SD-WAN Secure Home is designed to extend Masergy’ SD-WAN to home offices, while SD-WAN On the Go is a software client for mobile users needing secure access – which can also be used as a low-cost home office solution.
Ajay Pandya, Director of Product Management, Network Solutions, at Masergy
Dallas-based Masergy has unveiled their SD-WAN Work From Anywhere solutions, two new offerings designed to respond to the workforce transformations created by the pandemic and the move from traditional offices. SD-WAN Secure Home is a home office solution, although since it involves a hardware component and would not be inexpensive if delivered broadly to the whole workforce, it is really targeted at executives and power users. SD-WAN On the Go provides secure access for mobile users, and is also likely to be used by value-conscious customers for many of their home office setups as well.
Both of these applications are complete net-new offerings for Masergy.
“Typically, our enterprise infrastructure ended at the branches,” said Ajay Pandya, Director of Product Management, Network Solutions, at Masergy. “For anything that was remote, customers would use VPN technology. That was the only way to work and access beyond the branch.”
VPN is of course an older technology, and the limitations of traditional VPN tunnels have been tested with the expansion of Work-from-Home, producing demand for which VPN tunnels were never designed.
“That single VPN tunnel was designed to support 10% of a company’s workforce at any time,” Pandya said. “It now has to compete with other sources in the home office, from children’s e-learning to someone watching NetFlix. A significant upgrade is needed over that single pipe.”
SD-WAN Secure Home complements Masergy’s SD-WAN with a lightweight Fortinet FortiGate 100F Secure SD-WAN box for quick connectivity and improved application performance on home internet connections. It also includes built-in next generation firewall and routing, and direct connections to an ecosystem of cloud services.
“It also gives you the option of configuring local breakouts,” Pandya noted.
“We provide all the setup services,” he added. “The box is delivered, and the full configuration is then downloaded from our central control. We also offer white glove service where we send out someone to do the deployment for an additional cost.”
Pandya indicated that many home users will not use these boxes, for cost reasons, and that they expect that many customers will limit these to senior executives and power users.
“For more price sensitive customers, it can be a big capital expenditure to put Fortinet boxes in all houses,” he said. “We think 10-20% of customers who select Work from Anywhere will take the hardware box, and more will take the option of a software client.”
The software client is SD-WAN On the Go. It uses IPsec tunnels and next-generation endpoint protection for secure remote access to the corporate network.
“No one else has a mobile SD-WAN solution yet,” Pandya stated. “We are the first. “The software connects like a VPN client, with full security protection.”
SD-WAN on the GO will be available in November.
Pandya said that both of these products will be a win for partners.
“It’s a major upsell for SD-WAN for working remotely,” he stated. “It’s also very much an off-the-shelf type of sale. There are no other configuration changes, and no other process they have to go through to procure devices, as there is no involvement by them with the OEM. It’s a good green field sale, as well for RFP for SD WAN services that require home support.”
