How SD-WAN helps your company

The coronavirus is still casting a long shadow in the middle of 2022, and for many companies it is now about keeping their business running or preparing for the future. To achieve this, companies are focusing on offering their customers new and better experiences, becoming more flexible and tapping into new markets to compete in a globally connected – but socially distanced – world. A reliable, secure and flexible network is one of the key enablers for this transformation. As a result, many companies are putting network transformation back at the top of their priority list and are turning to solutions such as software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN) to prepare their corporate network for the future.

How can SD-WAN help? We have identified four main benefits of SD-WAN:

Overview:

1) Improved application performance for a better user experience
2) More efficient use of available bandwidth
3) Increased security
4) Greater transparency, control and flexibility
5) Conclusion
6) SD-WAN price & availability check

Improved application performance for a better user experience

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 their 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.

Conclusion

As you can see, SD-WAN solutions can improve the performance and flexibility of enterprise connectivity and support your digitalization strategy. SD-WAN offers a multitude of benefits when properly integrated and orchestrated, but as with any other technology, implementation and management must be carefully planned.
That’s why investing in a managed SD-WAN service is worthwhile. An experienced carrier partner like Savecall not only knows all SD-WAN technologies in detail, but can also design and manage the underlying network connectivity in a vendor-agnostic way. This allows you to get the maximum benefit from SD-WAN – and avoid many typical pitfalls.

Find out where your company currently stands and how Savecall and its partners can help you grow with comprehensively managed SD-WAN services. Simply arrange a meeting with a Savecall expert.