In a work-from-anywhere environment, businesses need to maintain high-performance, dependable connections. SD-WAN enables this by directing traffic over local internet breakout rather than backhauling to central locations.
This saves costs and time compared to leased lines and router hardware while delivering better security, performance, and agility.
How SD-WAN Works
SD WAN technology explained means dynamic, self-healing networks that optimize traffic boost application performance, and keep your business running smoothly – even when the digital highway gets congested. In short, SD-WAN creates a virtual overlay on top of private or public multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), internet broadband, wireless, or LTE connections. This allows network administrators to keep existing WAN links while centrally managing application traffic over the overlay.
This allows IT teams to prioritize business-critical applications and improve the user experience, regardless of network location or connection type. For example, if there is a sudden spike in demand for a cloud application, IT can automatically redeploy bandwidth from other applications to the critical one.
SD-WAN also provides backup information, known as parity, on each packet of data to repair any lost packets that may occur during transmission. This can save organizations a fortune in repair bills and ensures mission-critical applications always work as they should.
Security is another critical component of SD-WAN. It uses micro-segmentation to isolate and prioritize network traffic; protects networks with advanced security tools like a next-generation firewall, secure web gateway, and Zero-Trust networking access; and secures connections through data encryption.
Finally, SD-WAN enables IT to manage the entire network from a single management portal. This can dramatically reduce the time and effort to configure and track a wide range of network edges, including new sites, software and firmware upgrades, and flex bandwidth usage. This is a significant benefit given the rise of remote workers and the increasing use of cellular connectivity.
Benefits
SD-WAN technology provides secure connectivity for branch locations and remote workers, allowing them to access critical data without being vulnerable to attacks while delivering high performance and resiliency. It also allows deploying new sites that previously could only be done with expensive MPLS circuits. It takes much of the burden off IT teams by automating WAN traffic routing and prioritization.
Choosing the right SD-WAN solution is an important decision. Evaluate all the benefits to determine if it’s the best fit for your organization.
The centralized control function of an SD-WAN simplifies the network topology and improves network agility. It automatically prioritizes and steers traffic in an application-driven manner based on business intent and performs network-wide performance monitoring, ensuring that applications are performing as intended.
SD-WANs support various connectivity options, including MPLS, wireless, broadband Internet, virtual private networks (VPNs), and 4G/LTE connections. This allows you to select the optimum connections for specific purposes, such as VoIP or SaaS applications.
In addition, SD-WANs offer resiliency by supporting multiple redundant connections and using the shortest path between the sites. They also use a combination of latency and loss metrics and pre-configured policies to dynamically select the best tunnel for each connection and move traffic between them in case of a link outage or degradation.
Deployment
Depending on the deployment model, SD-WAN uses hardware appliances or virtualized customer premises equipment (vCPE) that run software to handle networking, security, and management functions. These devices can connect to a network via existing routers or switches, the Internet, or WAN connections like multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) or broadband/wireless. The devices are often installed in a central data center or a branch office.
An SD-WAN creates a transport-agnostic overlay that allows networks to use multiple types of connectivity, such as MPLS, broadband/wireless, long-term evolution (LTE), and virtual private network (VPN), while providing real-time application performance and routing. This reduces costs and complexity by decoupling networking hardware from control functionality.
The overlay can identify applications, enabling intelligent, application-aware routing. This enables enterprises to optimize bandwidth for different traffic classes, improving QoE for users.
It also enables companies to use the Internet for WAN connections to SaaS and cloud-based applications, reducing capital expenditures on dedicated circuits. Moreover, it can allow organizations to expand into new geographic regions without investing in additional network infrastructure. However, educating stakeholders about the technology and ensuring leadership understands that SD-WAN is an addition to, not a replacement for, their current networking equipment is essential. This will help them have better buy-in.
Security
Security is a crucial aspect of SD-WAN architecture, protecting sensitive information and ensuring employees can work securely regardless of location. It also helps organizations maintain consistent security across their network, which can be challenging because security teams might have different responsibilities and goals from networking teams.
For example, when a critical application starts working poorly through a particular channel, the SD-WAN solution can offload it to another, higher-quality channel. In addition, many SD-WAN solutions use particular protocols – such as PD (packet delivery) and FEC (forward error correction) – that reduce or eliminate channel loss.
In terms of protection, SD-WAN solutions can implement a wide range of security measures, including data encryption and application-specific traffic filtering. This can prevent malicious activity from entering the network and help identify and stop potential attacks.
Additionally, many SD-WAN solutions integrate with cloud-security functions – such as Secure Web Gateways, CASB, and Zero-Trust Network Access – to provide additional layers of security. This can help reduce the number of tools required for network administrators to manage and improve security and performance. This can be particularly important for organizations with remote workers, who need to be able to connect to cloud services without being exposed to malware or threats. Many security features can be deployed with a simple appliance, often sent to remote workers for easy setup.
