About Aruba SD-Branch

The Aruba SD-Branch solution offers the best-in-class wireless and wired infrastructure, as well as management orchestration features with the SD-WAN capabilities. The SD-Branch solution extends the SD-WAN concept to all elements in the branch to deliver a full-stack solution that addresses wired and wireless Local Area Network (LAN Local Area Network. A LAN is a network of connected devices within a distinct geographic area such as an office or a commercial establishment and share a common communications line or wireless link to a server.), security and policy enforcement, and WAN Wide Area Network. WAN is a telecommunications network or computer network that extends over a large geographical distance. connectivity. When combined with Aruba Central, the solution provides a cloud-hosted environment for simplified operations and improved agility.

Organizations frequently deploy and manage distributed, diverse networks through small, centralized teams. Apart from WAN connection, these distributed networks provide a variety of other services. Branch networks require wired and wireless LAN, security and policy enforcement, and WAN interconnection.

The SD-Branch solution addresses the following issues:

WAN Connectivity—WAN connectivity allows SD-WAN technology to support the usage of the Internet to replace or augment MPLS Multiprotocol Label Switching. The MPLS protocol speeds up and shapes network traffic flows. services. The SD-WAN solution includes the following elements:
- Path Quality Monitoring (PQM) to track the quality of the available paths.
- Stateful firewall Firewall is a network security system used for preventing unauthorized access to or from a private network. with application fingerprinting to identify traffic flow.
- Dynamic path selection (DPS) to always select the optimal path.
- Centralized routing to offload the branch gateways from participating in routing.
- User identity information to select from the available paths.
Branch Onboarding and Lifecycle Management—Centralized teams use third-party companies for installations. To bring remote sites online, the corporate team may need to collaborate with these third-party installers from different organizations depending on the geographic locations. This model presents significant logistical and technical challenges. SD-Branch architecture is developed to enable Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP Zero Touch Provisioning. ZTP is a device provisioning mechanism that allows automatic and quick provisioning of devices with a minimal or at times no manual intervention.) for all branch devices. This feature allows hundreds of locations to be brought up each week. ZTP, when combined with a scalable cloud-based management platform, enables organizations to set up, modify, and maintain networks in an agile manner.
LAN Security and Automation—Modern branch deployments can be excessively complex due to the growth of Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs Virtual Local Area Network. In computer networking, a single Layer 2 network may be partitioned to create multiple distinct broadcast domains, which are mutually isolated so that packets can only pass between them through one or more routers; such a domain is referred to as a Virtual Local Area Network, Virtual LAN, or VLAN.), complex Internet Protocol (IP) addressing schemes, and access control lists (ACLs Access Control List. ACL is a common way of restricting certain types of traffic on a physical port.) distributed across multiple devices in the branch. Architectures are customized to the needs of automation software rather than the automation software adapting to the architecture. The SD-Branch architecture flattens the branch into fewer subnets Subnet is the logical division of an IP network. by consolidating all policy enforcement into a single device. This eliminates the need for static IP addressing schemes and hardwired ACLs across multiple devices.

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