Telefónica Tech, Fortinet target SD-WAN for remote workers

Telefónica's digital business unit, Telefónica Tech, and the cybersecurity firm Fortinet today announced a new global managed software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) service targeted to the work-from-home sector.

The companies say the hybrid and cloud-centric work model adopted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic is the new normal.

The new service, flexWAN by Fortinet, will first be launched in Spain and soon extended globally throughout Telefónica's footprint in Europe and the Americas.

The service converges networking and security into an integrated offering for enterprise employees who are connecting from their offices or other sites to their workplaces. The service combines the capabilities of Fortinet Secure SD-WAN with the managed security and cloud services of Telefónica Tech.

The service will also enable the extension of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) technology to Telefónica customers.

Although SASE was initially driven by SD-WAN, SASE encompasses more including secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), domain name system (DNS), data loss prevention (DLP), firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS) and remote browser isolation capabilities.

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Telefónica and Fortinet have been working together for a number of years. In 2016, Telefónica included Fortinet’s Security Fabric architecture into its portfolio of managed security services, now provided by Telefónica Tech.

In 2020, Telefónica Tech integrated its IT and IoT security solutions and became a Fortinet Regional Partner in Europe.

Hugo de los Santos, director of cybersecurity and cloud products and services at Telefónica Tech, said in a statement, "Our long experience with Fortinet has shown us that it is a great ally in evolving our Managed Security Services to a converged and secure SD-WAN network.”