How SD-WAN Accelerates Service Delivery
Fast, efficient, cost-effective delivery of services and applications is essential to meet business demands and maintain a high-quality customer and user experience. That’s equally important to enterprise customers and service providers.
SD-WAN (software-defined WAN) is proving to be a key element in network strategies to deliver advanced services and increase agility to meet changing demands. SD-WAN gives teams the flexibility and scalability to meet changing network and traffic conditions, as well as the performance to deliver applications and services directly from the cloud, rapidly and securely.
Upgrade the Network
SD-WAN works with existing network solutions like MPLS or Internet services, but overcomes their limitations and takes performance a step higher.
Like MPLS, SD-WAN matches QoS and prioritization to application demands, ensuring that applications and services take the optimum route regardless of network conditions. But, SD-WAN offers levels of scalability that MPLS cannot match.
There is no need for overprovisioning, and deploying services to new sites is straightforward and rapid with no need for upfront investment. For expanding businesses with multiple sites, SD-WAN provides the opportunity to deliver the same services to every location so that customers experience the same level of service from every site.
Optimize Service Routing
An important feature of SD-WAN is its ability to offer intelligent routing. This technology automatically selects the fastest route and bandwidth for different types of traffic and prioritizes mission-critical data or applications such as voice.
SD-WAN can also adjust routing dynamically to take account of traffic levels or network congestion. You can be confident that users will have fast, reliable access to applications and services regardless of location or network conditions.
Simplify Management
SD-WAN simplifies network management. It simplifies and speeds up network changes by eliminating manual processes, automating provision and reducing the risk of error. A process called abstraction translates complex rules and policies behind the scenes. IT teams also benefit from complete visibility throughout the network.
An SD-WAN orchestrator supports fast one-touch deployment of new branch sites and services. A cloud-based dashboard gives teams the tools to monitor, configure and troubleshoot the network centrally, while intuitive self-service portals enable local administrators to set and manage their own policies for traffic routing.
Make More of the Cloud
For businesses that rely on cloud-based services, applications and infrastructure, the public Internet represents a potentially weak link. Reliability, speed and security remain a challenge, particularly for businesses subject to regulatory compliance.
SD-WAN can overcome these limitations. Connectivity with the cloud via an SD-WAN overlay on Internet services makes it easy and economical to deliver rich services. SD-WAN provides the additional bandwidth and control to improve reliability, and it can be configured with security measures to increase protection and ensure compliance.
As well as direct connectivity with the cloud, SD-WAN can also meet demands for economical bandwidth expansion for MPLS WANs using Internet bandwidth. And, it can improve connectivity to the cloud for Internet connected sites and branches.
Key to Network Transformation
SD-WAN will be key to successful network transformation. It will allow IT teams to adopt a variety of cloud services with a network solution that supports improved agility, flexibility, visibility and security, while controlling operating costs.
Find Out More
If you would like to find out more about our SD-WAN and cloud services, please check out the articles and infographics on our website.