As companies increasingly adopt cloud solutions and utilize private mobile devices for business purposes, IT departments are evaluating the ability of enterprise network infrastructure to keep pace. The increased traffic, security concerns and volume of data have led many to adopt software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) as a way to address these challenges.
SD-WAN applies a virtual overlay that gives IT access to more visibility and control over the network. While its initial attraction may be the promise of cost savings, businesses quickly find that SD-WAN’s value lies in its ability to equip the enterprise with better agility and productivity.
SD-WAN allows for zero-touch provisioning, allowing network administrators to set up new branch locations in a matter of minutes. Troubleshooting and configuration can all be handled through the virtual overlay, saving time and resources that used to be spent traveling to the branch.
What will SD-WAN look like in your particular business? You can get a glimpse by examining its impact in three key industries:
Retail: For retail companies, the customer experience is critical, and a long wait at the cash register is a memorable event in a customer’s mind. Retail organizations with dozens or hundreds of locations need a secure network to transmit card payments, and without an IT team member on-site, they need the network to be highly reliable. SD-WAN allows any congestion or other performance-related issues to be detected by IT before it impacts the branch location, and automatic policies can be set up so that a data transmission encountering a problem is rerouted without the end user ever knowing.
Finance: Financial services also benefit from SD-WAN in areas like security, reliability and performance. Banks and other financial institutions need to be able to serve customers quickly with a reliable network, all while guaranteeing that customer data is secure. Financial services also need to access cloud solutions through a fast and reliable connection.
Education: The ability to prioritize critical data transmissions is a key benefit to educational organizations. Universities and colleges need to be able to choose mission-critical pathways for transmissions like video conferencing or a professor’s lecture being streamed by students in an online course. These can be prioritized over students in the dorm watching Netflix or accessing Facebook. Schools are experiencing an increasing demand for bandwidth, but they can allocate these demands across different types of pathways, reducing costs and relieving congestion on the network.
If you’d like to know more about how SD-WAN might benefit your particular business, including cost savings and optimized network performance, contact usat Cloud Source. We can help you identify the right SD-WAN solution to help you solve network challenges and deliver a better experience to your customers and other end users.