In the past few years, there have been many notable changes made to Wide Area Networks. The most significant one is software-defined WAN or SD-WAN. The technology of WAN is constantly changing as the network professionals are optimizing the use of connectivity.
In this digital era, every business needs a reliable and secure connectivity solution to complete its day-to-day tasks in an efficient way. For internet critical businesses, any loss in connectivity is equal to the loss in productivity and income. The world is facing an acceleration in the diversity, frequency, and impact of disruption.
Thus it is important than ever to have a network that helps your organization to respond to the unexpected.
Let's take a close look at what an SD-WAN is and how it works and benefits your business.
What IS SD-WAN?
SD-WAN stands for software-defined Wide Area Network, which uses software to control the management, connectivity, and services between the data centre and branches of the organization. We can also say that it is a virtual WAN architecture. It uses a centralized control function and directs traffic across the WAN in a secure and intelligent way.
It helps you improve the performance of applications and delivers a high-quality user experience, which increases the productivity and agility of your business. One significant feature of SD-WAN is its ability to manage multiple connections from broadband to LTE to MPLS. It allows load sharing across WAN connections and also supports VPNs for WAN optimization.
SD-WAN Vs Traditional WAN
Traditional WANs are based on conventional routers and are never designed for cloud services. Typically they require backhauling all the traffic, which also includes cloud-based traffic to a data centre where advanced security inspection is carried out. It is a long and complicated procedure that impairs the performance of applications and results in loss of productivity.
On the other hand, SD-WAN is designed to support cloud-based applications and applications hosted in on-premises data centers, data centers, and office 365. As a result, it delivers high-quality service, which ensures the highest application performance. Moreover, SD-WAN runs on a mix of network connections which helps you to reduce the network cost.
The decision to choose SD-WAN and traditional WAN depends on your organization's needs and the current infrastructure. Now, many businesses are moving towards SD-WAN, but the circumstances of each organization are different.
What Are The Benefits Of SD-WAN?
The conventional WAN infrastructure was limited to only the data centre, branch, and enterprise. Once an organization shifts to cloud-based applications, its WAN will experience an explosion of traffic from all across the globe. As a result, traditional WAN is no any more suitable for businesses. The top benefit of SD-WAN includes centralized management, high capacity bandwidth, and multiple connections.
It also allows businesses to use cheaper networks such as MPLS. It also helps organizations in managing high volumes of traffic. In the beginning, there is the initial investment for SD-WAN deployment, but with time there are considerable savings.
Other advantages of SD-WAN include better application experience, optimized cloud connectivity, simplified management, and more security.
Final Words
Now that you know most of the necessary information about SD-WAN technology, you can understand the need for a new connectivity solution. We hope that now you can make a better decision whether SD-WAN is necessary for your business or not.