VWB Blog SD-WAN solutions provide centralized visibility, control, and integrated security features such as next-generation firewalls, IPS, web filtering, and advanced cyber threat protection. These capabilities help reduce network complexity, improve performance, and increase security.
SD-WAN uses lower-cost broadband internet connections to carry application traffic and saves expensive MPLS circuits for high-priority traffic. This enables enterprises to support hybrid and remote work without impacting productivity.
Security
A secure SD-WAN solution ensures that all remote work activities are encrypted, and only you can read the data being sent to your servers. This protects you from cyber threats that could intercept communications – including credit card numbers and personal health information – when transmitted over the public Internet.
As a cloud-based solution, an SD-WAN doesn’t require hardware purchase at each location. Rather, uCPE devices and other network security appliances are integrated into an SD-WAN service that can be accessed from a central management console. This centralized interface lets IT managers set consistent policies across locations, monitor performance and availability and detect and respond to security events.
Cloud-based SD WAN solutions also enable zero-touch deployments for new sites and scalable bandwidth on demand. These capabilities are particularly important for work-at-home workers because they reduce costs and allow you to support high levels of WAN connectivity.
As the demand for remote work grows, having a reliable connection is critical to keep your workforce productive regardless of location. Secure SD-WAN is an essential technology for remote and hybrid work because it decouples network configuration from location and enables a fluid work environment that covers all employee locations.
Reliability
Unlike VPNs, which often fail to deliver performance and reliability to remote workers, SD-WAN provides more reliable connectivity. It delivers a more stable network that prioritizes bandwidth and focuses on applications while providing low latency, packet loss, and jitter.
As a managed service, SD-WAN offers a more reliable experience that reduces management workload. Its zero-touch provisioning feature allows new sites to be added within minutes and automatically deploys software and firmware updates at each site. And its centralized portal helps IT teams monitor and manage the network from a single location. From here, they can identify and address problems that impact performance or security and flex bandwidth for different sites.
For customers with multiple locations, an SD-WAN solution that supports secure connectivity between each site is critical. It ensures that all data is protected while it travels over the Internet by encrypting all traffic and ensuring that only authorized users can access the information. In addition, the solution should offer an option for a direct cloud connection that bypasses the public Internet altogether.
This enhanced reliability allows remote workers to access applications and cloud services confidently. And, for multi-location companies reluctant to conduct a major WAN upgrade, an SD-WAN can be rolled out incrementally and configured to coexist with existing WAN technologies.
Scalability
For remote workers and distributed offices, scalable connectivity is critical. Enterprises must connect to multiple clouds to accelerate the delivery of business-critical software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and workload. This can be done without increasing operational costs through secure, fast, encrypted connections over the Internet with granular controls like dynamic failover and SLA-based application steering.
Traditional WAN technologies require backhauling all traffic to headquarters, which increases latency and impairs application performance. SD-WAN solutions solve this challenge by providing a seamless on-ramp to cloud platforms, improving UX through network traffic prioritization, and using more affordable public links such as Ethernet Internet, broadband, or wireless — and even cellular — for bandwidth efficiency.
SD-WAN also enables IT to more quickly deploy sites and connect work-at-home or mobile employees using any available data service such as MPLS, dedicated Internet access (DIA), broadband, or wireless. It also allows IT to reconfigure sites instantly and easily support migration to a hybrid cloud.
A quality SD-WAN solution combines multiple network connections to increase reliability and capacity by using multi-path dynamic optimization, ensuring that mission-critical applications receive priority in the event of any link failure. It also enables centralized management, reducing the effort and time required to upgrade firewalls and routers and to apply security policies to all users — including remote workers — from a single portal.
Flexibility
In a world where remote workers are more common than ever, finding an SD-WAN solution that offers great function and scalability is important. In traditional networking approaches, traffic created in branch offices would be returned or backhauled to a central internet security point at headquarters, reducing application performance and productivity. SD-WANs remove the need for this data to travel back and forth across a network, delivering reliable connectivity with built-in security for remote locations.
SD-WANs also enable better cloud access by allowing enterprises to choose which prioritized applications, providing more granular control over bandwidth allocation. Businesses can also prioritize applications based on latency-sensitive demands to ensure high-quality performance.
Additionally, an SD-WAN can offer greater functionality than VPNs with features like link bonding and a robust backup internet connection. This ensures that business-critical workflows can continue even if the primary transport fails, keeping employees connected and productive. Moreover, this helps reduce operational downtime and the costs associated with it.
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