SD-WAN is a technology built to connect people and places more efficiently. The initial gains in SD-WAN were about creating secure connectivity between locations with a minimum of effort. Then came the layering of analytics and application monitoring. We now find ourselves in a position where our branch offices and satellite locations enjoy connections that are fast, reliable, and secure. But what happens when we need to connect to something that isn’t owned by us?
The Push For Cloud
Applications and their developers are increasing making the push for cloud computing. Universal locations plus the lure of unlimited resources for development are a siren’s call that is difficult to ignore. Additionally, the relative cost for operating hardware in the cloud is increasing operational budgets and reducing the need for large capital expenditure projects every 5-7 years.
However, when organizations start moving toward the cloud, they give up something they’ve fought very hard to implement for years: control. With SD-WAN, network admins could create control from chaos. Take Quality of Service (QoS) as an example. QoS is a great thing for sites that control end-to-end connectivity. Once you launch a packet outside your area of control, you give up the ability to trust any treatment that packet receives. In fact, in most provider organizations, the best practice policy is to remark packets for “best effort” treatment unless an expensive SLA has been negotiated.
SD-WAN has helped organizations expand their zones of control. But how does that help when we move to the cloud? Users in our organization are still at the mercy of the network infrastructure on the cloud side of the equation. How can we help to improve the networking there in order to help our user experience?
Viptela Cloud onRamp
Viptela has developed a solution that gives you all the advantages of SD-WAN in a package for the cloud. Viptela Cloud onRamp contains a set of tools to help you extend your SD-WAN experience into AWS or Microsoft Azure. Cloud onRamp works no matter whether you’re doing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
Cloud onRamp for IaaS is build about Viptela’s vEdge Cloud Router platform. This software router can be deployed at the cloud edge to allow the Viptela Fabric to extend inside your cloud network. This way, your branch offices can connect directly to cloud resources without the need to connect back through your main HQ location through a VPN tunnel. This connectivity also allows for high availability for the cloud, so if your vEdge Cloud Router looses a connection point, it can be quickly rerouted to continue to provide service to your worldwide branches.
Cloud onRamp for IaaS is also managed via Viptela vManage. This management application allows administrators to manage their deployed vEdge Cloud Routers in various cloud platforms as well as their connections to the Viptela Fabric. Admins can quickly determine how many devices have been deployed and which branch locations they are connected to. This gives them the capability of quick troubleshooting as well as easy auditing.
But what if you have a SaaS focus? Instead of using AWS for all your needs, you have decided to use Office 365 and Salesforce in the cloud. How can Viptela help when you don’t even own the infrastructure? Viptela is one step ahead of you with Viptela Cloud onRamp for SaaS.
Cloud onRamp for SaaS uses a different kind of gateway for your traffic. Instead of connecting directly into the cloud, these Cloud onRamp SaaS Gateways are doing constant application monitoring. They measure response times, latency, and a whole host of additional metrics to intelligently know which path is the best to take to keep your users happy with their SaaS experience. Best of all, these gateways function just like vEdge Cloud Routers in vManage, so you can monitor and audit them to keep your user experience at the high quality possible.
Real-World Use
Viptela has already had success with Cloud onRamp by deploying it with Kindred Healthcare. The developers at Kindred can use Cloud onRamp to extend their development environment into Microsoft Azure to create hybrid cloud applications and serve their users more efficiently. This is a huge boon for organizations that find themselves embracing more of their own development instead of farming out that development work to providers. Giving your in-house developers a secure, simple way to extend into the cloud and utilize those resources increases productivity and ensures your users will be happy with the rapid results they see.
For more information about Viptela and their Cloud onRamp solutions, please make sure to visit http://viptela.com/cloud-onramp/
