Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise : An overview of Traffic Handling Features

Today let’s take an overview of Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise Solution (Aruba SD-WAN) features that ensure traffic gets across the network reliably with optimum handling. To achieve this, there are two native features that come along with the solution without any licensing and are available across all the appliances (including entry-level till HQ extra-large appliances). These solutions are -

Figure 1: Traffic Handling Features

Path Conditioning feature ensures traffic passes through the network reliably without any retransmission due to errors and out-of-order issues. To achieve this there are two sub-features one is Forward Error Correction or FEC and the other one is Packet Order Correction

• Forward Error Correction – adds additional parity packets to the original data so that even if some of the packets are lost during transmission, the receiving end appliance can reconstruct the missing data from parity packets. It avoids retransmission and saves bandwidth.
• Packet Order Correction – today enterprises utilize hybrid WAN connections with asymmetry of the link bandwidth. The default behavior could be that the packets coming to receiving end are out of order. This scenario causes confusion and triggers unnecessary retransmission in the network – which adds delay and extra bandwidth consumption over links. Packet Order Correction (POC) allows the SD-WAN appliance to cache the incoming packets that arrive early and out of order until all the packets in the flow arrive. The SD-WAN Appliance then reassembles the packets in the correct order and delivers them to the destination in the correct order at receiving end.

Dynamic Path Control refers to various link bonding methods that EdgeConnect Appliance to select the underlay links for each Business Overlay. Link bonding policies are a kind of template that include the settings related to how quickly to failover, underlay link use criteria, and Error Correction settings.

These built-in basic traffic handling enhancements ensure that critical applications/transactional data get across the network reliability with optimum handling. Again to reiterate, these are native to the solution and don’t need any additional licenses.