Would an SD-WAN by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?

As we dig into technical standards and definitions, MEF has come up several times on this show. It was only a matter of time before we put them in the hot seat.

In our latest conversation, Greg welcomes MEF CTO Pascal Menezes to walk us through the work the MEF is doing on standardizing the enterprise network.

Why is SD-WAN certification a good idea? How is the WAN developing? What is MEF doing in the Zero Trust Security and SASE space? Listen in to find out.

Key Takeaways

SD-WAN's core value lies in decoupling network layers and providing application awareness and centralized policy control.

SD-WAN decouples the underlay network (like internet, MPLS, etc.) from the overlay, allowing enterprises to use diverse transport types.

Its most important value is meeting application objectives by allowing users to specify application type and desired performance, rather than configuring complex network policies. The SD-WAN environment uses its overlays and multiple links to automatically traffic steer and meet these performance objectives.

The convergence of SD-WAN, SASE, and Zero Trust is driven by enterprise demand for frictionless, secure access to cloud services.

Enterprises want a frictionless environment for users to access services (mainly in the cloud), demanding both application performance guarantees and cyber security guarantees.

The rise of cybercrime and the need to secure users outside traditional corporate boundaries—like working from home or coffee shops—have made SASE and Zero Trust top priorities. MEF is actively standardizing SASE and Zero Trust to remove confusion by defining constructs, framework, vocabulary, and language.