During the trail, the company was able to test a total of eight use cases of the technology.
Japanese IT services provider, NEC, has successfully deployed its open source-based SD-WAN Security Common Platform at the University of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. This was the company’s first proof of concept (PoC) using the platform.
The university wanted a service that could connect its several campuses and enforce security policy at each site, at a minimum cost. It was also looking to have a centralized, automated network management and control.
NEC deployed 15 hardware pieces, including laptop clients, to connect the institute’s four campuses. Nine devices were ultimately connected to the SD-WAN controller, according to the company.
During the trial, NEC was able to test a total of eight use cases for the university such as visualization and monitoring of end-to-end network traffic in multi-vendor environments, dynamic route optimization based on application requirements and central configuration of network switches across the campuses to apply new security measures.
Besides configuring legacy switches and routers, the Japanese provider leveraged its SD-WAN controller to enable a single window to show network statistics and centralize the university’s security management.
Security at its best
The platform also includes security components such as end-point security automation, response and recovery.
SD-WAN is the best component to coordinate the cyber security automation and the end-point security response for all unmanaged IOT devices connected to the network, said Masanori Tsujikawa, a senior expert in NEC’s global platform division.
According to Tsujikawa, the platform and SD-WAN controller allows NEC to isolate infected devices and apply configuration changes to switches and routers on the fly.
NEC believes that this technology could have applications outside of small to medium-sized enterprises and universities that operate in multiple areas.
What is unique about NEC’s new product?
While existing SD-WANs in the market are dedicated and product-based services, NEC’s open source-based SD-WAN Security Common Platform is based on legacy hardware that Tsujikawa says “is a perfect entrance for those exploring SDN in the enterprise segment, and it works as a migration solution for other SDN solutions, although NEC does not focus on legacy devices.”
The existing SD-WAN solutions also require relatively large capex and longer time to deployment, Tsujikawa noted.
The legacy-based SD-WAN can also cover the heterogeneous network devices, the expert added.
(With inputs from SDxCentral)
