CATO Networks

MAY 26, 2022

MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) has been an industry-standard in enterprise networking for decades. But with modern enterprises relying more and more on public cloud services like Office 365, Salesforce and SAP Cloud, is MPLS enough? 5 Considerations for Evaluating MPLS and Its Alternatives 1.

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CATO Networks

MARCH 5, 2020

As critical business applications migrate to the cloud, and the mobile workforce continues to grow, networking and security solutions need to evolve in order to meet the changing business needs. 1990s – 2000s: MPLS and the Era of Clear Network Boundaries? 1990s – 2000s: MPLS and the Era of Clear Network Boundaries?

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CATO Networks

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Its no secret that the legacy WAN faces many challenges adapting to todays business, the big question is: Whats going to replace MPLS? Legacy WAN architectures based on MPLS services provide predictable performance between offices, but theyre not implemented in a way that easily accommodates the new realities facing IT.

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CATO Networks

NOVEMBER 26, 2018

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) adoption is on the rise in the enterprise and with that comes significant impact for IT managers considering how their MPLS network transformation. The UCaaS challenge for modern WANs For all of its benefits, UCaaS poses significant challenges for traditional enterprise network architectures.

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CATO Networks

OCTOBER 26, 2017

As the company grew, Alewijnse found MPLS connectivity to be increasingly unable meet its business requirements. The Dutch engineering company had built a global wide area network (WAN) out of MPLS and Internet services connecting 17 locations 14 in Europe and 3 in the Asia Pacific with about 800 mobile and field employees.

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CATO Networks

APRIL 20, 2022

Maybe youre an IT manager or a network engineer. Its about a year before your MPLS contract expires, and youve been told to cut costs by your CFO. That MPLS too expensive. Lengthy lead-times for site installations (weeks to months,) upgrades, and never-ending rounds of support tickets must all factor into the TCO of your MPLS.

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CATO Networks

APRIL 18, 2019

The IT manager at a leading automotive components manufacturer recently shared his experience transitioning his company from MPLS to Cato SD-WAN. Manufacturing plants needed non-stop network connectivity to ensure delivery to Ford, Toyota, GM, FCA, Tesla, and Volkswagen. Whats transitioning like to SD-WAN? Ask Nick Dell.

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CATO Networks

AUGUST 26, 2019

According to a recent Uptime Institute report , network failures trail only power outages as a cause of downtime. In one form or another the question: how can SD-WAN deliver the same reliability and redundancy as MPLS when it uses the public Internet? The disruption was caused by a single faulty network card. My response?

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CATO Networks

NOVEMBER 15, 2017

That means making sure the wide area network (WAN) that connects branch offices, data centers, cloud services and SaaS applications can handle the connectivity needs of digitally empowered global organizations. Multiprotocol label switching protocol (MPLS) based networks, can no longer answer the business needs of a global enterprise.

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CATO Networks

NOVEMBER 26, 2019

Nick Dell is an IT manager who recently led a network transformation initiative at his company, moving from MPLS to SD-WAN. Dell shared why he made that transition and the lessons he learned along the way in the webinar SD-WAN Confessions: How I migrated from MPLS to SD-WAN. Issues arose about a year into the MPLS contract.

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CATO Networks

SEPTEMBER 28, 2017

By implementing an MPLS alternative , an SLA-backed WAN and by eliminating the stacks of security appliances , bandwidth costs drop and operations become more efficient. Initially the locations had been connected with MPLS and secured with local appliances. Finally, managing the MPLS and security infrastructure was painful.

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CATO Networks

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

Networking is an enterprise IT discipline where being conservative is often the way to go. After all, without the network, todays technology-powered businesses are dead in the water. The network doesnt have to be totally down, though, to disrupt the business. MPLS is a 20 years old enterprise networking technology.

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CATO Networks

DECEMBER 20, 2017

In global markets, finding a way to achieve a safe, reliable network connection has become critical for any business looking to stay relevant, competitive, and secure. MPLS networks: pros and cons MPLS is the defacto choice for most enterprises, and for a good reason. Do you identify with these MPLS Concerns for Business?

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CATO Networks

AUGUST 17, 2017

The Search for Affordable MPLS Alternative Global organizations are looking for SD-WAN services to provide an affordable, MPLS alternative. If you are already using MPLS, you are well aware of its challenges: high costs, rigidity, long time to deploy and incompatibility with the growing demand for direct cloud and internet access.

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CATO Networks

DECEMBER 24, 2019

A recent conversation with a WAN engineer got me thinking about how network optimization techniques have changed over the years. Optimization has always been about overcoming latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth limitations. However, in recent years bandwidth has become much less of an issue for most enterprises.

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CATO Networks

FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Network architectures that served us well for years no longer fit global business in 2017. To meet the needs of a global enterprise, our network architectures need to evolve as well. Which architectural approach will best serve your needs MPLS, public internet or cloud networks? Our answer is, well, it depends.

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CATO Networks

DECEMBER 18, 2023

If you are used to managed MPLS services, transitioning to Internet last-mile access as part of SD-WAN or SASE might cause some concern. How can enterprises ensure they are getting a reliable network if they are not promised end-to-end SLAs? When done right, performance can exceed MPLS performance without the cost or complexity.

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CATO Networks

AUGUST 5, 2018

And, as most real-time conversations last orders of magnitude longer than most other types of internet interactions, the probability of a network incident impacting the packet transmission is dramatically higher. The challenge is that in the network world getting Service Level Agreement (SLA) determinism generally has a steep price.

