Software-defined branch network reconstruction can save 80% of costs

As the business tentacles of enterprises in various regions, branches need to establish efficient and reliable network connections with the headquarters. For example, a large American retailer with 1.6 million branches invests more than $10 billion in branch network equipment every year. Therefore, in order to reduce operating costs, strengthen centralized control, and improve network security, the era of using software-defined reconstruction of branch networks has begun.

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Do you want a plan that can save 80% of the cost?

When setting up branches, business owners are most concerned about how to save costs while ensuring the efficiency of the branch network. With the SD-Branch (software-defined branch) solution, when building a branch network, enterprises do not need to rely on complex or proprietary hardware devices. They only need to fill the automatically configured predefined template software into the low-cost white box hardware to form a device resource pool.

After that, all network and security functions are managed through the multi-tenant management console, thereby creating an efficient branch network for the branch office. According to a survey, this SD-Branch solution is expected to reduce the cost investment of enterprises by about 80%. For business owners, the temptation is undoubtedly huge. So what problems are branch office networks facing at this stage?

Three major pressures plaguing branch networks

As branch offices expand their business, their network construction also requires infrastructure such as Ethernet switches, branch routers, WLAN, WAN optimization equipment, and network security hardware. At present, branch networks are also facing pressure from three aspects: increased bandwidth demand, complex operation and management, and weak security protection.

• In terms of bandwidth demand, enterprises such as retail and restaurant chains that need to deploy a large number of branches often have meager operating profits. Statistics show that the demand for WAN bandwidth from these branches has maintained an annual growth rate of more than 20%, but the budget is obviously insufficient. This situation has obviously put pressure on traditional WAN link solutions such as MPLS.
• On the operations management side, remote IT staff continue to be challenged with troubleshooting branch network issues, such as outages or application performance degradation. Each network device has its own complex interface and may not easily interoperate with other network elements. The solution is to be able to centrally monitor, manage and troubleshoot all elements of the network branch office for IT specialists and hopefully eliminate the need for remote service calls.
• In terms of security protection, as branch offices increasingly use cloud-based SaaS applications (such as Salesforce, Office 365, Lync, etc.) and meet employees' remote access needs at any time, the protection boundaries of branch networks are becoming increasingly blurred. In addition, attackers prefer to target the weakest link in an enterprise, and this entry point is often on the edge network of a branch office.