SD-WAN will replace SASE? Smart network services have to look at it

If we think about it carefully, we will find that many of our expectations for network services are actually related to our own individual needs. We expect network services to function as we hope. At the same time, we hope that network operators can understand us and adapt to our needs. Can a huge global internet network composed of hundreds of thousands of elements do this? This means that personalized services must be at the edge of the network that users actually occupy.

Decades ago, we realized that we cannot let a huge network have user awareness or service awareness. This kind of awareness is called "state" in online language, which means that users put their virtual avatars on the network to represent their own interests. This part of the avatar may be an entry in the routing table, or it may be a strategy stored in a certain repository, but if they are personalized, they will be individualized, so they cannot be expanded. Not only will the network become too fragmented, but network traffic will also be reconfigured, equipment may also malfunction, and user-specific network components may not even be able to transmit traffic.

Which providers are selling SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) devices, and what do users get from them?

After starting the edge device, it is easy to ignore when to terminate the service. Users need to take it seriously. The advantage of edge devices in the network is that they are dedicated to serving users. In this huge global interconnection network, if there is a place looking forward to knowing everything about you, it is these small terminals. The potential for personalization makes them very Has practical value.



Users may take it for granted that since the emergence of service terminals along with services, people will discover the importance of the edge in personalized services, but for some reason, this seems to be ignored. Today, two things have changed this: the first is the software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), and the second is the secure access to the service edge (SASE).

SD-WAN achieves personalized services at the edge
The popularity of SD-WAN is exploding. Studies have shown that the number of sites on SD-WAN today has almost tripled from a year ago. There may be 50 providers of SD-WAN, and dozens of communication and hosting service providers. In this fiercely competitive environment, all manufacturers are sparing no effort to develop new functions for SD-WAN. Currently, support for small websites and even cloud applications has received widespread attention. Attention to work from home, service telemetry, application priority, and zero-trust security is also increasing.

This feature enhancement process is relatively easy for SD-WAN vendors/providers, but more difficult for network service providers and the Internet, mainly due to the edge personalization mentioned above. If the user deploys SD-WAN, then the user has an entrance to the virtual network where he is located, that is, the edge. This portal can do all the work that is beneficial to the personalization of the service, so that the user's service appears to be designed for them. The reason is that these are the users' own.






We can’t personalize our huge network to reflect our application priorities, and maybe we don’t have to. At the user connection point, capacity is the most limited and the most precious. SD-WAN can enforce application traffic priority at the edge (the critical point of congestion). This can greatly improve the quality of service, but SD-WAN can also mark traffic by priority or send traffic through different routes. These tasks require a standard method to determine priorities, and both SD-WAN and the network need to support this method.

In addition, all virtual networks provide a certain degree of inherent security, and some SD-WANs also provide session-aware zero-trust security. The inherent security can be increased through some inherent access point priority and QoS classification, which means that SD-WAN may replace the SASE concept.

SD-WAN: Smart gateway for non-intelligent networks
SD-WAN is a gateway that can provide new service functions and plays a stable role at the edge. This change in marginal thinking will have a profound impact if it really works. This is not to say that networks are no longer important, on the contrary they can deliver experiences built on the edge. What is the best network? Is the network invisible and cost-free? Obviously, things are much more complicated than they seem on the surface.




Shifting the functions of the service to local equipment allows many vendors to sell these functions. This can promote managed services, use the advantages of smart edge devices to manage SLAs, and at the same time provide operators with opportunities to sell products with higher profit margins. This will make the service market more competitive and make the "network "Technology focuses on management costs. At the same time, the intelligent edge also allows non-intelligent networks to ride on the smart ride.

SD-WAN as a service
Network operators need to respond to this new edge-centric vision, and managed services seem to be the only thing they can really do. If services become more personalized, then almost every network user is a private network, which many companies may not want. SD-WAN's embedded management tools can provide operators with a scale economy management method, allowing operators to provide managed services at a price acceptable to users. Of course, operators can still earn considerable new profits.

If someone thinks that companies will not accept managed services, then they can look at cloud services. We have seen cloud computing services shifting to managed services because this is exactly what users want. It is no good to build an excellent low-touch managed cloud service on top of a high-touch network service. It is said that cloud providers are also developing their own SD-WAN and managed service strategies.


Edges are not just our options, they may even be our best options. Next time you see edge devices, I hope you can cherish them and organize their workplaces, because they are our gateway to future network services.

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