The future of SD-WAN after COVID-19

The COVID-19 crisis accelerated digital transformation for many companies across a wide variety of areas. The aim was to be better prepared for future crises, new virus variants or sudden restrictions around the globe. Companies have since used the following starting points to future-proof their business and workplace solutions.

Accelerate your journey into the world of cloud and digitalization

Thanks to the trend towards location-independent working and the constant need for flexibility, digital transformation and the shift of applications to the cloud have accelerated. As companies no longer need to route traffic destined for the cloud via the backhaul to the data center, the role of the data center is shrinking. Instead, companies now need flexible wide-area network connections. These allow them to securely route application traffic hosted in the cloud directly to the cloud. This more efficient and often more cost-effective workflow compared to backhauling cloud traffic over expensive and rigid MPLS circuits allows companies to optimize and modernize the network based on business needs.

Advantages of hybrid and multi-cloud environments with SD-WAN

The migration to hybrid clouds (a combination of a public cloud and a private environment) and multi-clouds is becoming faster and more mature, increasing the need to simplify the orchestration of network traffic. Here, advanced SD-WAN solutions can be seamlessly implemented at cloud service providers, providing secure end-to-end connectivity to the cloud. This allows organizations to easily move workloads from one cloud provider to another, e.g. from AWS to Azure, simply via an SD-WAN.

Keeping pace with cyber security risks

The risks of cyberattacks have increased exponentially in recent years as the threat landscape continues to expand, due in part to the increasing need to connect from anywhere. In response to the increasing cybersecurity threats, Gartner coined the term Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) in 2019, defined as the combination of SD-WAN capabilities with network security capabilities hosted in the cloud. Users are using more SaaS applications than applications in the data center, and more and more sensitive data is located outside the corporate network. To further mitigate the security risks posed by the increasing use of the cloud, SD-WAN combined with SASE capabilities provides a more effective cybersecurity solution for the modern network.

Working from anywhere is the norm, no longer the exception: How SD-WAN helps

It is obvious that working from home is here to stay. Companies therefore need to find ways to ensure the same level of corporate security when working from home or on the move. Organizations need to take a distributed approach to securing remote connections. In response, network access points are now starting to integrate SD-WAN capabilities. This allows you to create secure tunnels over simple internet and 5G connections. This distributed approach gives organizations better control over cybersecurity risks by securing a single access point instead of a large perimeter with no clear boundaries.