The End of SD-WAN’s Party In China

As I was listening to Network Break Episode 257 from my friends at Packet Pushers, I heard Greg and Drew talking about a new development in China that could be the end of SD-WAN’s big influence there.
China has a new policy in place, according to Axios, that enforces a stricter cybersecurity stance for companies. Companies doing business in China or with offices in China must now allow Chinese officials to get into their networks to check for security issues as well as verifying the supply chain for network security.
In essence, this is saying that Chinese officials can have access to your networks at any time to check for security threats. But the subtext is a little less clear. Do they get to control the CPE as well? What about security constructs like VPNs? This article seems to indicate that as of January 1, 2020, there will be no intra-company VPNs authorized by any companies in China, whether Chinese or foreign businesses in China.
Tunnel Collapse
I talked with a company doing some SD-WAN rollouts globally in China all the way back in 2018. One of the things that was brought up in that interview was that Continue reading
