Cisco updates SD-WAN for improved visibility, connectivity

Cisco has announced an upgrade to its SD-WAN Cloud OnRamp for SaaS service to introduce support for all third-party cloud-based applications, Network World reports. Cisco stated that users may now use either applications that are recognized by the company's Network Based Application Recognition classification engine including Microsoft Dynamic CRM Application, Workday and Github, or user-made apps that are not standard applications recognized by NBAR. The changes, which are available in version 17.8 of Cisco's SD-WAN, improves users' flexibility in adopting new customized cloud applications, security features or analytics for their business, and grants them greater visibility into how their distributed resources are performing, the company said. The company also added support for SD-WAN resources in its Layer-7 Application Health Check and a new Secure Internet Gateway Data Policy Fallback feature to provide secure connections during a network failure or issue. The software now also includes upgrades to its cloud-based vAnalytics package which allows users to collect insights into the performance of SD-WAN and its applications, such as application-level telemetry and enhanced visibility allowing for quicker detection and resolution of issues, and also introduces performance benchmark-setting and improves telemetry correlation.