Internet and accessing the app. This not only makes for a slow user experience, but it also drives up MPLS use to backhaul the traffic over a wide area network.
Forward-looking network architects are turning to SD-WAN to help them create a direct to Internet connection from their branch offices to reduce backhaul and deliver a faster user. SD-WAN provides centralized management and uses software-defined policies to select the best path to route traffic to the Internet, cloud applications, and the data center.
But implementing local Internet breakouts is not without its roadblocks; chief among them is security. SD-WAN may make it easy to establish local Internet breakouts, but local Internet breakouts need to be secured. SD-WAN partners are turning to the Zscaler cloud platform to deliver the security stack as a cloud service, reducing MPLS backhauling and eliminating costly on-premises security appliances.
One customer, Agilent, turned to Zscaler and SD-WAN partner Viptela to help it take advantage of cloud applications and services. Agilent, a leader in life sciences, diagnostics, and applied chemistry, found that over 60 percent of its traffic was destined for the Internet, but it had little visibility into that traffic. The company needed a cost-effective way to enable local breakouts for its 120 locations and provide consistent security for all its Internet-bound traffic.
With Zscaler and Viptela SD-WAN, the Agilent IT team has found that it is able to respond more rapidly to changing business requirements. Pascal Heger, global network architect for Agilent, estimates that there has been an 80 percent improvement in turnaround time when new capabilities are provisioned on the network, along with a notable increase in application reliability and performance. “Zscaler has demonstrated their leadership and ability to secure SD-WAN and enable local Internet breakouts from branch offices,” said Heger. “This has fundamentally transformed our cost structure and enabled us to confidently realize the benefits of operational efficiency and scalability around the globe.”
Read the Agilent Case Study
Today, Zscaler supports a robust ecosystem of SD-WAN partners, featuring jointly validated solutions with Citrix, InfoVista, Nuage Networks, Riverbed, Silver Peak, Talari Networks, VeloCloud, and Viptela. These joint solutions offer customers the confidence to adopt new network architectures for Internet-only branches with speed and ease, without compromising security. Learn more about Zscaler’s Jointly Validated Solutions for securing SD-WAN.
