Today’s businesses are adopting SaaS and IaaS applications in the cloud at a rapid pace, and for many IT departments, it’s a challenge to keep up. Cloud adoption brings an influx of WAN traffic, causing lower application performance, management complexity and vulnerability to threats. The new era of SaaS calls for a new network model that can significantly improve operational efficiency and network profitability.
What Is SD-WAN?
By definition, SD-WAN stands for “software-defined wide area network” and is a specific application of software-defined networking (SDN) technology. SD-WAN connects and manages multiple types of enterprise connections, such as 4G, broadband internet, LTE and MPLS. It uses the internet or cloud-native private networks, detaching traffic monitoring from special proprietary hardware. With this new approach, administrators can use bandwidth more efficiently, ensure data security and reach higher levels of performance for critical applications.
How Does SD-WAN Work?
As enterprise customers call for more flexible and cloud-based WAN technologies, SD-WAN improves connectivity and security in a single-cloud or multi-cloud networking strategy. SD-WAN’s key features include:
- Centralized management: Network administrators control the entire SD-WAN from a single, centralized interface, usually within a SaaS application on a public cloud. Changing network configurations is simplified for improved service delivery. Plus, the need to manage individual routers and gateways is dramatically reduced.
- Dynamic path selection: SD-WAN enables administrators to selectively and automatically route traffic onto a particular WAN link. Network traffic can be balanced across all available links depending on the network conditions. If a specific link becomes congested, packets can be moved onto a different link, improving the user experience.
- Multi-connection across multiple transports: SD-WAN supports a diverse communications infrastructure. Each gateway can have multiple connections with different transports, including LTE, MPLS, broadband internet and 4G. Each WAN connection has a VPN to ensure security.
Top Four Benefits of SD-WAN
With centralized, cloud-delivered SD-WAN, IT professionals can achieve efficient routing, protection from threats and simplification of WAN management. What are the specific benefits of SD-WAN? Here are our top four reasons that SD-WAN benefits network administrators:
- Cost savings: Non-critical traffic can move from private MPLS links to broadband internet, delivering lower WAN costs. Policies determine where dynamic path selection will steer traffic. With SD-WAN, a network engineer can move more traffic onto broadband links without reconfiguring individual gateways and routers.
- Simplified management, greater agility: SD-WAN scales across thousands of endpoints with centralized management. Network experts do not need to travel for SD-WAN deployments — they can automate deployment globally through a single interface. This agility enables IT to keep up with the fast pace of business.
- Optimized performance: Real-time traffic management allows administrators to continuously monitor the health of each link connected to SD-WAN gateways. IT professionals identify applications associated with WAN traffic and, through policy-based management, give higher priority to certain applications. If a link fails, traffic can be quickly redirected, improving application performance and availability on a selective basis.
- Increased security and data privacy: SD-WAN architecture features integrated security abilities, such as network segmentation and encrypted network traffic. Threat prevention can be enforced at the branch level, with no need for data to travel back to HQ or the data center. In the event of an attack, segmenting your network will ensure that the damage is limited to a specific area.
Prepare for Your SD-WAN Migration With Refurbished Network Equipment
As SD-WAN architecture becomes more available, it may be time to upgrade your business’s network equipment. Improving your IT infrastructure using new or refurbished equipment from Worldwide Supply will offer several advantages:
- Extensive selection: We have a $250 million inventory of products in-stock, ready for immediate delivery.
- Reduced costs: You’ll receive top-quality equipment at budget-conscious prices.
- Better warranties: Worldwide Supply’s used equipment comes with a lifetime warranty.
- Easy access to replacements: With used equipment, it’s easy to find affordable replacement parts.
New or used network equipment can help you prepare for a migration to SD-WAN. Consider partnering with Worldwide Supply to buy or sell your devices and obtain the most value out of your current assets.