What is SD-WAN?
Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) is a networking technology that leverages software-defined networking principles to enhance and manage the performance of Wide Area Networks (WANs).
SD-WAN allows organisations to securely connect users, applications, and data across multiple locations while offering improved performance, reliability, and scalability.
By leveraging advanced software from an SD-WAN provider to manage wide area networks, SD-WAN simplifies WAN management, offering centralised control and comprehensive visibility across an entire network and transforming how organisations connect their office branches, data centres, and cloud resources.
How Does Managed SD-WAN Work?
SD-WAN managed services connect multiple branch locations using virtual overlays; these overlays abstract the underlying network hardware, creating a flexible and manageable network layer. Through this, SD-WAN can prioritise critical applications to ensure they receive the necessary bandwidth and low latency, boosting overall network performance, increasing productivity, and enhancing user experience.
SD-WAN’s centralised controllers play a pivotal role in directing traffic, based on predefined policies. These controllers analyse current network conditions, and make real-time adjustments to traffic routes. By combining public and private connections, SD-WAN ensures maximum efficiency whilst maintaining performance standards. During peak times, less critical traffic can be shifted to public internet links, reserving private lines for mission-critical data.
With SD-WAN, IT teams gain valuable insights into network performance and health through real-time analytics. This data-driven approach allows for proactive management and quick resolution of potential issues. By continuously monitoring network statistics, administrators can identify trends, forecast capacity needs, and optimise resource allocation.
As businesses increasingly leverage cloud-based resources, the ability to efficiently route traffic to these destinations becomes essential. SD-WAN bridges the gap between on-premises infrastructure and cloud environments with an overlay of seamless integrated support, ensuring smooth and secure connectivity.
This technology enhances both performance and management, making it a compelling choice for modern enterprises.
For more information on how you can gain a competitive advantage with Axians and SD-WAN technology, download our free SD-WAN brochure today.
What Are The Benefits of SD-WAN?
- Optimised network performance – using sophisticated routing techniques.
- Employed intelligent algorithms – dynamically route traffic through the most efficient paths, leveraging both public internet and private links and ensuring businesses can maintain high-speed connectivity and minimise latency in critical applications.
- Cost savings – SD-WAN utilises a mix of affordable public internet connections and existing private lines, and network administrators can scale up and down their connections based on organisation demand.
- Decreased reliance on MPLS circuits – efficient bandwidth usage translates into lower operational costs without compromising performance.
- Security – enhanced security through integrated encryption techniques and policy-based controls, that safeguard data across all connections. This ensures that sensitive information remains protected from potential threats.
- Centralised interface – IT administrators benefit from a centralised interface where they can enforce security policies consistently across the entire network, simplifying the management process.
- Scalability opportunities – allows organisations to easily expand their network capabilities in line with growth.
- Network agility – businesses can quickly adapt to new challenges or market demands without the need for extensive infrastructure changes, particularly vital in industries where time-to-market is a competitive advantage. Organisations can deploy new services, applications, or branch locations with minimal disruption.
- Centralised network management – SD-WAN streamlines managing different interfaces and tools, offering a single dashboard from which all connections can be monitored and managed. This reduces the chance of errors but also frees up IT resources to focus on strategic initiatives.
Why is SD-WAN better than MPLS?
SD-WAN and MPLS are both popular choices for enterprise networking, but they offer distinct advantages.
SD-WAN simplifies network management by efficiently directing traffic, unlike traditional MPLS, which routes branch traffic back to a central point, reducing application performance and hindering productivity.
MPLS networks are secure and reliable but costly and inadequate for handling the high WAN traffic resulting from SaaS applications and cloud adoption. They are designed as private networks for individual organisations, leading to higher expenses.
In contrast, SD-WAN supports multiple connections, including MPLS, broadband, and LTE, and optimises real-time traffic routing for data centers, clouds, and SaaS applications. It can send internet and cloud traffic directly from the branch, avoiding the delays and performance issues associated with backhauling.
For further comparison, check out our blog ‘How Flexible, Lower Cost SD-WAN Connectivity Makes More Sense For The Branch Office Than MPLS’.
Partner With a Managed SD-WAN Provider Today
Axians UK has extensive experience in designing, deploying, managing, and optimising SD-WAN managed services and technology solutions, including Fortinet SD-WAN.
As an expert SD-WAN provider, Axians has partnered and developed solutions with national and international customers and strategic partnerships with top vendors, which is further supported by significant investment in lab facilities.
If you are considering SD-WAN technology or find your current deployment is underperforming, contact our team today. We work closely with every client to establish and tailor the right adoption model based on business needs and adapt it as requirements evolve.