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CATO Networks

JUNE 6, 2018

The world of networking has a language of its own which is continually evolving as new technologies emerge, innovative ways of delivering network services are deployed, and global connectivity becomes increasingly essential. For example, an MPLS connection and an Internet connection. Click here for a detailed overview of FwaaS.

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CATO Networks

APRIL 16, 2019

Even though an enterprise network is considered the lifeline of an organization, there are certain challenges that have limited the efficiency of the enterprise networks. Ransomware, Malware, and BYOD Enterprise networks are affected by different types of security challenges. This can severely impact network performance.

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CATO Networks

MAY 4, 2020

Network latency costs money. However, when I discuss latency reduction and WAN acceleration with network managers and CIOs, one of the key takeaways is that getting network optimization right has changed significantly over the last decade. Its goal, like compression, is to maximize the available bandwidth.

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Packet Pushers

JUNE 18, 2021

On today's Heavy Networking, sponsored by Palo Alto Networks, we hear from Salesforce about the evolution of its branch network to SD-WAN. Salesforce was able to trade MPLS for Internet broadband, get more bandwidth for less money, employ application-based steering and policy enforcement, and more.

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CATO Networks

JANUARY 22, 2017

Its not just about cutting the cost of their existing MPLS-based WANs. Todays business has evolved significantly since the adoption of MPLS-based WANs. Per user bandwidth consumption has likely grown significantly since your organization adopted an MPLS-based WAN. Mobile users and the cloud are ignored by MPLS.

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CATO Networks

APRIL 30, 2018

As our networks have evolved so to have the challenges of optimizing application performance. Our new eBook, Cato Networks Optimized WAN and Cloud Connectivity , analyzes those challenges and explains Catos unique approach to overcoming the performance limitations in todays cloud- and mobile-centric organizations.

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CATO Networks

JANUARY 12, 2020

Most enterprise WANs have historically used MPLS, but with the proliferation of cloud resources and mobile users, organizations are realizing the need to facilitate more flexible connectivity. With a hybrid WAN, two different types of network services connect locations. Regulatory constraints mandating MPLS can continue to be met.

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CATO Networks

FEBRUARY 7, 2021

We frequently talk to organizations who are enthusiastically searching for alternatives to their old and tired MPLS and IPsec networks. Theyre ready to realize the benefits of a new SASE infrastructure but remain constrained by their old beliefs about network engineering. There are no bits to set or devices to configure.

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CATO Networks

JANUARY 2, 2022

The networking industry loves a good buzzword as much as any other IT sector. Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) certainly fits that billing. The term has been around for at least a decade has come back in vogue to describe networking purchased on a subscription basis. Gartner identifies the specific attributes of a cloud service.

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CATO Networks

MARCH 27, 2019

More than a third cited rising network costs as the biggest contributor to increasing their UC open spend in their first year of moving to the cloud. Whats driving these network cost increases? Those seeing rising network costs typically purchase additional MPLS bandwidth from their existing WAN supplier(s).

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CATO Networks

JUNE 17, 2018

The enterprise needs a network that can adapt, offering availability levels to meet each type of office requirements. MPLS networks have been the backbone of enterprise networks for years. MPLS networks are known and relied upon for high uptime, with a target of five-nines (99.999%) uptime.

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CATO Networks

JUNE 4, 2017

As a result, SD-WAN adopters have remained chained to their MPLS services, paying exorbitant bandwidth fees just to deliver these core applications. Now a new kind of inexpensive, high-quality, SLA-backed backbone is emerging, one that allows companies to finally overcome their MPLS dependency.

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Packet Pushers

NOVEMBER 21, 2022

A customer in the automotive industry needed a better way to share large CAD files among global sites, and its MPLS network wasnt cutting it. A customer in the automotive industry needed a better way to share large CAD files among global sites, and its MPLS network wasnt cutting it.

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CATO Networks

FEBRUARY 27, 2017

Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WANs) promised to address the high costs, rigidity and limitations of private MPLS services. SD-WANs reduce bandwidth costs, no doubt, but enterprises are still left having to address important issues around cloud, mobility, and security. Yes, there are good reasons for MPLS higher costs.

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CATO Networks

OCTOBER 14, 2018

Todays blog takes a look at some challenges real customers faced with their WAN infrastructure, and how Cato Networks was able to help. Paysafe decided to replace its mix of MPLS and Internet-based VPN with Cato Cloud to create a single converged network. The solution reduced costs while increasing bandwidth.

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CATO Networks

JUNE 1, 2020

Often, when speaking with network managers responsible for infrastructure within a multinational or global enterprise, I hear first-hand accounts of the impact of sluggish network performance. Similarly, slow networks can lead to painfully slow file transfers for large media files or CAD (computer-aided design). The solution?

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CATO Networks

NOVEMBER 3, 2016

It could change your entire approach to network security, and help save your sanity. Standard network and security measures are no longer adequate to support modern business needs. Firewall as a Service (FWaaS) is the future of network security. Have you heard of FWaaS ? If not, pay attention.

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CATO Networks

JUNE 19, 2018

Born alongside the expensive MPLS data service, WAN optimization appliances allowed organizations to squeeze more bandwidth out of thin pipes through compression and deduplication, as well as prioritizing traffic of loss-sensitive applications such as remote desktops. Network security is built into the Cato Cloud.

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CATO Networks

JANUARY 21, 2019

SD-WAN as a Service (SDWaas) Defined SDWaaS providers not only provide the hardware needed at each site, but will also include a virtual overlay network backbone, and additional features like security and centralized management. SDWaaS simplifies the network by eliminating appliance sprawl with seamless cloud-scale software.

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