Palo Alto spruces up SD-WAN services with CloudGenix devices

Palo Alto is pulling back the curtain to reveal two new SD-WAN devices since the security supplier's $420 million CloudGenix acquisition.

The CloudGenix ION 1000 is a smaller SD-WAN appliance built for retail locations, SMBs and remote workers. The CloudGenix ION 9000 is an updated version of CloudGenix's flagship SD-WAN device, which can be installed in large branch and campus locations, and supports multi-gigabit throughput and failover capabilities in case of physical WAN outages.

Palo Alto says it has integrated CloudGenix SD-WAN with Palo Alto's secure access service edge (SASE) platform – Prisma Access. The CloudGenix CloudBlades platform integrates Prisma Access with a cloud-hosted API architecture.

Figure 1: Will there be clear skies ahead for Palo Alto and CloudGenix? (Photo by Nicholas Swanson on Unsplash)

"Palo Alto Network's SD-WAN approach enables the delivery of security, UCaaS, visibility and monitoring as cloud-services, reducing operational costs," says Rohit Mehra, vice president of network infrastructure at IDC, in a statement. "The use of network analytics and AI/ML to provide autonomous capabilities is another area where enterprises are looking to make enhancements so they can minimize manual troubleshooting and remediation."

Anand Oswal, SVP and GM for Palo Alto Networks, says the company is focused on building an SD-WAN service that provides application-layer visibility and automates operations with artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities.

"The first generation, legacy SD-WAN solutions weren't really designed for cloud-connected organizations," says Oswal. "It was, for the most part, focused on simplifying VPN connections over broadband and reducing the cost of MPLS by moving to broadband."

In addition to providing cloud-based networking and security services, Oswal says that "next-generation SD-WAN is about AIops (artificial intelligence for IT operations) and being autonomous. Using machine learning and data science, we can eliminate 99% of WAN and application access trouble tickets so we can automate it out for our customers."

By adding ML and analytics features to CloudGenix SD-WAN, Palo Alto aims to automate resolution of trouble tickets and identify the root cause of issues. In addition, new analytics features can assist in capacity planning and in providing more visibility to WAN connections and cloud application usage.

— Kelsey Kusterer Ziser, Senior Editor, Light Reading