Winter/Spring 2026 - Journal - Page 27
IT & IT SECURITY
Switching). It employs a private
and isolated infrastructure
rather than encryption. Google
AI adds: “It offers separation
of traf昀椀c between customers,
but data typically travels in the
clear (unencrypted), making
it vulnerable to interception
if the network is breached.”
Conclusively, it is therefore often
not considered secure by default.
Unpredictable SD-WAN
performance
The option that’s proving to
be increasingly popular in
Government and Defence
market is the SD-WAN – a great
technology, but it also has its
weaknesses. These include
unpredictable performance,
latency and packet loss. WAN
Optimisation was originally a
standalone appliance in the past,
but it’s often integrated into
SD-WANs, which can use MPLS
or LTE networks simultaneously.
Bolted on as an afterthought is
arti昀椀cial intelligence and machine
learning to improve SD-WAN
performance.
The UK Government’s Digital
Marketplace claims: “SD-WAN
service revolutionises network
connectivity. Seamlessly
integrating security and
optimisation, it ensures agile,
reliable and secure connections.
Experience enhanced application
performance and simpli昀椀ed
network management with
Fortinet’s advanced SD-WAN
solutions.”
Despite this, SD-WANs
can still be impacted by
latency, packet loss and poor
bandwidth utilisation. To
help with this, Tristan Wood,
founder of Livewire Digital,
recommends a hybrid approach
to networking. Speaking about
them military and Defence
terms, he comments in his article
for Advance, ‘Strengthening
military connectivity in contested
environments’ on 14th March
2024:
“A key bene昀椀t hybrid
connectivity brings to battlespace
is its ability to bolster resilience
to physical and cyber-attack.
By combining the resources
across the full spectrum of
available channels on a Wide
Area Network, (WAN) including
satellite, hybrid connectivity
mitigates against single-point
failures and ensures continuity
of operations - even in the
face of persistent interference
and disruptions caused by
adversaries.”
He explains that SD-WANs
sit at the core of this hybrid
infrastructure and says softwarede昀椀ned networking concepts
use an architecture to “create
a virtual overlay that bonds
underlying private or public
WAN connections, such as
Multiprotocol Label Switching
(MPLS), internet broadband,
昀椀bre, LTE, 5G cellular or wireless.”
This permits hybrid SD-WAN
networking to “agnostically
combine and transition between
these networks.”
Hybrid SD-WANs don’t rely
on a failover that employs classic
routing techniques, replacing one
bearer with another. Instead, he
says, they bond all the available
connections into a single,
seamless and heterogenous
‘pipe.’ He therefore claims:
“Applying this technique to
connectivity on the move, where
the availability and characteristics
of networks change rapidly,
a hybrid solution overcomes
the challenges of intermittent
connectivity, poor performance
and resultant dif昀椀culty in scaling.”
SD-WANs: Strong growth
It may be for this reason that
the UK SD-WAN market for
Government and Defence is
experiencing strong growth. The
drivers are the need for secure,
high performance, cloud-昀椀rst
networks, accelerated digital
transformation and the adoption
of high-assurance, low-cost
connectivity. Industry reports also
suggest that the UK SD-WAN
market is projected to grow
signi昀椀cantly by 2031. Leading
the demand for SD-WANs will be
managed services and cloudbased solutions. They may also
be supported by 5G integrated.
However, both Government
and Defence sectors could
do with a literal boost with
WAN Acceleration, which
is not to be confused with
WAN Optimisation. It can also
accelerate SD-WANs as an
overlay. How? Well, rather than
making AI and machine learning
an afterthought, they are fully
integrated into the technology,
which is for use alongside data
parallelisation to mitigate the
effects of latency and packet loss.
A signi昀椀cant advantage of WAN
Acceleration is that it can send
and receive any kind of encrypted
data – not even my team at
Bridgeworks can see the data
when it’s at rest or on the move.
Project TRINITY: Essential
connectivity
Its bene昀椀ts could be useful to
Defence WANs such as Project
TRINITY, which is an £89m
programme led by BAE Systems.
It has the aim of delivering a
secure, state-of-the-art tactical
WAN. As it stands, it is said to
offer 100 times the data capacity
than previous systems, with the
ability to facilitate real-time video
feeds from drones and aircraft to
commanders on the ground.
The key goal is to provide
the essential connectivity that’s
needed for modern, data-centric
warfare and Defence. WAN
Acceleration could support the
transmission of large volumes
of Government and military
data by, for example, increasing
bandwidth utilisation and by
obfuscating bad actors. The data
is sent at higher speeds than
WAN Optimisation, and even
SD-WANs can’t manage it so
well alone. Their performance
can be boosted b adding a WAN
Acceleration overlay.
Government departments,
such as the Ministry of Defence
(MoD), could therefore
bene昀椀t from integrating
WAN Acceleration into their
Government and Defence IT
systems, particularly as this
technology is about Zero Trust.
With its inclusion in its armoury,
it could support the MoD’s digital
backbone, which aims to create
a single, secure ecosystem
connecting sensors, decisionmakers and effectors across all
the domains of Land, Sea, Air,
Space and Cyber.
WAN Acceleration is Zero
Trust
WAN Acceleration offers Zero
Trust capabilities because it is
data agnostic and can transmit
encrypted data without human
intervention or interference. It
has the capability to allow for Big
Data analysis in command-andcontrol situations for decision
advantage, and to signi昀椀cantly
accelerate the backing up and
restoring of voluminous amounts
of data over large distances by
mitigating latency and packet loss
– allowing data to be stored in at
least 3 different global locations.
It also reinforces the concept
of Zero Trust architecture, as it
is much more secure than WAN
Optimisation and enhances the
performance of SD-WANs. Lastly,
WAN Acceleration can support
an allied air force or a ministry
as much as it can any other kind
of government and public sector
organisation. With it they invest
in their data, and they can gain
advantage on the battle昀椀eld.
David Trossell
GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR JOURNAL WINTER/SPRING 2026
27
