What is SD-WAN?

In the absence of a structured WAN network (such as MPLS), is a cheaper Internet or 4G connection sufficient to create your own corporate WAN despite inherent security issues?

Most of the devices with WAN functionality on the market are already born with the ability to build independent solutions; however, they are complex to implement and difficult to manage and require a highly specialized IT department.

In recent years, however, a new technology has emerged that overcomes all these limitations and that allows the creation of its own network WAN extremely safe even on transports such as Internet and 4G, in an agile and fast way, together with the benefits of intelligent traffic management: SD-WAN

The story:

SDN technology was created with the purpose of leaving devices with the sole ability to route user traffic, called a data-plan, and to centralize the intelligence of the devices, called control-plan, in a single point (the controller). By applying SDN logic to WAN devices, we obtain theSD-WAN.

The operation:

Known to be more difficult to manage and control, the WAN network must rely on one or more Service Providers to guarantee its proper functioning and adequate performance (especially for connections to sites such as datacenter which host the most critical applications for businesses). In addition, changes due to the introduction of new company policies, whether related to the addition or enhancement of new services (IoT or SaaS) or reinforcement of security, require a reconfiguration or re-design of all the devices involved in the WAN network, causing delays in delivery and a possible increase in configuration errors, thus translating into additional costs.

The characteristics of SD-WAN:

The characteristics of SD-WAN allow you to intercept all these needs by integrating versatility (ability to operate on any type of transport) and optimization of resources, thus allowing a cost reduction And a policy consolidation on all network devices in a single phase.

La centralized management offers the ability to control the entire WAN network as a whole at a higher level as it provides the IT department with the most efficient solution to be able to direct in a manner swifter and structured various types of problems, from troubleshooting to differentiated flow treatment applications until the addition of new branch sites.

The costs of SD-WAN

To limit costs, in general, it is preferred to opt for non-redundant WAN networks, but the possible lack of this feature may determine Disservices if not even to economic losses.

The availability of alternative routes to datacenters or other corporate branches guarantees the company that adopts SD-WAN technology a continuous usability of the services and, more generally, greater robustness to failures. In addition, the possibility of taking advantage of a heterogeneity of transport allows it to be discriminated based on the characteristics of the application in use, resulting in an improvement of the available bandwidth while maintaining the quality of communication unchanged. In fact, it is not uncommon for time-sensitive applications to use MPLS transport while web applications transit on Internet or 4G transport.

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The networks:

MPLS WAN networks, although reliable, still constitute a Expenditure item important for companies, especially in the case of multi-office or retail. The possibility of completely replacing MPLS for the benefit of Internet or 4G solutions can undoubtedly be a strategic choice.

Similarly, even a rethinking of datacenter business needs to be taken into consideration. The increase in traffic produced by SaaS, AI, aS and IoT applications is reflected in an increase in load in datacenter with a consequent increase in investments in network infrastructure. The adoption of cloud solutions and the use of SD-WAN as an access point to datacenter allows a reduction in these additional costs together with the savings in the management costs of the IT staff.

Conclusions:

SD-WAN is, therefore, an excellent candidate not only for medium and large companies but even for single-office companies or freelance studios that choose to host their cloud services.

Finally, an increasingly important aspect is that linked to automation. By now every SDN product provides interfaces APIs that allow integration with automation systems with the aim of further simplifying the Deployment of new features or automate repetitive tasks.

SD-WAN represents Only a part of the SDN world that is increasingly entering the networking market; together with SD-Access and SDN for data centers, they represent a new network paradigm.

After seeing the birth of smartphones, smart homes and smart-working, will it be possible to start talking about smart networks?

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Image Credits: Cisco