Recent events have seemed to strongarm enterprises into pursuing digital transformation, but the reality is that no technological disruption is ever truly without external pressures. Businesses of all sizes are pushing to adopt cloud technologies and develop the agility needed to be flexible in a rapidly-changing market and meet customer demand. To do this, they are prioritizing a network upgrade to software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN).
The shift to the cloud provides enterprises with better security, increased productivity, and more agility. While most IT teams have been working alongside marketing and other departments to make this happen, it has recently become more of a critical move. Many companies are still operating with a traditional WAN architecture, making it difficult to match the bandwidth and performance specifications of cloud solutions. This, in turn, leaves many enterprises disillusioned with the supposed benefits of cloud adoption.
In order to make the most of a cloud investment, enterprises need to upgrade to SD-WAN. WAN architecture is too cumbersome, requiring traffic to be backhauled to the central hub in order to secure it and reliably transport it. That model worked fine until cloud technology entered the IT scene when constant connection became the norm. Software as a service (SaaS) solutions offer greater flexibility when it comes to consumption of software, but require a new networking model.
With a secure virtual overlay for the physical network, SD-WAN allows network teams to steer traffic and make adjustments to bandwidth from a centralized control center. They can set business policy that prioritizes mission-critical transmissions, such as video conferencing, over less-critical transmissions that don’t demand real-time connectivity, such as email.
SD-WAN, because it is a virtual overlay, offers a significant improvement to infrastructure. It offers faster, more cost-efficient connectivity without having to tear the entire technology stack out and start over from the ground up. It offers several key advantages:
Reliable Connectivity: SD-WAN removes the need to backhaul and offers built-in failover with a mixture of broadband, LTE, and multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) lines that network teams balance for optimal reliability.
Improved Management: SD-WAN offers global consistency through a centralized management console, removing the need for technicians to travel to a branch location to troubleshoot network issues. SD-WAN can accommodate all types of traffic without compromising the performance of applications.
QoE: Quality of experience (QoE) is optimized with SD-WAN, allowing network teams to prioritize certain applications and important tasks so that bandwidth is allocated according to automated policies. End users have access to the applications and tools they need without the latency or congestion experienced with a traditional WAN architecture.
When pursuing digital transformation, enterprises need to consider network connectivity as the foundation of their strategy. Investing in SD-WAN fuels an effective transition to cloud and future-proofs the organization for additional investments. Contact us at Cloud Source for more information.