GTT SD WAN & Cybersecurity Solutions

GTT SD WAN and Cybersecurity Solutions: Comparisons, Review, Benefits, Use Cases, Pros & Cons

Author: Netify Research Team

If you have questions about GTT and how their capability is aligned to your needs, email the Netify research team. UK: uk@netify.co.uk North America: northamerica@netify.com

(Please use the UK email for ROW - Rest of the World - questions or inquiries)

Netify Review

Recommended for clients in retail, e-commerce, financial services or any industry where card data is critical as they are PCI-DSS compliant. Ideal for US or European, large global firms that wish to migrate to SD WAN and have complex requirements. GTT’s offering is also suitable for enterprises wanting long haul, high capacity Ethernet Private Line (EPL) for those needing multi site WAN & DIA support. The Managed or DIY options allow for enterprises to be as hands off as they wish or support firms with limited IT resources available.

About GTT

GTT Communications was founded in 2005 when it was formerly known as Global Telecom & Technology. Now, they are a multinational telecommunications and internet service provider leveraging a Tier-1 global IP backbone spanning six continents. The company is based in McLean, Virginia, North America and incorporated in Delaware. GTT currently support over 6,600 clients in 140+ countries. As of 2022, GTT Communications has expanded its partnership with Cologix to establish a new point of presence in Florida. Leveraging Cologix's JAX1 data centre will enable direct fiber connectivity for U.S. customers to the Caribbean, Central and South America utilizing two separate submarine cable systems. GTT is also expanding its offering for U.S. enterprises by providing managed fixed wireless connectivity with an unlimited data plan for primary and backup applications and automatic 5G failover for GTT's fixed wireless broadband internet.

What is the GTT SD WAN Solution?

GTT offer SD WAN solutions leveraging their Tier-1 global IP backbone with over 700 PoPs worldwide, spanning 6 continents and more than 140 countries. Overlay offerings are based on a choice of Silver Peak, VeloCloud and Fortinet, backed up by GTT’s engineering team who help clients choose the best option to suit business needs. Each offering contains network-based gateways. 

VPLS Underlay:

Combines Ethernet with underlying MPLS network whilst leveraging GTT’s Tier-1 global IP backbone to create integrated and secure connectivity between the IP backbone and the internet using on-net SD WAN gateways.

• P-bit Prioritization for Class of Service: Allows for segmentation into four classes in order to ensure that latency-sensitive applications are given priority to deliver optimal end-user experiences. 
• Varying Bandwidth Options: Clients can use an aggregated committed data rate (ACDR) plan which enables bandwidth sharing across ports, reducing the amount paid for idle capacity. Also includes flat-rate billing and burstable ports to cope with data spikes. 
• Routing: Clients can maintain full routing control of traffic without sharing IP addressing or the routing table. Both IP traffic and non-IP traffic can be transmitted with no need for encapsulation or conversion. 
• Reporting: Real-time visibility into network performance, with the ability to view billing and order status and track real-time statistics via the Ether Vision portal. 
• Port Types: Available port types include, Fast Ethernet (Fast E), Gigabit Ethernet (Gig E), 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gig E), 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100 Gig E). 

Ethernet Underlay:

Ethernet underlay is available in point-to-point and multipoint configurations, with dynamic routing support and global coverage. Clients can use flexible bandwidth options that range from 10Mbps to 100Gbps with established network-to-network interface (NNI) from partner networks creating seamless last-mile coverage. 

Universal Customer Premises Equipment (uCPE): 

uCPE hosts software versions for vendor appliances, which separates software used for services from packet processing and physical connections - to learn more about uCPE and it’s purpose in SD WAN, please see our article here.

The GTT uCPE services various types of virtualised network functions (VNFs) which can be combined into a service chain, next generation firewall (NGFW) or virtualised switching fabric. This increases customer agility to make deployment and upgrading VNFs and services quicker.

What is the GTT SASE security solution?

