How SD-WAN helps your company

Improved application performance for a better user experience

For many companies, it is about keeping their business running while also preparing for the future. To achieve this, companies focus on offering their customers new and better experiences, becoming more flexible and tapping into new markets, in order to compete in a globally connected world. A reliable, secure and flexible network is one of the key enablers for this transformation. As a result, companies are increasingly turning to software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) to prepare their corporate network for the future. SD-WAN provides policy-based and application-aware routing over any underlying connectivity technology, including MPLS, dedicated Internet access and broadband (fixed and mobile). This means that it automatically and intelligently selects the best available path for the requirements of each application, depending on its prioritization.

SD-WAN also includes various functions that enable the improvement of application performance via simple Internet connections. While this does not solve all potential network performance issues, it does make the use of more cost-effective access technologies more practical. The ever-increasing volume of traffic between head office and branch offices and, above all, local cloud break-outs and the Internet, can be better managed.

More efficient use of available bandwidth

Applications are becoming increasingly feature- and content-rich. At the same time, workloads are migrating from private data centers to SaaS and IaaS/PaaS environments. Companies therefore need cost-effective ways to increase bandwidth and secure the user experience. SD-WAN automatically load balances traffic across all active connections. This makes optimal use of the available WAN bandwidth. Secondary failover connections are also used, which would otherwise remain unused, this helps to avoid expensive bandwidth upgrades.

Increased security

Security is a key consideration when transmitting business-critical traffic over shared networks such as the public Internet. SD-WAN uses strong encryption and strict access controls. This keeps your WAN traffic protected. At the same time, it enables secure Internet usage for common business applications. Thanks to centralized, policy-based orchestration, SD-WAN also improves security. It facilitates the automatic implementation of security policies at all locations. SD-WAN solutions are also increasingly being integrated into Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architectures. This brings together remote access, corporate networks and identity-based controls to simplify the management of user access to workloads, regardless of where your employees are located.

Greater transparency, control and flexibility

For companies that want to reduce network complexity and achieve faster deployment, SD-WAN offers centralized automated orchestration. This allows changes to be implemented faster without having to manually reconfigure each network device. The centralized management portal also provides a better overview of application traffic, bandwidth usage, network performance and device health. This gives companies new insights into what is happening in their IT environment, which can help with problem solving and enable better planning.

SD-WAN can also help speed up the deployment of new sites as the devices are designed to work with network technologies such as broadband or mobile communications. They can automatically retrieve their configuration as soon as they are connected, so only minimal manual settings are required.