Barracuda Networks optimizes SD-WAN traffic with patented erasure correction technology from Steinwurf.

Barracuda Networks and Denmark-based Steinwurf ApS announced an OEM relationship to use Steinwurf’s Kodo Software libraries to add Erasure Correcting Codes (ECC) with the Barracuda CloudGen Firewall.

The network world is transitioning from the use of dedicated leased lines like MPLS toward SD-WAN with uplinks provided by shared broadband lines. 

Analyst firm Gartner predicts that 60 percent of all companies will have adopted SD-WAN technology by 2024. Widespread acceptance of SD-WAN creates new network challenges.

Even as providers increase bandwidth, companies using SD-WAN on broadband compete for the best slices of the public internet in fierce competition with other adopters of SD-WAN, webinar providers, increased work-from-home traffic, and the emergence of new streaming services.

Where packet loss causes retransmissions, and retransmissions cause latency spikes and bottlenecks in broadband lines, currently the SD-WAN solution may automatically switch traffic to MPLS. So even as customers move to SD-WAN, they often keep MPLS as part of the internet uplink mix, as a reliability backstop.

To overcome these limitations, Barracuda CloudGen Firewall uses Kodo to enable patented erasure correction technology provided by Steinwurf.

This breakthrough technology is based on a new set of algorithms in the category of random linear network codes (RLNC) designed for high-speed networking across lossy lines such as internet broadband.

Kodo’s algorithms based on RLNC codes react much faster to losses and remediate these faster on the fly, practically eliminating retransmissions using only a minimum amount of correction overhead in the networking equipment.