Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (HPE) Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise SD-WAN platform received ICSA Labs first Secure SD-WAN Certification, which means it passed third-party testing and certification measuring compliance, reliability, and performance of network-connected devices and IT products.

The vendor said the accomplishment provides customers with a level of assurance that its platform can meet specific needs.

“Wide-area network and security are becoming inextricably linked,” Derek Granath, Aruba’s senior director of SD-WAN product and technical marketing, told SDxCentral. “Because of this linkage between the two, we wanted to get a certification that would be a well recognized – globally recognized – certification.”

Aruba picked up the platform when it acquired Silver Peak. It facilitates multiple locations over the WAN and provides next-generation firewall, IDS/IPS, and DDoS detection and remediation. 

The platform also addresses the need to bring applications to the cloud and expand usage of IoT devices. When paired with solutions like Aruba’s ClearPass, it can provide identity- and role-based access control (RBAC) and dynamic segmentation, which complement zero trust and secure access service edge (SASE) architecture.

Granath said this enables customers to “further simplify branch WAN edge infrastructure.”  

The ICSA certification took two years to achieve, with Granath explaining it's "a very stringent test, and there were things that we needed to develop in our software to earn.”

However, it's also a relatively new certification from ICSA. The testing firm also provides various security certifications, including the "Corporate Firewall" distinction. 

“We're seeing customers now starting to replace branch firewalls, because next-generation firewall capabilities are sufficient. Some of our competitors have gotten the Corporate Firewall Certification, but not the secure SD-WAN,” Granath noted, before adding that "some of our competitors are going to say well, you know the secure SD-WAN certification, that's not the same as a firewall certification, that doesn't say firewall in there." 

Granath countered by stating the Secure SD-WAN badge is a broader certification, explaining that it includes SD-WAN capabilities that aren't part of the corporate firewall certification, like the ability to support multiple transports and virtualize them, and do fast failover. 

ICSA also highlights the differences, noting, “ICSA Labs Secure SD-WAN Certification testing is much more than an SD-WAN functionality test. As SD-WAN devices may replace network security devices, they must also provide the same kinds of security protections as would a firewall.”

The ICSA report indicates the policy configuration requirement to set security policies for network traffic is equivalent to a Corporate Firewall Certification, and “thus while the network topologies differ for the two testing services, the ICSA Labs security testing is the same.”

Granath said the Aruba's strategy has been to deliver security functionality, like firewalls that can do segmentation to help meet compliance requirements, without compromising the WAN edge functionality. While Aruba doesn't have a cloud-delivered security offering, the EdgeConnect integrates with several cloud security vendors, including Netskope, Zscaler, Check Point, Palo Alto Networks, and Cloudflare. 

“We think we're really, really well-positioned in the marketplace to grow market share, to grow faster than the market,” Granath said.