A good SD-WAN solution delivers application quality of experience (QoE) through local internet breakout and robust features like application optimization. It also provides WAN connections insight to improve cloud performance and security. Look for a provider that offers a fully managed service with a clear tie to value. It will save you money, from simple zero-touch deployment to automated agile network optimization.
Enhanced Security
SD-WAN technology can automatically define network rules and provide them to all sites via unified control and management. This simplifies IT’s ability to define, manage, and change WAN policies across their distributed branch offices, data centers, and cloud/SaaS resources. This is a critical feature for today’s digitally-native enterprises. Many employees use a variety of internet connections, including home broadband, to access business applications and data. These employees must have reliable, real-time, secure access to company systems. SD-WAN Solutions can support this with a built-in centralized security architecture that provides layer 2 to layer seven visibility into the entire WAN. This can help detect and prevent threats from entering the network, including malware, ransomware, viruses, and worms. SD-WAN can also provide innate network segmentation to isolate and protect sensitive information. This helps ensure compliance with regulations such as GDPR. It also helps to limit the impact of attacks in the event of a breach.
Scalability
Scalability is the ability of a system, network, or software to adapt to growing demand. It means that the capacity of a system can be increased without requiring disproportionately more considerable amounts of capital or labor resources. SD-WAN enables direct cloud access for remote branches eliminating backhauling traffic from branch offices to headquarters and reducing data traveling over the core WAN, dramatically lowering costs. It also provides better application performance – especially for mission-critical applications – by prioritizing traffic and leveraging various Internet connections such as broadband, 4G LTE, and low-cost local Internet. With these benefits, scalability ensures enterprises can continue growing and delivering on digital transformation and customer expectations. If a company’s networks are not able to keep pace, they run the risk of losing customers and productivity slowdown. This is where business-driven SD-WAN comes in. Unlike essential SD-WAN solutions that are not scalable, business-driven SD-WAN is an intelligent, reliable, and high-performing solution that can easily support your growing enterprise. This includes keeping various applications, including unified communications (voice and video), virtual desktops, and remote connectivity to a central data center.
Cost-Effectiveness
SD-WAN solutions can save businesses money on equipment, bandwidth, and IT costs. They offer better connectivity to remote offices, enable UCaaS and cloud applications, and prioritize and route traffic based on business needs. They also help companies meet compliance requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DS. Unlike MPLS, SD-WAN solutions offer flexible WAN connectivity using Internet connections such as broadband and 4G LTE. This enables WAN bandwidth to be utilized to its maximum potential and reduces costs by eliminating the need for expensive private WAN circuits. SD-WAN solutions also provide centralized policy management and roll-out, reducing the need for specialized network engineers to make changes at branches. In addition, SD-WAN offers direct access to the cloud from remote units – eliminating the need to backhaul traffic from them through the data center. This reduces backhaul costs, improves application performance in the cloud, and eliminates the need for redundant backup circuits. It also provides automatic intelligent routing, maximizing available bandwidth and providing the fastest path for every packet. This reduces overall WAN network overhead, improving end-user experience and increasing productivity.
Flexibility
With SD-WAN, enterprises can connect branch offices to cloud/SaaS applications securely and reliably. Traditionally, network traffic is forwarded over legacy MPLS connections or the Internet based on performance considerations and established policies which leads to latency, packet loss, and jitter. This can negatively impact application performance, impacting business productivity and customer satisfaction. SD-WAN provides a centralized policy management system that enables IT to optimize and control application performance. This improves application performance and WAN efficiency while reducing costs and providing a seamless on-ramp to the cloud for enhanced employee productivity. With flexibility in mind, SD-WAN offers a variety of ways to connect to the cloud, including low-cost local internet access, direct connection to public and private enterprise clouds, and multi-path dynamic routing. SD-WAN also identifies and prioritizes priority traffic over more costly transport options such as MPLS or internet broadband. Most importantly, SD-WAN allows businesses to reduce resolution times for IT specialists, improving productivity and minimizing downtime. This is accomplished by using predictive analytics, enabling IT to identify and respond to potential issues before they arise.
Analytics
The best SD-WAN solutions include network intelligence and analytics that help organizations better understand what is happening across the distributed enterprise, enabling them to optimize performance, scale, and reduce costs. These intelligent features allow businesses to manage and secure their network, which is essential for digital transformation. SD-WAN solutions can provide valuable security capabilities by enabling organizations to partition their network and monitor and protect mission-critical data from vulnerabilities. This can be important for retail, healthcare, and financial services businesses. Another critical feature of an advanced SD-WAN solution is its ability to detect and prevent intrusions by analyzing network traffic and monitoring for suspicious activity. It can also enable organizations to enforce secure connections by using encryption and preventing data loss. Finally, an advanced SD-WAN solution can improve application performance by aggregating diverse WAN circuits like broadband, DIA, and LTE to create a single logical link. This can help companies to ensure a reliable connection to their applications regardless of network conditions. This can be especially beneficial for companies that use cloud applications and depend on them to work from home offices or other remote locations.