Why SD-WAN is the best way to enable digital business

In a survey of mid-market enterprises, IDC found that enterprises are adopting SD-WAN-based infrastructure services, which provide better automation, bandwidth optimization, consistent application security, and self-provisioning.

Rohit Mehra, vice president of network infrastructure at IDC, noted that enterprise WANs are rapidly being “re-architected to cost-effectively deliver new security capabilities” and that adapting to SD-WAN is a “critical success factor.” Here’s why SD-WAN can meet the demands of digital business.

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The cloud era requires better connections

Digital business requires the cloud, and the trend of migrating business applications to the cloud is gradually increasing. These applications are diverse, and likewise, they have a variety of requirements. Some require less latency, some require more throughput, and some require less loss, which puts a lot of pressure on the network. Stable, flexible, affordable, and ubiquitous cloud-based applications and services have become the most urgent needs at present.

SD-WAN is able to control network performance to meet these different requirements. Through dynamic path selection, SD-WAN can avoid congestion, just like GPS guides drivers around congested roads. By leveraging dedicated networks, SD-WAN services can not only avoid traffic jams, but also create faster routes.

Efficient use of resources

When enterprises go digital, they often need to tap into all areas of the enterprise. This often includes many hard-to-reach places, such as oil rigs, hidden sites, mobile users, and more. Providing connectivity to these places is critical and challenging. SD-WAN enables the above connectivity through easy deployment, implementation, and management. Zero-touch configuration allows simple device configuration. By abstracting applications from the underlying network connections, the network becomes more flexible and intelligent. Policy-driven networks bring more business intelligence into the network. New sites can be built faster and applications can be automatically sent on the best path without a lot of work.

Perhaps the biggest winners are multinational companies and companies with many branch offices. Gartner points out that with SD-WAN, branch offices can reduce the time to reconfigure their networks by 80% while also avoiding expensive bandwidth.

Avoid device sprawl

Technology sprawl is the gradual accumulation of firewall systems and boxes at sites. It’s a serious problem that increases operational costs as cycles of maintenance, subscription renewals, upgrades, and eventual replacement occur. Because security and rules are not flexible enough in traditional approaches, it’s often not feasible or even impossible to adjust technology to improve performance.

SD-WAN combines security and network techniques to solve these problems. Cloud-based SD-WAN is a cloud service-centric security and network operation method. This service can eliminate the complexity and operating costs in the process. The streamlined network can make digital business more perfect.

Real cost reduction

Cost is key: According to Gartner analyst Andrew Lerner, SD-WAN can be two and a half times less expensive than traditional WAN architectures.

High costs have caused MPLS growth to plateau, even in the face of massive growth in enterprise data usage and cloud connectivity. Many companies find themselves choosing between maintaining performance and reducing budgets. SD-WAN allows companies to get more of their network budget by leveraging cheaper Internet services. This can significantly reduce costs and still provide more bandwidth for applications.

SD-WAN will revolutionize digital business networks

Today’s digital businesses need to maintain application performance while managing and cutting costs. SD-WAN can achieve these goals. Therefore, it’s no shock that analysts predict that SD-WAN will become an important addition in our increasingly global environment. Simply put, SD-WAN reduces costs, reduces complexity, and enables applications in the cloud to be managed effectively and efficiently. Therefore, SD-WAN is a great fit for digital businesses.