During discussions with clients regarding cloud infrastructure, two common hurdles in scaling their cloud expansions frequently emerge, these obstacles consist of:
- Attaining secure connectivity across various clouds, virtual private clouds (VPCs), regions, and on-premises networks
- Ensuring that security is integrated into the network design from the outset.
As clients expand their cloud environment, the growing number of VPCs and regions results in a intricate web of connections to guarantee that their applications and users can reach the desired applications, whether located on-premises or in the cloud. This interconnected network of connections poses challenges for IT teams to establish secure connectivity throughout the infrastructure effectively, escalating management complexities and impeding scalability. Due to the dilemmas organizations encounter in multi-VPC and multi-region deployments, clients are progressively migrating to cloud-wide area network (WAN) services, motivated by the aspiration to unify and simplify the management of their network structure and security.
AWS Cloud WAN streamlines how clients construct, manage, and oversee their WANs by automating the connectivity amongst branch offices, data centers, VPCs through automation, and a feature-rich dashboard. Clients can utilize network policies to automate network administration and security tasks from a singular location, abolishing the necessity to establish the intricate network of traditional VPC peering. Recently, AWS enhanced Cloud WAN to simplify the integration of security services or VPC into these connections. This functionality empowers clients to fuse their Cisco security services into their network infrastructure using AWS Cloud WAN, significantly simplifying the process of embedding security into their network.
With the introduction of AWS’ service insertion feature as part of Cloud WAN, I am delighted to announce Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual and Cisco Multicloud Defense supporting AWS Cloud WAN. With this collaboration, clients can smoothly integrate Cisco cloud firewalls into their Cloud WAN managed network blueprint, eliminating the complexity of routing configurations to ensure the network’s security. Instead, they can direct traffic to their Cisco cloud firewall using the AWS Management Console or API.
Cisco’s cloud firewalls
Cisco presents two top-tier solutions to aid clients in fortifying their cloud environments:
- Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual (formerly FTDv) signifies the virtualized form of the Secure Firewall Threat Defense solution, enabling the extension of network security capabilities from on-premises to the cloud, providing a comprehensive perspective of the network environment.
- Cisco Multicloud Defense is a cloud-native security-as-a-service offering that automatically scales to shield your cloud applications wherever they are deployed. Multicloud Defense delivers the same level of automation that you anticipate from a cloud service, facilitating the deployment of security as effortlessly as your application.
Merits of Cisco cloud firewalls with Cloud WAN
Deploying Cisco cloud firewalls in conjunction with AWS Cloud WAN to bolster the security of global network traffic offers clients noticeable operational advantages:
- Unified Infrastructure for Security and Global Networking: AWS Cloud WAN provides a unified infrastructure tailored for extensive AWS distributions worldwide. The fusion of Cisco’s cloud firewalls with Cloud WAN equips organizations with high-grade security measures to safeguard traffic within regions, between regions, and from on-premises networks to cloud environments.
- Simplified Multi-Regional Security Deployment: Many businesses utilizing Cloud WAN establish multi-regional networks to promote regional expansion or implement disaster recovery strategies. The novel service insertion feature streamlines deployment across multiple regions, easing traffic routing for both intra- and inter-regional flows through the security framework, thereby eliminating complexities associated with intricate multi-regional network configurations.
- Seamless Integration: Clients often require traffic inspection for inter-VPC, VPC-to-internet, or on-premises-to-VPC connections. By using Cisco’s cloud firewalls supporting Cloud WAN Services Insertion, clients can effortlessly direct network traffic for inspection without creating and handling complicated routing setups.
- Ease of Management: Clients persistently seek to simplify operational intricacies. Cisco’s cloud firewall takes charge of deployment and management, allowing clients to concentrate on their core business objectives.
Cisco Cloud Firewall with AWS Cloud WAN
Given Cloud WAN’s global functionality, the recommended approach is to deploy your Cisco cloud firewalls in the same AWS regions as your applications. This guarantees the absence of single region dependencies, latency issues, or bandwidth constraints in securing your network connectivity.
Closing Thoughts
We are enthusiastic for clients to leverage this fresh capability from Cisco and AWS, enabling them to streamline the security of their increasingly intricate cloud expansions. For more insights on how Cisco can fortify your cloud environments, register for our Cloud Visibility and Risk Report or initiate your complimentary Multicloud Defense trial to explore how you can enhance visibility across your environment today.
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