Masergy SD WAN & SASE Cybersecurity Solutions

Masergy SD WAN Solution: Comparisons, Review, Benefits, Use Cases, Pros & Cons

Author: Netify Research Team

If you have questions about Masergy 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

Masergy is suitable for mid-large enterprises, looking for a managed SD WAN and SASE solution for global or regional networks, because of their OTT solution and Global IP backbone. The offering is very strong in metropolitan areas due to Masergy's historic ability to connect metro areas via their backbone, especially in North America. This is partially due to Comcast's acquisition of Masergy in October 2021, giving the company use of Comcast's advanced fibre network in North America, whilst retaining their own global IP backbone. 

However, some clients have reported that Masergy's tier-1 support staff are not as strong as they could be, often requiring support from tier-2 staff before they triage a query, wasting clients time. Further, clients in certain areas outside of North America have reported a lack of PoP coverage - however this is not an issue for most regions due to Masergy's extensive backbone. 

The Industry Verticals ideally suited to Masergy’s offering are: Financial, Manufacturing, Healthcare and Professional Services. Although Masergy are known for their dedicated leased line connectivity, they also offer Performance Edge software that allows clients to use public or private broadband, without experiencing high latency and jitter due to a patent-pending boost broadband connection. 

About Masergy

Masergy is a global managed SD WAN service provider, based in Plano, Texas, North America. Founded in 2000 by Barry Nalls, the company previously connected offices in metropolitan areas using their core backbone network with low jitter and latency and only offered global services. Today, they still use their core global backbone, with added capabilities which mean that they are able to offer regional services, as well as global. They also support over 1400 enterprise customers across 102 countries and have 21 years worth of experience in software-defined networking. 

On the 8th of October 2021, telecoms giant Comcast acquired Masergy. This will allow Masergy to make use of Comcast's high speed North American broadband network, offering Ethernet connections up to 100Gbps as well as a voice platform with owned UCaaS technologies. 

Masergy are a proven industry visionary as shown in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Global Network Services for a five year period. They also boast high business performance with a net promoter score of 71 in 2018, the second consecutive year with a score above 70. The average net promoter score for the industry currently stands at 21.

What is the Masergy SD WAN Solution?

Masergy offer clients the choice between fully-managed or co-managed SD WAN. They also cater for hybrid architectures with a choice of public and private networks as well as 5G and multi-cloud connectivity, SASE (See, What is the Masergy SASE Security Solution?) and WAN optimization. Masergy’s flexible solution allows clients to bring their own network (BYON), such as a public internet connection or third party private network, however clients may opt instead to allow Masergy to source, deploy and manage access globally.

The Masergy solution leverages 51 global secure points-of-presence (PoPs) to provide a single cloud platform, network and security. Their solution provides a number of key features:

Configuration-Based Key Features:

Security-Based Key Features:

• SASE: Fully integrated managed security services (See, What is the Masergy SASE Security Solution?). 

Performance-Based Key Features:

• Edge-to-Edge in Sequence Packet Delivery: Provides improved performance and quality of the data stream for customers that rely upon delay sensitive applications. 
• WAN Optimisation and Application Acceleration: Masergy offer their Performance Edge software (See, Does Masergy Offer WAN Acceleration and Optimisation?).
• Integrated SD WAN Orchestrator: Masergy’s SD WAN orchestrator allows clients to self-manage their network, configure networking functions, security policies and performance-related tasks through the use of their SD WAN portal. Clients can also add application-based routing rules and configure all firewall and application control policies and make real-time moves, adds, changes and deletions (MACDs).

What is the Masergy SASE security solution?

Masergy partners with Fortinet and Bitglass to provide a converged SASE security solution: SD WAN, secure web gateway (SWG) and cloud firewall provided by Fortinet, and cloud access security broker (CASB) provided by Bitglass. The Masergy managed SASE security solution product is offered in three different tiers: 

Unified Threat Protection (the most basic offering) which features: 

• Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) with Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP): Offers LAN capabilities as well as WAN. 
• Enhanced anti-malware: Includes IDS/IPS, app control, web filtering and DLP.
• AIOps: Masergy’s AI powered network optimization solution (See, Does Masergy offer WAN acceleration and optimization?).
• Shadow IT Discovery: Helps to identify unauthorized SaaS applications and mitigate risks. Helps to create secure access to multiple cloud applications. Improves visibility of applications through the SD WAN management portal. Reduces risks in a multi-cloud environment. 
• Identity-Based WAN Analytics: Provides detailed per-user statistics across all applications. 
• Log Reporting and Alerting: Increases the speed of issue recognition. 

Threat Monitoring and Response:

Includes all of the above, as well as: 

• Security Operations Center (SOC) Services: Constantly monitors for threats and provides incident response.

