Background

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, many municipal and national governments have imposed lockdown policies, forcing their people to stay home. Companies with branches worldwide have already instructed their employees to work from home for a certain period of time. However, the cure of the pandemic is still under experiment without a definite release date, the challenges regarding working from in terms of connectivity, bandwidth and security to ensure business continuity will remain.

Indeed, the technological phenomenon of “work from home” (WFH) or “teleworking” presents a challenge for multi-site companies to ensure business continuity and productivity. Thus, they are investigating optimal and simplified solutions to mitigate the challenges with high QoS (quality of service) level in video conferencing, instant chat and other communication mediums. The answer is SD-WAN.

Requirements

Lanner offers uCPE platforms that help service providers enable zero-touch SD-WAN solutions with pre-set security instructions. The solution covers the following technological features:

  • SSL/IPSEC VPN pre-set for remote access

As the policy of WFH or teleworking may continue, employees may have to stay connected to their office for an indefinite period of time. Security is no doubt on the priority list. Therefore, enterprise IT management must establish VPN connections for their employees with SSL (secure sockets layers) or IPSEC (Internet Protocol Security).

  • Compatible with Integrated LTE

The SD-WAN topology of the joint solution supports multiple protocols, including 3G, 4G LTE and WiFi. Among these protocols, integrated LTE would most likely provide robust connectivity for WFH or teleworking.

  • Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)

Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP) offers shortened deployment for remote sites and software features can be pre-configured before shipment. With ZTP, automatic setup and over-the-air updates can be enabled across SD-WANs across the topology.

  • QoS in video/voice conferencing

With the prioritized routing mechanism in SD-WAN, application performances in video conferencing and real-time voice communications can be optimized for communications between remote offices. This can ensure the QoS in business-critical communications.

  • End-to-end Monitoring and Centralized Analytics

The software-defined WAN implements an abstract layer onto existing network hardware to enable end-to-end visibility so that IT staff can monitor all the WANs across the network topology. All the data analytics can be centralized and traffic can be routed by applications for security.

uCPE Platform NCA-1510

In this collaboration, Lanner presented its NCA-1510, a fanless SFF desktop security appliance designed for SME (small-and-medium enterprises) SD-WAN. NCA-1510 is powered by Intel® Atom® C3000 (codenamed Denverton) CPU, to deliver robustness and performance. For security, NCA-1510 is built-in with Intel’s QuickAssist Technology, offering cryptographic acceleration and commercial-grade LAN functions in a 231mm x 200mm x 44mm form factor. Besides, NCA-1510 can function as an uCPE network appliance for zero-touch provisioning at remote sites to support business continuity and teleworking.

NCA-1515, another feature-rich desktop appliance from Lanner, shares most features with NCA-1510 and is design-ready for 5G Sub-6 and WiFi 6 (802.11ax)

Featured Product


NCA-1510

Fanless SFF Desktop Network Security Appliance for SME Edge Security

CPU Intel® Atom® C3000 Series 2~8 Cores (Denverton)
Chipset SoC

Read more