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The Benefits of SD-WAN
Historically, networking has been a challenge for businesses of all sizes. Until recently, managing a network meant configuring individual components across each office branch and ensuring they have uniform policies and security components. This takes a great deal of time and labor to set up, manage and monitor. Networking also meant constantly watching your network for changes and abnormalities. Because your application services were in a central data center, whenever employees needed to access a service, they all had to connect to the same data center. This meant occasional — if not frequent — data traffic bottlenecks, with too many requests at one time for the network to process.
What is a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN)?
SD-WAN technology is a virtualized approach to broadband internet WAN that is far easier to integrate with a cloud solution than a traditional WAN, as its parameters are configured via software. The network hardware is thus separated from the management process, allowing all hardware to be managed from a single interface instead of at the individual device level.
- Faster network speeds with traffic prioritization.
- Easier to set up and scale.
- Enhanced security.
- Simplified architecture.
- Better user experience.
- Increased cloud application performance.
SD-WAN is designed to overcome the common issues involved with traditional MPLS networks by using virtualized network functions (VNFs), reducing complexity and allowing for better cloud security and application integration. It also eliminates the risk of traffic bottlenecks by enabling cloud access without a centralized data center.
With centralized control, SD-WAN allows easier management of multiple WAN services, policy enforcement, and network performance, making it ideal for hybrid WAN setups. Security remains paramount with integration of advanced security providers like Palo Alto Networks.
SD-WAN offers numerous benefits including reduced WAN costs, improved network efficiency, enhanced security, and simplified management, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes.
How SD-WAN came to be
Initially, WAN traffic relied on point-to-point (PPP) lease lines. Frame relay technology replaced PPP by eliminating dedicated links between LAN locations. MPLS, introduced in the 2000s, combined multiple functions like data networking and video technologies with IP addressing and QoS features, still popular today.
SD-WAN emerged around 2013 as a cheaper, easier to deploy, and simpler to manage solution.
Common features of SD-WAN
- Supports VPNs
- Dynamic path selection
- Multiple connections at once (network redundancy)
- Easy-to-use interface
These features, combined with easier configuration, centralized management, intelligent path control, SaaS direct access, and network redundancy, make SD-WAN highly capable and productive.
Security Note
SD-WAN’s distributed nature means managing security at endpoints (routers, PCs, etc.) is crucial to avoid breaches.
Use Cases
- Migrating to cloud architectures
- Easy expansion and scaling of branch locations
- Achieving network redundancy
- Enhancing network performance by offloading traffic
Choosing the right SD-WAN vendor (e.g., Cisco, integration with Microsoft Azure) and ensuring security is essential for a successful deployment.
