Cisco today rolled out new multicloud SD-WAN onramps built specifically for colocation facilities that will shorten the path from branches and remote workers to where those applications are hosted. The expanded capabilities allow distributed enterprises to have an alternative to enabling direct internet access at the branch and enhance their connectivity to infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers.

Previously, Cisco's SD-WAN only had onramps for IaaS (including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure) and SaaS. These new onramps colocation apply to Cisco's Viptela-based SD-WAN.

In a blog post, Anand Oswal, SVP of engineering for Cisco’s enterprise networking business, wrote that the goal of Cisco’s new Cloud onRamp for CoLocation is to “tie each branch to enterprise data center databases, SaaS applications, and multicloud services while meeting SLAs and application QoE expectations.” So, customers can connect to multiple clouds, applications, and data center resources by funneling the traffic resources directly to a local colocation facility and the Cisco Cloud onRamp for Colocation.

According to the Oswal, this is giving enterprises with multiple distributed branch offices that are clustered around major cities or spread over several countries the ability to regionalize their SD-WAN services in colocation facilities. This is because these facilities are physically closer to the branches and can host the cloud resources that the enterprise needs to access.

By distributing a virtual Cisco SD-WAN over a regional architecture of colocation centers, the processing power is brought to the cloud edge.

The expanded onRamp service enables users to aggregate the access to its multicloud applications from multiple branches to regional colocation facilities. And it is based on an open architecture so that third-party virtual network functions (VNFs) — such as load balancers and web application security — can integrate with the SD-WAN fabric.

[caption id="attachment_80994" align="alignnone" width="550"] Image courtesy of Cisco.[/caption]

Oswal writes in the blog post that this new expanded capability is meant to serve four specific types of enterprises: multi-national companies that cannot use direct internet connections to the cloud and SaaS platforms due to security restrictions and privacy regulations; global organizations with widely geographically distributed branch offices that require high application quality and granular security; partners and vendors without SD-WAN that still need connectivity to their customers but don’t want to install SD-WAN routing appliances in their sites; and remote works that need secure VPN connections to an enterprise over inexpensive direct internet links.

The Cisco Cloud onRamp for CoLocation will be hosted within certain colocation facilities by a colocation IaaS provider. Customers can select the colocation provider that meets their needs in a region on a regional basis as long as it supports the necessary components.

The onRamp itself consists of and works with multiple Cisco virtual and physical components. One is the Cisco SD-WAN vManage — which manages all aspects of the WAN including provisioning, monitoring, upgrading, and troubleshooting — and has a specific feature for colocation, making it easy to manage policy and deploy VNFs in the facility.

And it also leverages the Cisco Cloud Services Platform to host these VNFs and the Cisco Catalyst 9500-40 Switches to provide multi-gigabit backplane switching to VNFs, redundancy, inbound/outbound WAN connectivity, and access to colocation management tools.

One of the additional benefits of Cisco enabling the multicloud SD-WAN ramp for colocation is that it can establish access to applications and data residing across cloud providers and SaaS providers more securely.

“Each branch or private data center is equipped with a network interface that provides a secure tunnel to the regional colocation facility. In turn, the Cloud onRamp for CoLocation establishes secure tunnels to SaaS application platforms, multicloud platform services, and enterprise data centers,” Oswal wrote.

He added that traffic is being routed through the Cloud OnRamp stack and this includes additional security features. Some of these features include application-aware firewalls, URL-filtering, intrusion detection and prevention, DNS-layer security, and advanced malware protection threat grid.

“Our software-defined architecture ties together a distributed workforce with multicloud applications using VNFs that can be rapidly provisioned and expanded on flexible colocation platforms to meet evolving business needs and regulatory requirements,” Oswal wrote.