Introduction
Are you struggling to keep up with the increasing demands of your business? If so, you’re not alone. It is similar to many challenges that most companies are experiencing in their day-to-day operations, and this is where SD-WAN plays its role. Software-defined wide area networking or SD-WAN is an innovative solution that is revolutionizing the companies’ WAN infrastructure. SD-WAN has already shown its importance worldwide because it allows organizations to connect remote sites and users more efficiently and securely at a much lower cost than traditional WAN technologies.
In this blog, we will look into the basics of SD-WAN. Also, you will learn the top benefits of SD-WAN, and this will give you an idea about how companies are benefiting from this technology. To gain a deeper understanding of how to implement and leverage SD-WAN for your business, consider exploring Cisco SD-WAN training.
Before discussing the benefits of SD-WAN, let us first understand what SD-WAN is.
What is SD-WAN?
SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide Area Network. SD-WAN is a technology that focuses on the management of Wide Area Networks in software-defined ways. Instead of employing a hardware-dependent specific router and circuits, SD-WAN combines internet-based transport services including broadband, LTE, and MPLS to establish one unified software-defined network. This helps the companies to be able to come up with an adaptable and more flexible network that is capable of fulfilling new business requirements.
SD-WAN solutions typically include a range of features, such as:
- Centralized management and orchestration
- Application-aware routing and traffic management
- WAN optimization and acceleration
- Security and threat protection
- Analytics and visibility
Now that you have a basic knowledge of SD-WAN, let us discuss the benefits of SD-WAN in detail.
Top Benefits of SD-WAN
SD-WAN emerges as an efficient solution that helps in solving issues such as improving network performance, enhancing security, and reducing costs. Below, we have discussed the top 8 benefits of SD-WAN. These are:
Better Application Experience
SD-WAN is capable of delivering a higher application experience to the users and this is one of the most important benefits of SD-WAN technology. With application-aware routing and traffic control mechanisms, SD-WAN solutions can guarantee the prioritization of key applications to transmit them with maximum performance and speed. This is even more critical to organizations that use cloud-based applications like Office 365 or Salesforce.
SD-WAN provides the opportunity for companies to be confident that their applications are provided with the level of performance and uptime that is expected by the users. This can subsequently result in higher productivity and user satisfaction, therefore enhancing business performance.
More Security
Security is one of the pressing issues that companies are concerned about. SD-WAN solutions offer an additional layer of protection for WAN connections by offering advanced features such as:
- Next-generation firewalls
- Intrusion prevention systems
- Encryption and VPNs
- Advanced threat protection
These advanced security features assist businesses to protect against cyber threats and side-by-side ensure that sensitive data must be safe.
With the SD-WAN network’s centralized management and control feature, it is easier to enforce security policies across your entire infrastructure. This will help in reducing the risk of human error and ensure that your network always stays safe.
Easier Network Management
Among other benefits of SD-WAN, perhaps one of the most critical is the cutting down of the overall complexity of network management. The management of a WAN is not always an easy task because dealing with several remote areas may be tiresome for any company.
SD-WAN solutions address the issue of simplifying network management by providing a centralized platform. This approach not only saves time and resources but also makes it easier to:
- Configure and deploy new sites
- Monitor network performance and troubleshoot issues
- Apply security policies and updates
With SD-WAN, your IT team can work on other projects of superior strategic significance while not getting lost in network management tasks.
Increased Bandwidth and Efficiency
We are all aware of the fact that traditional WANs usually rely on expensive as well as dedicated MPLS circuits in order to ensure reliable connectivity. These MPLS links can be limited in terms of bandwidth and this will lead to a bottleneck scenario as your business grows.
SD-WAN can assist companies in increasing their bandwidth as well as efficiency by means of WAN optimization and compression. With such techniques, SD-WAN solutions result in offering faster and more efficient connections.
SD-WAN solutions can also help companies make the most of their existing bandwidth by:
- Prioritizing critical applications
- Optimizing traffic flow
- Reducing latency and packet loss
Ability to Adapt to Changes in Demand
In the current world situation characterized by a high level of variability in the business environment, the ability to adapt to changes is critical. Again, SD-WAN is advantageous in this regard since it shows its capability to quickly scale up or down to meet the changing needs of your organization.
With SD-WAN, companies can:
- Quickly deploy new sites or users.
- Flexible to the requirements of the consumers and providers by scaling up or down.
- Make modifications to the network config and policies as well as other parameters on the network in real-time.
Such adaptability gives you the capability to keep on the right side of the trend and be ready at all times while preparing for changes that can come your business’s way.
Hybrid WAN Architecture
Another one among SD-WAN Benefits, as pointed out before, SD-WAN is adaptable to different forms of connectivity where it can support a number of transport services namely MPLS and broadband internet among others as well as LTE. With this, it becomes easier to select the most appropriate solutions to fit a business’s requirements in connectivity.
SD-WAN solutions can help companies create a hybrid WAN architecture by:
- Integrating with existing MPLS connections
- Providing secure and reliable internet-based connections
- Optimizing traffic flow and reducing latency
Reduce WAN Costs
On a related note, one of the key benefits of SD-WAN is in the area of cost optimization whereby this solution can assist you to lower your WAN costs. SD-WAN solutions can assist in cutting WAN costs as they rely on internet-based connections and minimize WAN traffic.
SD-WAN solutions can help companies reduce their WAN costs by:
- Minimizing the reliance on costly MPLS links
- Effective management of WAN traffic and minimizing latency
- Offering a cheaper method of linking up remote locations and customer/clients
Increased Uptime
Modern business is built on the availability of constant connectivity and any disruption within your organization can cripple your operation and profitability. SD‑WAN solutions can contribute towards improving the general availability of companies by delivering a more solid and efficient network. Subsequently, advanced features like redundancy and failover can be implemented in SD-WAN solutions to guarantee the availability of WAN connections at all times.
SD-WAN solutions can help companies increase their uptime by:
- Setting up two or more links in tandem and failover
- Minimizing congestion and delay
- Supervising the state of the network and identifying problems at the time of their existence
These are some of the top SD-WAN Benefits for your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1 – Which three of the following are benefits of SD-WAN?
There are many benefits of SD-WAN, some of which are:
- Reduced WAN cost
- Increased Uptime
- Increase bandwidth and efficiency
Q2 – What is the main benefit of SD-WAN?
One of the main benefits of SD-WAN is it assists in improving the overall network performance and reliability by smartly routing traffic over multiple internet connections.
Q3 – Why is SD-WAN better?
SD-WAN is better because it optimizes network performance and reduces costs.
Q4 – What is the main goal of SD-WAN?
The main goal of SD-WAN is to:
- Improve network speed and performance
- Make network connections more reliable and stable
- Increase security and protection against threats
Conclusion
SD-WAN offers a wide range of benefits that can help businesses of all sizes and this will assist in streamlining their network infrastructure, enhancing security, and improving overall performance. From better application experiences to reduced WAN costs and increased uptime, SD-WAN is quickly becoming a must-have technology for modern, forward-thinking organizations.
In this blog, we have explained what SD-WAN is and the top benefits of SD-WAN. If you have any queries, feel free to use the comment section below.