GTT offer Secure Connect SASE via Palo Alto Networks. The solution is cloud-delivered and powered by Palo Alto's Prisma Access platform and leverages GTT's Tier-1 global private network. The Secure Connect platform integrates with GTT's managed SD WAN solution and offers Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Firewall as a Service (FWaaS) and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). The solution also offers clients use of GTT's Professional Services for solution design, deployment, ongoing management and incident response. 

GTT also offer a comprehensive security stack -the solution includes the following. 

Security Features: 

• Unified Threat Management: Basic offering includes user identification, anti-virus, intrusion prevention, advanced application control, anti-spam, content filtering and web filtering capabilities. Additional services are supported by GTT’s security operations center (SOC) and include vulnerability scanning, security information reporting visibility and managed logging. 
• Managed Detection and Response (MDR): Designed to allow clients to adopt a cybersecurity risk management approach across the entire network, backed by constant support from GTT’s security analysts. This gives clients visibility of vulnerabilities and risk profiles that are associated especially with remote workers and corporate networking environments.
• Secure Remote Access: Provides secure remote access for remote users to an organisation’s private network resources via the internet. Also features controls such as Multi-Factor Authentication. 
• Direct Denial of Service (DDoS) Mitigation: Detects and removes malicious traffic to prevent DDoS attacks. Leverages next generation DDoS platform technology which offers GTT hosted scrubbing centers which provide deep packet inspection analytics, threat detection and filters compromised traffic. 
• SOC/Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Services: An element of GTT’s Threat Lifestyle Management service which includes classification, triage, incident recording, diagnostics, resolution and recovery. The GTT threat intelligence center is ISO 27001 Information Assurance accredited. They also hold global CREST SOC accreditation- one of only 5 companies worldwide. 
• PCI Management and Monitoring: GTT offer a Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) compliant solution - the first service provider to achieve PCI/CISP compliance in 2003. This creates a safe environment for cardholder data, good for retail companies. Now GTT help clients to achieve PCI compliance with comprehensive plans designed for developing, deploying, configuring and monitoring network and security assets.
• Cloud-Based + Premises-Based = Defense in Depth: Clients can choose between a cloud-delivered, on-premises delivered or hybrid delivered approach. This provides compliance, reporting, alerting and security as well as expedited response to improve resolution times, reducing the risks associated with blended attacks.

How does GTT access cloud vendors?

GTT accesses cloud vendors through its last mile Cloud Connect service. This service provides  dedicated client connections to AWS, Azure, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud. GTT is an AWS Direct Connect partner, Azure Express Route partner and a Google Interconnect partner.

Does GTT offer WAN acceleration and optimization?

GTT do not offer a WAN optimization and acceleration solution. However, instead these features are built into their SD WAN offering: Routing, Failover, Traffic Shaping, Load Balancing and the automatic detection & mitigation of excessive packet loss, latency and jitter. Dynamic Routing enables traffic to be directed across the best available circuit, since the primary, secondary and tertiary circuits are automatically monitored for packet loss, latency, jitter and availability.

How does GTT support remote users?

GTT’s remote user support is provisioned by SD WAN vendor partners such as Fortinet, Velocloud and Silver peak. See our individual vendor reviews for more information on each offering.

What is the GTT managed, co-managed and DIY services solution? 

Differences between GTT DIY and Managed SD WAN (GTT, 2021.) See more at: https://www.gtt.net/gb-en/services/wide-area-networking/sd-wan

What Reporting and Management is available via the GTT Portal?

Access to the SD WAN orchestrator is available through the GTT Portal. As of the 21st July 2021 GTT’s SD WAN solution is able to be co-managed via their EtherVision portal. The portal offers monitoring of real time and historical events as well as insights into network performance and security. This helps to ensure rapid customer response times to security threats and provide optimal application performance. The portal is available with GTT SD WAN and Security services and enables firewall policy and network configurations to be managed in real time. The portal provides insights and reporting into the following:

What is the GTT SLA?

Below is a table displaying the main focus points of the GTT Service Level Agreement (SLA). 

SLAs for MPLS (GTT, 2021)