Tata Communications SD WAN & SASE Cybersecurity Solutions

Tata Communications SD WAN and SASE Cybersecurity Solution: Comparisons, Review, Benefits, Use Cases, Pros & Cons

Author: Netify Research Team

If you have questions about Tata Communications 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)

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A large telco underlay provider offering SD WAN and SASE solutions via partner overlays. Tata Communications operate globally, however their primary market is India and Asia. Their SD WAN solutions are overlayed by some of the biggest players in the SD WAN market with Tata’s focus centred on their tier-1 IP network and managed services.

About Tata Communications

Tata Communications (formerly Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) was founded in 1986 and is an Indian telecommunications company that historically was part of the Department of Telecommunications, owned by the Ministry of Communications, Government of India. Now, the company serves more than 7,000 global customers in over 190 countries (representing more than 300 of the Fortune 500 companies).

What is the Tata SD WAN Solution?

IZO SD WAN is Tata Communications cloud-delivered SD WAN offering. The solution incorporates both SD WAN and network security in an end-to-end suite of managed services (see, Managed Services) with support from Tata’s support teams. For optimised performance, the solution leverages built-in intelligence, combining Tata’s IZO Hybrid WAN product to enable a choice of global connectivity underlay.

Tata’s scalable offering strongly focuses on supporting clients who are planning to migrate from legacy WAN to an SD WAN network. They leverage their Tier-1 global backbone with a vast network of privately owned subsea cables, allowing the company to offer global SD WAN and hybrid WAN solutions.

Further, the solution offers network security services (see Security for more information), Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) capabilities and underlay options including private lines, Ethernet, Internet Access, MPLS and access to public cloud applications. The entire network solution is manageable from a single dashboard. Tata offers SD WAN based on Cisco Meraki.

What is the Tata SASE security solution?

Tata’s SASE offering is cloud delivered and fully managed, combining Network as a Service (NaaS) and Security as a Service (SaaS) for analysis across the entire network, as well as users and applications.

The solution includes:

• Secure Web Gateway (SWG): analyses network traffic and enables users to implement network-wide security policies, with increased visibility across the network, including branch offices, Internet gateways, remote workers, data centres and mobile workers.
• Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB): security for cloud operations with policy enforcement across SaaS and IaaS cloud services. Ensures compliance, protects data and offers visibility into cloud data.
• Managed Detection and Response (MDR): deployed from Tata’s cloud-based Security Operations Centre (SOC).
• Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA): zero trust access delivered for remote and home workers across multiple devices and locations and can be managed using web-based orchestration controls and APIs. Offered via partnership with NetFoundry and is NIST compliant.
• Firewall as a Service (FWaaS): manages security features such as IDPS, VPN, web filtering and firewalls with content monitoring from SOC staff.

Further managed security features:

• Direct Denial of Service (DDoS) Protection: protects from DDoS attacks with real-time detection and mitigation, protecting critical assets such as data centres and business-critical applications.
• Data Leak Prevention: managed data flows to prevent leaks to unauthorised users, with pre-defined compliance reports to lower costs.
• Identity as a Service (IDaaS): part of Tata’s content security and privacy solutions which connects users to applications with centralised ands secure Single Sign On (SSO). Offers secure and role based access for employees, customers and partners to ensure that only the correct applications are visible.
• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): adds an additional layer of security to the authentication process.
• Privileged Access Management (PAM): secures superuser credentials with SSO and MFA.
• Web Application Firewall (WAF): part of Tata’s cloud security solutions, WAF is a managed firewall service designed to analyse Layer 7 application traffic whilst only monitoring targeted applications and inspecting inbound and outbound traffic. Protects against OWASP Top Ten vulnerabilities and integrates with Tata’s SIEM platform to protect against zero-day attacks.
• Firewall with Unified Threat Management (UTM): remediates attacks in real-time with constant monitoring and management of firewalls from Tata’s SOC.
• Firewall risk, audit and optimisation: fully managed optimisation with management for complex network policies and full integration with the entire network to deliver new applications quicker and more securely.
• Public cloud security: constant monitoring from Tata’s SOC.
• Hybrid cloud security: offers a combination of public and private cloud security focusing on data integration between clouds, applications and distributed threat service, whilst protecting sensitive information and applications running and stored in both public and private clouds.

How does Tata access cloud vendors?

Tata has multiple strong cloud connectivity solutions for a number of cloud vendors:

• Advanced Consulting Partner from AWS
• Gold Partner from Azure
• VMware Verified Cloud Status from VMware
• Multiple certifications from SAP

Tata offer hybrid, public and private cloud connectivity for global enterprises, with direct connect facilities to providers such as Salesforce:

• ExpressRoute to Azure
• DirectConnect to AWS
• Cloud Connect to Google Cloud Platform
• Direct Link to IBM Cloud
• Express Connect to Alibaba Cloud

Does Tata offer WAN acceleration and optimization?

Tata offer users application performance optimisation which improves application access efficiency and visibility and enhances performance.

WAN Acceleration and Optimisation options delivered by Tata is application performance optimisation, offering improvements to application access efficiency, enhancing performance and improving visibility by enabling users at multiple sites to access resources including remotely or via mobile with a suggested use case for large global enterprises to improve connectivity and response times.

This service includes a multiple deployment model, with in-path, out-of-path, transparent modes and an annual re-optimisation service all supported by Tata’s global managed services team. According to Tata, their application performance optimisation can reduce operating costs as well as network bandwidth by 30%-65%. Tata also offer an optional premises-based SaaS application performance optimisation service, aimed at applications such as Office 365 and SDFC, with managed services which can scale to hundreds of applications and can be deployed on-premises and in the cloud.

How does Tata support remote users?

Remote users are supported using cloud-based remote access with SASE users secured through zero trust policies. Tata’s Security Operations Centre (SOC) features hosted authentication servers that are fully managed. Managed authentication options include soft or hard tokens such as physical devices or software applications that utilise either a Personal Identification Number (PIN) or a randomly generated token code to protect network connected assets from unauthorised access.

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

Tata Communications offer a wide range of managed services including: fully managed infrastructure, SOC services, Cloud SOC for Managed Detection & Response (MDR) and, Cyber Security Response Centre (CSRC). Tata’s managed SD WAN service is IZO SD WAN, which is managed at all stages, from assessment to deployment with ongoing support including end-to-end SD WAN management, analytics, insights and unified management.

What Reporting and Management is available via the Tata Portal?

Tata's portal offers a self-service capability and provides features such as: detailed reporting, access to an SD WAN management dashboard, and machine-driven application recognition.

What is the Tata SLA?

Tata Communications offers a 99.99% assured uptime over dual routing and optimised application access, all visible through a single-pane-of-glass.Tata Communications provide a service manager to make updates to your deployment to help improve the user experience. The service is backed by bi-annual audits, support and ongoing monitoring. The Service Manager provided by Tata will review end-user behaviour and service usage to ensure they are meeting the SLAs set and monitored by Tata.