Cato: The SD-WAN Visionary

What’s your vision? At Cato, we know our vision. It’s the power of convergence of networking and security in the cloud. It’s a vision that’s transforming the industry and one that has led Cato to be recognized as a Visionary in the just-released Gartner Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure.

The question of vision is critical as you refresh your network. For years, enterprise networking leaders have struggled with the complexity and costs of networks built from appliances. Coordinating networking and security was overly complex.  Appliances brought operational costs with them, such as testing and deploying new updates, fixing bugs, and managing the devices day-to-day.

As companies refresh their network they can continue to Do-It-Yourself” (DIY) with appliances — and incur the operational burden of maintaining them. Or they can, as we call it, “drop the box” and move networking and security infrastructure into the cloud, consuming the WAN as a service.

A converged, multitenant cloud software stack eliminates the traditional operational burden of appliances. It’s not just that eliminating appliances eliminates their associated costs. It’s also that as a single converged software stack for the entire company, we make coordinating the security and networking domains easier. One set of policies for networking and security — everywhere. Changes in the networking domain automatically update security infrastructure. A single-pane-of-glass for everything. Those are just some of the benefits that cloud-based networking in Cato Cloud brings to enterprises.

So compelling has the cloud-based networking become that Gartner recommends that companies “Evaluate WAN as a service for your next refresh, even if you have traditionally pursued a DIY approach.”

“Evaluate WAN as a service for your next refresh, even if you have traditionally pursued a DIY approach.”

— Gartner

Software-Defined Carriers Bring A New Breed of WAN As A Service

Shifting to the cloud is a new model for many IT professionals, particularly in North America. Managed services have often been associated with rigidity and high costs. Many traditional Communications Service Providers (CSPs), the carriers, are little more than integrators, deploying and connecting third-party appliances with their networks. Customer requests, patches, new services — all require carriers to work with their suppliers who often aren’t available or operate on a different delivery schedule than the requesting provider. Even simple network changes need enterprises to open trouble tickets — and then wait and wait some more.

But software-defined carriers eschew third-party hardware appliances for a cloud-scale software. They’re like AWS for networking. Amazon’s software provides the basis for organizations to instantiate their own virtual datacenters, the software-defined carrier provides the software for enterprises to run their own SD-WANs. And like AWS, Cato maintains the underlying infrastructure while enterprises retain management and control over their own networks.

The result of which is leaner, nimbler model than traditional services. With a single multi-tenant software stack, the costs of delivering SD-WAN, security, and more are far lower than stitching together separate can choose any provider for their local loop service. And by being able to manage their network themselves, IT retains the kind of control previously only found in the DIY approach.  

Beyond the Magic Quadrant, Cato Continues to Innovate and Grow

Since the close of the Magic Quadrant research, adoption of Cato’s cloud-based approach has only grown.  We’ve built the largest, independent cloud-based SD-WAN network in the world with more than 40 points-of-presence (PoPs) around the globe, a third more PoPs than our closest competitor.  

We’ve also continued to innovate. In July, we revolutionized the industry with the first, identity-aware routing engine for SD-WAN. Last month, we unveiled the end-to-end, self-healing capabilities of Cato Cloud.

And our customer base has grown substantially. Today, more than 200 enterprises with thousands of global locations across Asia/Pacific, Europe, and North America, hundreds of cloud instances, and thousands of mobile users rely on Cato Cloud.  Our customers represent companies of all sizes and industries. From mid-market companies with 50 locations across the globe to enterprises with more than 1,000 locations all have chosen a new vision, the vision of Cato Cloud.

And so I ask, what will be your vision? Will you too look to drop-the-box and see how the cloud cannot just revolutionize applications, servers, and storage but the network as well? If so, give us a call for a free demo to see how visionary you can truly be.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure, Analyst(s): Joe Skorupa, Andrew Lerner, Christian Canales, Mike Toussaint, Published: 18 October 2018 ID: G00351467.

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