Extend secure, automated branch office networking to AWS with Cisco SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp

According to a Cisco study, by 2021, there will be 20 zettabytes of traffic between the DC/branch to the clouds, as companies use popular public cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS). Meanwhile, “IaaS is forecast to grow 24% year over year, which is the highest growth rate across all market segments,” according to Gartner.

However, while a cloud strategy creates more agility, it also presents challenges for IaaS deployments. Below are three primary concerns cloud users face regularly:

Inconsistent connectivity

Large-scale networks may traverse multiple slow public and/or expensive private connections to get to the cloud deployments, while smaller networks may need to battle out a slow, jittery internet to get to the clouds. In either case, customers will need to find the fastest and most reliable link while confirming a secure transport.

Complexity with governance

No real uniformity exists as to how different platforms handle their governance and compliance. This maze of rules and frameworks can create consistency problems with companies trying to utilize more than one cloud platform, especially with (but not exclusive to) IaaS. Finally, each cloud vendor has its own policy, security and segmentation process. These variances from vendor to vendor add another layer of complexity that must be managed.

Visibility problems

Different cloud platforms also use various protocols for analytics, metrics and insights. This variance can effectively reduce visibility for companies, making it more challenging to optimize usage across the network.

Cisco’s SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp automates and optimizes the enterprise SD-WAN to IaaS and SaaS

Cloud OnRamp is a cloud networking solution and a functionality of Cisco SD-WAN through which enterprises can network their branch sites to workloads deployed in cloud environments. Cloud OnRamp provides seamless, secure and automated networking for IaaS as well as an optimized experience for various SaaS applications.

One proven way to overcome the challenges of a cloud strategy is by implementing a consistent fabric across a company’s entire WAN network using Cisco SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp. Cisco SD-WAN provides a secure WAN architecture that can extend consistent policy enforcement, segmentation and security across both on-premises and cloud networks. Cloud OnRamp simplifies the experience further through the power of automation, using vManage as the single pane of glass management platform to create a SD-WAN transit network in the cloud provider’s environment.

Advantages of Cisco SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp

◉ Greater automation — With Cloud OnRamp, users can expect to automate SD-WAN extension to the cloud in minutes with just a few clicks.

◉ Improved security – Cloud OnRamp reduces security risks by leveraging graular segmentation and streamlined policy enforcement that can control and segment the traffic that flows through the network, guarding against external and internal threats to the data.

◉ Ease of management – Cloud OnRamp provides end-to-end data sharing between cloud and branch and establishes inter-regional visibility across transit data and network telemetry.

Cisco SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp Integration with AWS Transit Gateway

Cisco has partnered with AWS to provide end-to-end solutions for joint customers to create the best possible user experience. Customers benefit from fully automated networking to workloads in AWS Cloud and native integration between Cisco SD-WAN and AWS Transit Gateway and Transit Gateway Network Manager.

Sneak peek of the new features and benefits:

◉ Fully automated Cisco SD-WAN fabric extension to AWS Cloud: instead of spending hours of time per region and going through error-prone manual processes, now enterprise customers can bridge their branches to AWS workloads through a fully secure Cisco SD-WAN network in just minutes.

◉ Single pane of glass management through Cloud OnRamp: jumping back and forth between different management consoles of Cisco and AWS to orchestrate networking resources can be challenging and ineffective. With this new integration, enterprise customers will be able to manage both the Cisco SD-WAN virtual router and AWS Transit Gateway through Cloud OnRamp.

◉ Extending enterprise segmentation to AWS Cloud: one important aspect of secure networking is to ensure consistent enterprise segmentation across the entire network. By using the GUI-based Intent Management feature in Cloud OnRamp, enterprise customers can easily manage VPN to VPC and VPC to VPC communications through simple clicks.

◉ End-to-end visibility: by populating elements of both the SD-WAN network and AWS cloud network into AWS Network Manager, enterprise customers will have a unified and visualized view of both branch and cloud sites.

Watch AWS, Cisco and joint customer ENGIE discuss the benefits of integrating Cisco SD-WAN with AWS Transit Gateway Network Manager in a recent webinar and learn how to get started.

With more than half of enterprise workloads expected to be deployed in public clouds within the next year, cloud computing is a growing opportunity and challenge for today’s enterprises. By deploying an integrated solution like Cisco’s Cloud OnRamp for IaaS, companies will stay competitive by making their cloud strategy more productive, consistent and secure.