SD-WAN Enhancements in XG Firewall v18

Products•Product News•Sophos XG Firewall

XG Firewall v18 is almost here. It will also deliver enhancements to our integrated SD-WAN capabilities designed specifically for distributed organizations with remote and branch locations.

Dec 30 2019 By

XG Firewall v18 is almost here, which is great news for Sophos users. Not only will the latest firmware release provide a significant boost in visibility, protection, and performance with our new Xstream Architecture, it will also deliver enhancements to our integrated SD-WAN capabilities designed specifically for distributed organizations with remote and branch locations.

If you have yet to sign up for the XG Firewall v18 Early Access Program (EAP), it’s not too late to join. We’ve just released the EAP 3 build with more exciting features including several for those interested in making the switch from MPLS to SD-WAN.

Overcoming Challenges with SD-WAN

As more business applications and services move to the cloud, organizations are looking for ways to reduce the cost of one of their biggest IT expenditures: their wide area network (WAN) or internet connectivity. This need has helped create a tremendous amount of buzz around SD-WAN, and rightly so, given the benefits it can provide for savings and simplification. However, as organizations transition their WAN infrastructure to lower-cost public internet connections like cable, DSL and 3G/4G, they also need to deal with the added challenges that come with that, including potential compromises on uptime, reliability, and quality of service. This usually entails having multiple service providers, connections, and routes between any two points. As a result, SD-WAN features and capabilities that enable organizations to flexibly route their most important application traffic have become critically important.

Key SD-WAN Features in v18

  • SD-WAN Policy-based Routing Enhancements
    Policy-based routing gains additional SD-WAN flexibility and even more granular control. If you have multiple internet connections, routing can now be defined through either the primary or backup gateway WAN connection and can be configured for replay direction. Additionally, routing decisions are now decoupled from firewall rules and merged with SD-WAN policy-based routes, enabling more powerful and flexible configuration options in policy routes.
  • SD-WAN Application Routing
    Optimized application routing and path selection is often an important consideration when implementing SD-WAN. XG Firewall v18 adds user and group application-based traffic selection criteria to XG Firewall’s SD-WAN routing configuration to ensure business-critical applications are routed over optimal WAN links.
    SD WAN Enhancements
  • Synchronized SD-WAN
    Synchronized SD-WAN, a new Sophos Synchronized Security feature, offers additional benefits with SD-WAN application routing. Synchronized SD-WAN leverages the added clarity and reliability of application identification that comes with the sharing of Synchronized Application Control information between Sophos-managed endpoints and XG Firewall. Synchronized Application Control can positively identify 100% of all networked applications, including evasive, encrypted, obscure, and custom applications. Now, these previously unidentified applications can also be added to SD-WAN routing policies, offering a level of application routing control and reliability other firewalls can’t match.

For those of you who’ve been testing EAP 1 or EAP 2 firmware, thanks for providing feedback – and be sure to check out the latest EAP 3 build. If you’re new to SD-WAN and want to learn more about how XG Firewall integrates this technology and the benefits you’ll experience, see our SD-WAN page on the Sophos website.

About the Author

Sophos is a global leader and innovator of advanced security solutions for defeating cyberattacks, including Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and incident response services and a broad portfolio of endpoint, network, email, and cloud security technologies. As one of the largest pure-play cybersecurity providers, Sophos defends more than 600,000 organizations and more than 100 million users worldwide from active adversaries, ransomware, phishing, malware, and more. Sophos’ services and products connect through the Sophos Central management console and are powered by Sophos X-Ops, the company’s cross-domain threat intelligence unit. Sophos X-Ops intelligence optimizes the entire Sophos Adaptive Cybersecurity Ecosystem, which includes a centralized data lake that leverages a rich set of open APIs available to customers, partners, developers, and other cybersecurity and information technology vendors. Sophos provides cybersecurity-as-a-service to organizations needing fully managed security solutions. Customers can also manage their cybersecurity directly with Sophos’ security operations platform or use a hybrid approach by supplementing their in-house teams with Sophos’ services, including threat hunting and remediation. Sophos sells through reseller partners and managed service providers (MSPs) worldwide. Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, U.K. More information is available at www.sophos.com.