Today’s next-gen technologies like IoT and mobile devices are putting significant demands on wide area networks (WAN). Traditional WANs simply can’t keep up, but software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) solutions enable businesses to better manage the network and experience improved network performance. An April 2019 study found that 95 percent of businesses surveyed plan to deploy SD-WAN within the next 24 months (Source: IDC). Why? Let’s look at a few use cases, shall we?
Traditional networks using the hub and spoke method hinder network performance. With SD-WAN, branch offices connect either to the data center or the cloud directly, shortening transit time, eliminating bottlenecks, and reducing overhead. Traditional WANs also operate under the concept that mission-critical business applications are hosted in a centralized data center. With SD-WAN, data is transported directly from the branch to the cloud, resulting in the most direct route of transfer for application data and thereby improving application performance.
Probably one of the most notable benefits is the increased amount of control SD-WAN provides. Administrators can define service-level agreements (SLAs) for different applications, ensuring data is routed across the best path to ease congestion and provide a better user experience. Additionally, SD-WAN gives administrators the ability to prioritize mission-critical applications like voice and video over less important apps like internet browsing or email. By establishing SLAs and QoS, administrators can customize the solution to provide an enhanced user experience for those on the network – something that traditional WANs are unable to accomplish.
With cyber-attacks on the rise, security is considered one of the leading drivers of SD-WAN adoption. SD-WANs security capabilities include features like application-based firewalls, URL filtering, unified threat management capabilities, and intrusion prevention. These features give organizations the opportunity to shift to a decentralized model where branches and cloud-based apps are connected through a more secure, direct internet connection rather than routing traffic to a data center for inspection before moving the data to the cloud.
All of these use cases come together to position SD-WAN as the ideal solution to support a cloud-first strategy for your organization. If your organization is looking to improve connectivity, control, and security for a cloud-first strategy and don’t know where to begin – contact LanYap Networks. We can help you find the right SD-WAN solution and set up your business for cloud success.
Still searching? Use our Search Page to find what you are looking for.