WatchGuard Technologies has shipped an updated edition of its Fireware operating system with automated network path selection capabilities designed to support SD-WAN deployments.
Available now, version 12.3 of the OS that powers Seattle-based WatchGuard’s Firebox UTM devices is equipped to failover from one WAN connection to another if any of several quality of service measures drops below pre-defined thresholds. The new feature turns similar functionality in earlier versions of Fireware aimed chiefly at preserving uptime into a technology capable of delivering the consistently high connection speeds SD-WAN deployments require.
“It was always based on just whether the link was up or down,” says Brendan Patterson, vice president of product management at WatchGuard. “With the new SD-WAN capabilities, we’re doing dynamic measurements of things like jitter, packet loss, and latency.”
For end users, he continues, the upshot is reliable SD-WAN performance over ordinary internet links instead of costly specialized connections. “[It] guarantees high quality connections without spending on expensive MPLS lines and things like that,” Patterson says.
Bundling SD-WAN functionality into the same device that provides security simplifies deployment and administration too. “With SD-WAN, especially in a distributed company with many locations, it’s an advantage if you can get what you need just from one box, especially if it’s a box you already have,” says Patterson. Solutions from vendors that specialize in SD-WAN typically don’t offer that advantage, he continues.†
“If you look at any of the SD-WAN vendors, most of them don’t even provide any security capabilities,” Patterson says. “Some do, but what they provide tends to be very basic.”
That includes offerings from the large providers of communication and networking services getting into the SD-WAN market at present, according to Patterson, who says that adding dynamic path selection to Fireware arms channel pros to keep pace with those firms.†”It gives our partners assurance and capabilities that they can compete with those type of bigger solutions that typically don’t provide a very good user experience or customer support,” he says.
Kevin Willette, President and CEO of Minneapolis-based solution provider Verus Corp., calls WatchGuard’s new feature a “game-changer” for his company’s service offerings.†”This will allow us to offer a better platform at a fraction of the price compared to the competition,” he says in emailed remarks. “Having an SD-WAN offering with security in mind and visibility into the full network connections has been a long-time goal of ours. With the WatchGuard secure SD-WAN offering, we are happy to say that we finally have it in an affordable package for our clients.”
Adding incremental capabilities for functions like SD-WAN to Fireware and the Firebox line is a longstanding component of WatchGuard’s product strategy. “Historically that’s where we’ve been going with the UTM platform,” Patterson says. “We’ve always brought services onto the product that used to maybe run in another separate box.”
WatchGuard is the latest in a string of networking and security vendors to build SD-WAN support into its hardware. Zyxel Communications added similar functionality priced specifically for SMBs to its VPN firewalls in October. SonicWall made a similar announcement last month.
Patterson, however, says the maturity of the Firebox portfolio’s zero-touch deployment abilities distinguishes WatchGuard’s SD-WAN technology from those of its competitors. The vendor’s RapidDeploy tool, which lets end users without technical skills install pre-configured firewalls simply by connecting them to power and the internet, premiered back in 2014.†”Zero-touch deployment isn’t a new thing for us,” Patterson says. “It’s something we took a few years to work on and refine, and it’s become a strong differentiator for us.”
Fueled by the rise of cloud computing and increased use of VoIP solutions, among other factors, SD-WAN adoption is skyrocketing at present. Global outlays on SD-WAN infrastructure will climb at a 40.4 percent CAGR from 2017 to 2022, according to IDC, reaching $4.5 billion.
Other significant feature upgrades in Fireware 12.3 include integration with the Tigerpaw PSA platform, which can now automatically import information about WatchGuard appliances and the services running on those devices. Firebox units can also automatically open service tickets in Tigerpaw now when required, and close them as well when issues are resolved. Prior editions of Fireware provided similar support for the ConnectWise Manage and Autotask PSA products.†”We got a lot of requests from people who use Tigerpaw too, and we’re happy to announce that level of integration as well,” Patterson says.
Enhanced geo-location policy controls in the updated Firewall release let administrators block email and DNS traffic from potentially unsafe places with greater precision than previously possible. “It gives people the flexibility to customize those geo rules by the type of policy or protocol that might be in place, instead of setting one global rule that covers everything on the firewall,” Patterson says.
New support for USB memory sticks lets users backup firewall configurations to a USB-connected device and auto-recover from it as well. “It’s just a simple but effective way to keep a local copy of the configuration for that firewall and the information it needs to restore,” Patterson explains.
Fireware 12.3 also extends earlier functionality that allowed technicians to monitor and report on devices by an assigned name rather than their IPv4 address to the IPv6 protocol. “IPv6 addresses are very long and convoluted,” Patterson observes. “Anytime you’re working with them in a policy or looking at them in a report from the firewall it’s always more convenient to see names instead of those long numbers.”
WatchGuard’s last Firewall release, which reached users in August, included an artificial intelligence engine based on technology from Cylance Inc. designed to predict, detect, and block zero-day malware.
