WAN was a very important networking technology in fields like military, multinational companies and big enterprises for a very long time. Internet WAN providers made the communication of data and messages over long-distance possible and shortened the time frame when compared to the previous networking technologies.
As an evolution, with MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) and circuits, WAN improved its speed further. When organizations required encrypted data internally, implementing WAN became very expensive, so software-defined networking technology called SD-WAN came into the business.
What is SD-WAN?
Pre-defined protocols and overlay tunnels are used for communicating messages over the internet in SD-WAN. This made companies partially or wholly replace the existing WAN networking setup with SD-WAN as the cost efficiency was much better here.
It has the ability to share networks and bandwidth across various connections. It also has high security, centralized monitoring facility and application-friendly tools that give users a powerful internet experience. With the Covid 19pandemic hitting hard and people choosing remote access due to the work-from-home scenario, the importance of SD-WAN has grown rapidly.
An SD-WAN makes use of the following components to maintain the system:
- SD-WAN Edge
- SD-WAN Gateway
- SD-WAN Controller
- SD-WAN Orchestrator
Online traffic engineering networks that can fix themselves, administrative toolset, numerous deployment options and security are the key features of SD-WAN.
Hence, the business can have a single control point using SD-WAN. More than a cloud technology, internet WAN providers help in connecting public and private networks using SD-WAN solutions due to its rapidly reshaping technologies.
Need for WAN in Enterprise Business
With business enterprises adopting SD-WAN due to virtualization and remote access in order to cut down the cost of expenses and operations, SD-WAN gives a huge value for the following reasons:
Issues with Hybrid Networking
Traditional WAN technology uses multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) and LTE (long-term evolution) to transfer messages.
Using all these methods, WAN dynamically finds the fastest route possible. But this becomes very expensive and involves enormous circuits. SD-WAN works on an ‘active-active’ system where there are a lot of modes to carry a message. It can be 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, etc.
Inflation and Cost
In most companies, there are multiple usages of applications like VoiceOver internet protocol, virtual desktop, video conference or HomePod due to the company’s dependency on setting up a private network for each application in a WAN. With SD-WAN, all the possible bandwidth that is available with high quality and at a very low cost is routed and made possible, just like sending an email, for instance.
Overcoming Security Issues
When data is accessed virtually and remotely from the cloud and other SaaS applications, the integrity and safety of the data become unsure. An entity using a Wide area network is more vulnerable to security issues. At the same time, an SD-WAN uses application protocol (API) and other administrative tools to encrypt the data conveniently.
Cloud Environment Migration
The cloud environment adopts the best architecture to leverage the business. With all the enterprises seeking a third-party network provided for cloud services, the patterns for network trafficking is unsustainably shifting. To maintain the efficiency, reliability and flexibility of cloud-based applications, SD-WAN helps businesses in the best way.
