What Makes a WAN Truly Secure?

I've always known Aryaka Networks as service provider with a different approach to enterprise networks—they don’t neatly fit into categories like facilities-based carrier or managed service provider.

When Aryaka’s Chief Product Officer Renuka Nadkarni agreed to join me on TeleGeography Explains the Internet, I quickly had a list of questions mapped about their place in the WAN landscape.

This episode covers how Aryaka approaches the WAN across different services like network, WAN optimization, SD-WAN, and security. We also get a chance to chat about the state of the modern WAN, the forces that have changed it, and how those changes impact how one should think about security.

With an extensive background in security, Renuka has a clear and interesting take on what a secure WAN truly is. And what it means to adopt SASE for your WAN.

I appreciated her insights—and I think you will, too.

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Key Takeaways

WAN modernization today requires integrating security, going beyond just SD-WAN.

While SD-WAN is a starting point for WAN modernization, it's not enough to meet modern demands.

The changing landscape, with users and applications dispersed, necessitates ubiquitous and consistent security policies.

The journey toward SASE, a framework driven by these changes, typically starts with an SD-WAN base, followed by integrating firewall capabilities and then SWG capabilities like URL filtering, anti-malware, and anti-virus. 

Despite the move toward the internet, there's still a need for a reliable, deterministic WAN solution.

Relying solely on the public internet introduces variability, such as packet loss, geopolitical issues (like the China firewall or conflicts), and physical disruptions like undersea cable cuts.

Such events can impact business reliability, revenue, and user experience. This reliability is crucial now that the network is increasingly a driver of business, not just a cost.