Elly Yates-Roberts |
Barracuda and Microsoft have been technical partners for a long time, and together we’ve helped our customers move securely to the public cloud, increasing performance and lowering costs. Our latest innovations – Microsoft Azure Virtual Wide Access Network (vWAN) and Barracuda CloudGen WAN – takes the next logical step in this journey.
The Microsoft Global Network is made up of over 160,000 miles of fibre and subsea cables that connect more than 60 Azure regions and 160 Azure edge sites. Last year, Microsoft announced Azure Virtual WAN, a networking service that runs across the MGN. Azure Virtual WAN allows a global transit network architecture by enabling ubiquitous, any-to-any connectivity between globally distributed sets of cloud workloads in virtual networks, branch sites, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service applications, and users.
To get the most out of your Azure deployment, you’ll want to add Barracuda CloudGen WAN. This is a SaaS service that is built natively on Azure and provides secure and scalable SD-WAN services. CloudGen WAN is optimised to provide the best experience for cloud and SaaS applications, providing CloudGen Firewall security at branch locations and other internet breakout sites so that traffic does not have to be backhauled to a central location for security policies to apply. Multiprotocol Label Switching lines are replaced with the Microsoft Global Network, which allows for dynamic scaling and costs based on consumption.
CloudGen WAN can be directly deployed from Azure Marketplace and interconnects all branches and home offices with zero-touch deployment options and default configurations already in place. Put simply, Barracuda CloudGen WAN provides a secure software-defined WAN that allows you to eliminate leased lines and multiple vendors that you may be using to create your WAN today. Replace that infrastructure with lower-cost internet service that will connect you to the Microsoft Global Network, and Barracuda CloudGen WAN will handle the connectivity and security for your WAN.
This is the kind of technology that allows our customers to reimagine and reconfigure their business processes to improve security and lower costs, and it’s simple to configure and deploy. This is all made possible by our partnership with Microsoft.
Chris Hill is the regional vice president of public cloud for Barracuda Networks
This article was originally published in the Winter 2020 issue of The Record. To get future issues delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription.