Direct Internet Access (DIA)

Direct Internet Access (DIA) is the direct breakout of internet and cloud traffic at a company site instead of first routing it through a central data center. The term local internet breakout is used synonymously.

In classic hub-and-spoke networks, all traffic from branch offices is routed back to headquarters (backhauling) and inspected there at central firewalls. Since applications are increasingly used as SaaS and cloud services, this creates detours, additional latency and high load on the WAN lines. DIA shortens the path, but is only secure if protective functions inspect the traffic at the site as well – locally via firewall or cloud-based via services such as Secure Web Gateway (SWG) and Firewall as a Service (FWaaS).

Direct Internet Access should not be confused with Dedicated Internet Access, which is also abbreviated DIA and denotes a dedicated internet connection from a provider with guaranteed bandwidth. Direct Internet Access is a core function of Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN); in conjunction with a SASE platform, the locally broken-out connections follow the same central security policies as the rest of the traffic.