If you want to future-proof your business network, consider SD-WAN. It offers several benefits, including ease of use and central management.
It can also reduce the amount of traffic on leased lines by shifting some of it to broadband Internet connections and cloud-based applications. This can lower costs and improve performance.
The Future of Networking
SD-WAN as a service is a way to implement a software-defined network (SDN) solution within a traditional vast area network (WAN). The SDN approach allows network control functions, such as routing and implementation of IT policies, to be controlled centrally from a single interface. This reduces complexity, provides more programmable network management, and improves flexibility.
Traditional WANs use legacy routers to connect remote users to applications hosted in data centers. These legacy networks rely on command line interface (CLI) driven routing protocols that define where and how data egress a branch network. Such protocols are challenging to manage, error-prone, and often difficult to deploy & operate effectively.
What is SD-WAN as a service for companies that are turning and want to optimize their WAN connectivity better? It enables businesses to migrate from legacy access technologies and efficiently uses existing network capacity.
This is because SD-WAN uses software to route traffic, separating network logic and configuration from physical connections & hardware. This allows network intelligence to be applied to multiple connection types & access points and all carriers.
How SD-WAN Works
SD-WAN is a network technology that allows you to control how traffic flows over your WAN. It also helps optimize WAN connections, improving application performance and user experience.
Traditionally, networks had to route traffic through a single connectivity structure. This resulted in delays that impeded productivity and difficult data access.
However, with SD-WAN, your WAN can use various connectivity types, such as broadband Internet and LTE. This can improve network agility and support cloud migrations.
In addition, it can reduce costs by allowing you to vary bandwidth access. This can be done through deduplication and compression techniques that will enable you to send more data over the WAN without consuming more bandwidth than you need.
You can also use a policy-based routing approach to steer your business traffic through the most efficient routes. This is important because it will help ensure you get the best possible quality of service across your WAN connections.
This makes it easier to deliver a consistent experience for your users, no matter how they connect to the Internet. It also reduces the amount of data that has to travel long distances, which can be an issue when transferring large amounts of information.
The ability to automate processes is another key benefit of an SD-WAN solution. This means that you can automate the configuration of your WAN edge devices and make changes to them in real time.
Benefits of SD-WAN
SD-WAN enables enterprises to deliver better application performance over the network. Dynamic traffic routing based on business-driven policies selects the best-performing network paths that maximize capacity and reliability while minimizing bandwidth costs.
This is especially helpful for global organizations where employees work from various locations. It eliminates the need to backhaul data over WAN links. Moreover, it offers rock-solid continuity and uptime, improving employee productivity and customer service.
In addition, SD-WAN reduces operational expenses by reducing training costs and deployment times. It also optimizes sometimes expensive or inefficient WAN connectivity by leveraging connections and more cost-effective and higher bandwidth access types, like Internet broadband.
Using an SD-WAN, IT managers can see and manage their entire network from a single dashboard. This centralized control helps minimize human errors that can compromise performance or security.
Furthermore, an SD-WAN can automatically provision application policies that align with business intent. It also intelligently steers traffic based on SLAs, ensuring application performance is always maintained.
An SD-WAN can also overcome packet loss, latency, and jitter that affects WAN transport services. This allows it to redirect to a higher-performing link even if one goes down, avoiding interruptions and frustrating users.
An SD-WAN can also automate configuration to deploy changes in a few minutes rather than weeks or months. This dramatically reduces the time it takes for new applications to be up and running or for security rules to be updated.
Conclusions
SD-WAN is an intelligent, automated, software-based technology that improves the performance and reliability of your Wide Area Network (WAN) connections. This can increase business agility, security, and cost efficiency.
Unlike traditional WANs, which employ expensive, rigid hardware to connect remote locations, SD-WAN utilizes software to handle various networking tasks. This allows businesses to grow and change their WAN connectivity as needed.
As a result, SD-WAN as a service provides businesses with an easy, affordable way to connect their remote branches and branch offices to the company’s leading network. It offers many other benefits, including application optimization and increased network security.
In a nutshell, SD-WAN as a service leverages Software Defined Networking concepts to intelligently route traffic across the best network channel based on real-time network performance measurements. This ensures your business WAN connection is reliable and optimized to handle high traffic volumes without slowing down or dropping out altogether.
While SD-WAN is an effective method of achieving this, it can still have some downsides. These include the need for a new skillset within your ICT team and the need to make changes to your existing infrastructure.
In addition, you may need to invest in new networking equipment and hire a network engineer with expertise in SD-WAN configurations. However, the overall benefits of SD-WAN are well worth the investment.
