Cloudflare Reinvents the Corporate Network to Speed Up, Simplify, and Secure How Any Business Connects to the Internet
Cloudflare (NYSE: NET) has launched Magic WAN with Magic Firewall as part of the Cloudflare One suite, aiming to transform enterprise network connectivity. This SaaS solution connects various traffic sources to Cloudflare’s global network, providing secure, fast connectivity while enhancing network performance. The integration of Magic Firewall enables centralized security policy management. Partnerships with SD-WAN vendors like VMware and Aruba will facilitate seamless transitions for businesses using legacy systems, promising operational agility and cost savings.
- Launch of Magic WAN and Magic Firewall enhances connectivity and security solutions.
- Cost-effective alternative to traditional MPLS architecture, reducing resource expenditure.
- Strong support from key partnerships with SD-WAN providers like VMware and Aruba.
- None.
Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), the security, performance, and reliability company helping to build a better Internet, today introduced Magic WAN with Magic Firewall and new strategic partnerships with major networking and data center providers as part of Cloudflare One, its cloud-based network-as-a-service solution. Magic WAN with Magic Firewall gives customers of all sizes a one-stop-shop to connect and secure data, devices, offices, cloud networks, and more without relying on hardware boxes. Magic WAN is a SaaS solution that connects any traffic source to Cloudflare’s global network for secure, fast connectivity, and Magic Firewall integrates with it to enforce security rules across all traffic. With Magic WAN and Magic Firewall, businesses can also speed up their network and add security at a fraction of the cost compared to legacy MPLS architecture.
"Companies burn significant resources provisioning and maintaining legacy connectivity technologies like MPLS," said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. "With Magic WAN, we’re leveraging Cloudflare’s global network to offer reliable, faster, much more cost-effective connectivity with security built in. And by partnering with the leading SD-WAN vendors, we can ensure Magic WAN can be a drop-in replacement for legacy connectivity solutions. The modern enterprise network deserves a modern take on networking, and Magic WAN is just that."
Many businesses still rely on traditional security and connectivity solutions built for in-office corporate networks. Now that the workforce is increasingly distributed, employees are frustrated with the slow speeds of VPNs and security teams are burdened with maintaining an expensive patchwork of solutions. Further, this legacy approach was not designed to support businesses that rely on the Internet for critical workplace apps, which are common attack vectors exploited by hackers. As more businesses rely on the Internet to conduct business, Cloudflare One protects and accelerates the performance of devices, applications, and entire networks to keep workforces secure and connected.
According to Ghassan Abdo, VP of WW Telecom, Virtualization & CDN at IDC Research, “Increased cloud adoption coupled with the recent pivot to remote workers has increased the volume of Internet, SaaS, and IaaS traffic, straining traditional network architectures, such as MPLS. WAN architectures that offer a global scale, integrated enterprise network security functions, and direct, secure connectivity to remote users are key to organizations looking to increase their operational agility and lower total costs of ownership.”
Now, as part of the Cloudflare One suite, Magic WAN securely connects any traffic source — data centers, offices, devices, cloud properties — to Cloudflare’s global network and enables customers to configure public and private routing policies to get traffic where it needs to go, all within one SaaS solution. Magic Firewall allows businesses to define security rules for the network from one central dashboard to help keep employees, offices, and data secure wherever they are. Cloudflare is arming customers with the ability to:
- Connect every office, data center, and cloud property: Magic WAN replaces the patchwork of connectivity and security solutions in offices and remote locations with a single cloud network.
- Protect all traffic from one simple user interface: Magic Firewall allows customers to centrally manage security policies across the entire network, all at the edge, all delivered as a service. Magic Firewall gives fine-grained control over what data is allowed in and out of a network.
- Secure corporate networks without sacrificing performance: Cloudflare acts as a conceptual hub in a hub-and-spoke architecture, but the hub is our global edge network. This means no more backhauling to centralized appliances and associated performance bottlenecks.
- Use any hardware or carrier: Cloudflare is carrier and hardware agnostic. Businesses can use whichever hardware and partners they have today to connect to Cloudflare, and get the benefits of resiliency afforded by our global network.
