Cisco’s merger with software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) has improved cloud security, increased network agility, and boosted support to cloud computing services. It has always been a dilemma for SD-WAN customers to decide between increasing the security to their SD-WAN at the expense of application performance or the opposite way. They are resolving to solve the complexity and security at the cloud edge where networking and multi-cloud environments meet.

Cisco has added support to its Umbrella security system to its SD-WAN software that powers the core branch, campus and enterprise routers, and switches. Umbrella security, as described by Cisco is a cloud-delivered internet gateway that is secure. It stops current and overall threats, also blocking access to malignant domains, URLs, IPs and files before a connection could be established or before a file is downloaded. It protects the domain name server (DNS) layer. Umbrella's key features are from OpenDNS which was taken over by Cisco which offers a cloud service that denies customers access to malicious IPs that are known to be in league with criminal activity and malevolent downloads.

SD-WAN packages can screen in real time all the available routes to the Microsoft Office 365 and can determine the closest cloud that results in an increased performance up to 40 percent for users. Cisco SD-WAN based on Viptela, acquired at the beginning of 2017 will likely be the preferred solution for large and complex deployments. Viptela offers affordable WAN pricing and architectural flexibility. Its cloud-native technology provides a rich set of capabilities and scale. Viptela provides SD-WAN solutions with advanced routing, segmentation, and security capabilities for interconnecting complex enterprise networks. SD-WAN streamlines the workflow, extending wide area network (WAN) to multiple public clouds, integrates third-party applications such as existing management tools for operational billing services and support. It can deploy quickly and manage multiple devices. SD-WAN also enhances application experiences.

Cisco’s SD-WAN product, intelligent WAN (iWAN) was built from an existing Cisco product. Cisco’s iWAN provides traffic control and security features for the WAN that has been integrated into the Cisco branch office routers. Businesses that deploy iWAN have the capability to easily switch from expensive multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) WAN connections to less-costly internet transport without compromising application performance, reliability, or cloud security.