ZTNA joins Secure Connect and SD-WAN features, available through Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Exchange
Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN) solution provider Cradlepoint on Wednesday announced the addition of Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to its NetCloud Exchange (NCX) suite. This marks the third cybersecurity enhancement to NCX, following its initial rollout this summer.
ZTNA was the third promised enhancement to NCX that Cradlepoint — purchased by Ericsson in 2020 — promised by the year’s end, and the company has delivered with a few weeks to spare. NCX ZTNA arrives with key features including a single, attribute-based policy engine that enables admins to create network and user-based policies; deployment flexibility with support for different access models including a client app, Cradlepoint router, as well as a browser-based option coming in 2023; and user-to-resource access using fine-grained policies that can be isolated to specific devices such as IP cameras, digital signs and point-of-sale systems.
NetCloud is Cradlepoint’s cloud-based Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) management platform for its LTE and 5G wireless edge routers and endpoints. NCX delivers optional cybersecurity services including secure connections, advanced Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN), and now ZTNA. Cradlepoint first released NCX in August. NCX arrived with Secure Connect, which Cradlepoint described as “a VPN-like service” that creates secure end-to-end connections by automating tunnel orchestration, overlaying encryption and name-based routing and simplifying IP address management.
5G-optimized SD-WAN for NCX followed in November. Along the way, Cradlepoint made critical adjustments to the way NCX works to optimize for 5G-based SD-WAN. Those changes included consideration of cellular-centric attributes when steering traffic, including available bandwidth and data usage. NCX uses in-line traffic to calculate WAN performance metrics, as a way of preserving bandwidth across metered links.
Cradlepoint also integrated Cellular Intelligence, a collection of software features it builds into its wireless edge routers and adapters, to provide users with better insights and visibility of 5G networks. Cellular Intelligence can expose cellular service provider visibility, the ability to view cellular signal strength and the ability to plot the location of both SD-WAN routers and the serving cell towers on a map for optimal placement of devices, said Cradlepoint.
Cradlepoint and partner Verizon hit a milestone earlier this year when the companies announced that 1 million Cradlepoint routers have been deployed at the edge of Verizon’s network. The growth of wireless WAN solutions is being driven by a combination of workforce changes, improved data throughput, ease and speed of deployment and reduction of cost, company executives told Enterprise EIoT Insights.
“Before, IT teams were responsible for 1,000 people in one building, now you’re responsible for 1000 people in 1000 different buildings. They have no visibility of control over all those home networks, but by simply having a wireless connection that’s controlled and managed by IT, you now give IT the tools to make that transition,” said Cradlepoint CMO Todd Krautkremer.