"Cloudflare has built one of the world’s most interconnected networks," said Enguerrand Gave, Head of Portals & Services at RATP, Paris’s public transit agency. "And to have built-in DDoS protection, traffic acceleration, network firewall, and zero trust functionality, over Cloudflare’s global IP network that can be managed using a single management plane — is arguably the biggest leap in enterprise network technology in the last couple of decades."
“Our network team is excited by Magic WAN. Cloudflare has built a global network-as-a-service platform that will help network teams manage complex edge and multi-cloud environments much more efficiently,” said Sander Petersson, Head of Infrastructure at Flightradar24. “Operating a single global WAN with built-in security and fast routing functionality — regardless of the HQ, data center, branch office, or end user location — is a game-changer in WAN technology.”
Cloudflare Partners
Many organizations already have SD-WAN appliances today to route or tunnel traffic from offices, data centers, or from public clouds using virtual appliances. Cloudflare has partnered with leading network on-ramp providers including VMware and Aruba as well as data center providers including Digital Realty, CoreSite, and EdgeConneX to help businesses move their network to the cloud with existing hardware, wherever they are in their cloud journey.
“VMware SD-WAN virtualizes the WAN to decouple network services from the underlying hardware— providing agility and performance for all enterprises, and is a foundational component of the VMware Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) platform. VMware and Cloudflare share a vision to provide customers a cost-effective, turn-key and more secure Global WAN,” said Mark Vondemkamp, vice president products, SD-WAN and SASE business, VMware.
“Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is pleased to collaborate with Cloudflare to develop solutions that will enable our customers to easily deploy the Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN platform, acquired with Silver Peak, as the enterprise connectivity onramp to Cloudflare Magic WAN and Magic Firewall,” said Fraser Street, Head of WAN Technical Alliances for Aruba. “This new solution builds on the Aruba EdgeConnect platform’s best-in-class integration with leading cloud connectivity and security services, and will enable customers to utilize Cloudfare’s global network to protect and accelerate cloud workloads.”
“The combination of Cloudflare One and PlatformDIGITAL® opens up new opportunities for our customers to accelerate their digital transformation journey and address data gravity head-on. Our industry manifesto outlined a roadmap to build new native capabilities for embracing multiple interconnection platforms in collaboration with the industry. Today’s announcement with Cloudflare marks a significant step forward towards executing on that vision. Cloudflare’s solutions for addressing issues such as data localization, compliance and security align closely with Digital Realty’s pervasive data center architecture PDx™ approach and will add further value to the rich connected data communities on our global platform,” said Chris Sharp, Chief Technology Officer, Digital Realty.
“CoreSite’s collaboration with Cloudflare provides customers with the high-speed direct fiber interconnection and enhanced security they need to meet the strictest performance and compliance requirements supporting modern hybrid applications. We are excited to enable Cloudflare Network Interconnect services within our network-dense, cloud-enabled Los Angeles and Denver data center campuses,” said Maile Kaiser, Senior Vice President, Sales, CoreSite.
To learn more about the next phase of Cloudflare One, please check out the resources below:
- Magic WAN with Magic Firewall blog
- Network On-ramp Partners blog
- Security Week Hub
- Introducing Cloudflare One
About Cloudflare
Cloudflare, Inc. (www.cloudflare.com / @cloudflare) is on a mission to help build a better Internet. Cloudflare’s suite of products protect and accelerate any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare have all web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures 2018 list and ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company in 2019. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Cloudflare has offices in Austin, TX, Champaign, IL, Seattle, WA, New York, NY, San Jose, CA, Washington, D.C., Lisbon, London, Munich, Paris, Beijing, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “explore,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “could,” “intend,” “target,” “project,” “contemplate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” or “continue,” or the negative of these words, or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans, or intentions. However, not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Forward-looking statements expressed or implied in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our plans and objectives for Cloudflare One, Magic WAN, and Magic Firewall, the benefits to customers from using Cloudflare One, Magic WAN, Magic Firewall, and our other products and technology, the expected functionality and performance of Cloudflare One, Magic WAN, Magic Firewall, and our other products and technology, our technological development, future operations, growth, initiatives, or strategies, and comments made by our CEO and others. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including but not limited to, risks detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on February 25, 2021, as well as other filings that we may make from time to time with the SEC.
The forward-looking statements made in this press release relate only to events as of the date on which the statements are made. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made in this press release to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect new information or the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions, or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements, and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements.
VMware, VMware SD-WAN and VMware SASE are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
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