Managed Security Services (the most granular offering): 

Includes all of the above, as well as:

• Cloud security: AWS, Azure, CASB, Microsoft 365 and 3rd party integration. 
• Security analytics:Analyzes data for better threat recognition. 
• Advanced Intrusion Detection System (IDS) and Raw Packet Capture: Captures packets in real-time and stores it in order to improve threat recognition via data analysis.
• Network Visibility (Flow Data): Analyzes performance, traffic and big data. 
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Monitors and responds to security risks. 
• Threat Intelligence and Hunting: Actively searches for intruders. 
• Vulnerability Scanning and Management: Identifies, evaluates, reports and treats security vulnerabilities.

How does Masergy access cloud vendors?

Masergy provide connectivity to Azure, SAP and IBM Cloud. They are an AWS Select Technology Partner and a Google Cloud Carrier Peering Service Provider. The network is accessed via the Secure Edge Network, which is accessible via one of their 51 PoPs. They also offer connectivity to cloud applications such as Box, Sales Force and Office 365.

Does Masergy offer WAN acceleration and optimization?

Masergy offer WAN acceleration and optimization in the form of their Performance Edge. It is designed to improve the performance of SD WAN and SASE networks that are deployed via broadband. Performance Edge is good for clients looking to lower costs by using a broadband connection, as it removes stereotypical poor performance associated with broadband connections. It does this by: 

Performance Edge also includes Masergy’s AIOps AI intelligence powered virtual network assistant. This is designed to constantly monitor all broadband connections, reporting any current or potential service issues to IT teams. It is also able to make real-time recommendations for performance improvements and advises when to enable Performance Edge. The solution uses application data from the cloud, raw network data from SD WAN and SASE and user data from any endpoint to make decisions.

How does Masergy support remote users?

Masergy provides comprehensive support for remote users via three levels based on client needs:

• Work From Anywhere: Uses a Fortinet SD WAN device to provide remote workers with secure bandwidth and access to corporate networks. This solution improves cloud performance and applies office security protections to remote workers. This solution is ideally suited to remote workers who need security and performance over public Wi-Fi, home internet or mobile cellular devices. 
• SD WAN Secure Home: Suitable for Work-From-Home employees, provides a secure, high performance SD WAN link with corporate networks provisioned by a secure Fortinet SD WAN device. Secures remote access and disassociates family internet usage from employee network activity over shared home internet service whilst also improving performance of cloud applications. 
• SD WAN On the Go: Primarily aimed at mobile knowledge workers, “On the Go” is software based and provides cloud native security and VPN connectivity. This solution provides secure access to cloud and corporate applications via SASE based security, including: identity or location based access, threat detection and response. This solution can be used on employee and corporate devices to establish a secure connection to corporate networks through protected endpoints and VPNs with IPsec tunnels. 

Unified communications can be added to enhance distanced working solutions. Masergy’s offering provides the ability to secure employees anywhere through a standardized corporate network solution. Next generation firewalls and Unified Threat Management are included with all remote solutions with users further secured through consistent corporate IT security policies. Telecommuting workers using their own devices can use cloud security and CASB solutions to ensure the security of their cloud connections. Masergy’s solution uses a unified portal for real time control and end to end visibility of all devices and distributed workers.

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

Masergy’s offering can be both fully managed or co managed. Masergy do not focus on provisioning DIY solutions, however they are able to assist in the transition from DIY to Managed. As an SD WAN service provider that focuses on fully and co-managed solutions, most of Masergy’s offering can be directly managed. These include: Managed SD WAN Secure, Co-Managed SD WAN, Secure WAN “Over the top” (OTT), SASE and Managed Security. The Masergy SD WAN solution can be managed, co-managed or provided as an overlay to an existing network, “OTT” or otherwise known as “Bring Your Own Network”. Managed services from Masergy are either handled by Masergy themselves or through a channel partner. Masergy’s SD WAN solutions all use their secure edge network as well as Fortinet edge devices. Networks are managed through Masergy’s SD WAN Orchestrator, accessible through the portal. The advantage of Masergy’s services solution is that technologies, services and analytics can be sourced from one partner. In situations wherein direct network control is required for compliance, the co-management option allows IT teams to delegate some SD WAN responsibilities to Masergy, whilst self-managing using the same orchestrator tools and functionality usually utilized by Masergy in a fully managed service. Masergy manages security solutions for their SD WAN networks however reporting and analytics can be accessed through the SD WAN Orchestrator.

What Reporting and Management is available via the Masergy Portal?

The Masergy portal provides identity based, real-time analytics as well as automated network analysis through their AIOps solution. The Masergy portal allows for on demand control and embedded shadow IT discovery as part of Masergy’s managed security solution. This allows for in-depth analysis and insights into network issues which reduces downtime due to increased efficiency of issue resolution. The Masergy portal shows analytical data for WAN Edge devices, UCaaS, application performance and network. Access to Masergy’s SD WAN Orchestrator is provisioned through the portal. The Masergy portal management supports dynamically adjusting bandwidth scaling for specified applications and bandwidth scaling over both private and public links.

What is the Masergy SLA?

( N.b. - * When architected for redundancy and configured for high availability)

Masergy Clients are also provided with automatic credit after a service availability SLA is not met.