Overview of AT&T SD-WAN
AT&T SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) is a sophisticated networking solution designed to enhance the performance, security, and agility of enterprise and small business networks. This solution leverages software-defined networking to manage and optimize network traffic, ensuring high-quality application performance and user experience across various network environments.
Key Features and Functionality
Centralized Orchestration and Management
AT&T SD-WAN allows businesses to define and implement consistent business and security policies from a central management console in the cloud. This centralized orchestration enables easy configuration, monitoring, and analytics for end-to-end application and network visibility.
Path Selection and Dynamic Routing
The solution uses path selection, WAN aggregation, and dynamic routing to optimize network performance. It selects the most appropriate network path in real-time, ensuring that traffic is routed over the best available connection, whether it be broadband, LTE, MPLS, or other transport services. This feature enhances network reliability and performance, even in the event of circuit failures.
Application-Aware Networking
AT&T SD-WAN is application-aware, meaning it can prioritize traffic based on business intent. It uses Business Intent Overlays to enforce Quality of Service (QoS) and security policies, ensuring consistent application performance aligned with business criticality. This includes granular steering for all traffic types, including daily updates for over 13,000 SaaS applications.
Security and Compliance
The solution integrates robust security features, such as a unified zone-based stateful firewall with dynamic segmentation. It also offers automated orchestration with best-of-breed cloud security services, ensuring that pre-defined security policies are applied across the network. Additional security services include web filtering and malware protection, which can be rolled out to individual locations, users, or traffic types.
WAN Aggregation and Cost Optimization
AT&T SD-WAN allows businesses to aggregate WAN bandwidth from various sources, including broadband, LTE, and MPLS. This flexibility reduces the need for expensive proprietary MPLS networks, thereby lowering overall networking costs. The solution is hardware-agnostic, enabling traffic to be routed across any available network transport type without compromising security or reliability.
Cloud and SaaS Integration
The solution provides seamless integration with cloud and SaaS applications. It offers local internet breakout with optimal SaaS routing and cloud intelligence, ensuring direct and secure connections to cloud-based services. Global SD-WAN Gateways, powered by VMware, enable quick and secure on-ramps to the cloud from any location, addressing performance challenges such as latency and packet loss.
Flexibility and Scalability
AT&T SD-WAN is highly flexible and scalable, allowing businesses to add bandwidth and network services for new applications, scale existing applications, and adjust capacity in near real-time. This flexibility is particularly beneficial for small businesses, enabling them to set up new branch offices or remote work sites quickly and efficiently from a central management console.
Redundancy and Business Continuity
The solution ensures high availability and business continuity by providing multiple paths in case of circuit failures. This redundancy, combined with dynamic routing, ensures that network operations remain uninterrupted, even in adverse conditions.
In summary, AT&T SD-WAN is a powerful networking solution that enhances network performance, security, and agility by leveraging advanced software-defined networking capabilities. It offers centralized management, application-aware traffic handling, robust security features, cost optimization, and seamless integration with cloud and SaaS services, making it an ideal solution for both enterprise and small business environments.