Citrix Raises Bar for SD-WAN Security

The days of manually applying security policies across branch locations are officially over. At least for customers of Citrix Systems, Inc.. The company today announced next-generation capabilities within its SD-WAN solution that enable enterprises to easily administer user-centric policies and connect branch employees to applications in the cloud with greater security and reliability.

“Today’s enterprise is more distributed than ever, requiring IT to provide secure access to corporate systems and data across multiple locations, networks and clouds,” said Chalan Aras, Vice President, SD-WAN and Intelligent Traffic Management, Citrix. “In the past, this meant manually applying security policies across branch locations. With enhanced security features delivered as part of Citrix SD-WAN companies can now easily extend user-centric policies to the branch and connect employees to applications in the cloud with a few clicks.”

Simplified Branch Networking

Citrix SD-WAN helps enterprises deliver a reliable, high-performance workspace experience when accessing SaaS apps, cloud workloads, virtual apps and desktops or traditional data center resources. With Citrix SD-WAN, enterprises can:

• Simplify branch networking by converging WAN edge capabilities, including built-in stateful firewall, WAN Optimization and more.
• Define security zones to apply different policies for different users.
• Provide integrated, single sign-on, remote access and content inspection in a single solution.
• Easily on-board, manage and monitor services.
• Confidently break out internet traffic from branches to optimize WAN resources.

Easy Administration

By integrating with a series of third-party APIs, Citrix allows enterprises to take security to the next level and:

• Synchronize location information with the Citrix SD-WAN management plane.
• Establish IPsec tunnels between branches and security enforcement points for traffic inspection and threat prevention with high availability.
• Automatically apply controls to protect users and applications whether they are connecting to SaaS applications or services over the internet.

“With the API integration between Citrix SD-WAN and the Zscaler Cloud Security Platform, enterprises can enable secure local breakouts for applications and resources hosted on the Internet simplifying operations, lowering cost and complexity and ultimately providing a fast and secure user experience,” said Punit Minocha, Senior Vice President of business and corporate development, Zscaler.

Zscaler is part of a robust global ecosystem of Citrix SD-WAN technology partners helping large enterprises and SMBs alike securely transition to the cloud and simplify branch networking and the first to enable Citrix’s new integration capabilities.

“Companies today demand flexibility and choice in how they defend their networks,” Aras said. “Our new API integrations are designed to provide this and enable them to accelerate their cloud migrations in an efficient and cost-effective way.”

To learn more about Citrix SD-WAN and the value it can deliver for your organization click here