Cisco fuses SD-WAN, security and cloud services

Looking to help customers batten down the edge, Cisco is marrying its software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) software with security features while boosting support for cloud services. Many times SD-WAN customers have been forced to choose between adding more security to their SD-WAN at the expense of application performance or vice-versa, said Ramesh Prabagaran senior director of product management at Cisco. “We are looking to help customers solve the security and complexity problems at the cloud edge where networking, security and multicloud environments meet,” he said. What Cisco is doing is adding support for its Umbrella security system to its SD-WAN software which runs on top of the IOS XE operating system that powers its core branch, campus and enterprise routers and switches. Cisco describes Umbrella as a cloud-delivered secure internet gateway, that stops current and emergent threats over all ports and protocols. It blocks access to malicious domains, URLs, IPs, and files before a connection is ever established or a file downloaded. It basically protects customers and communications at theDomain Name Server (DNS) layer.    Umbrella’s key features come from OpenDNS which Cisco bought for $635 million in 2015. OpenDNS offers a cloud service that prevents customers from connecting to dangerous internet IP addresses such as those known to be associated with criminal activity, botnets, and malicious downloads.