Businesses can leverage SD-WAN to build, deploy, and operate network infrastructure without compromising performance and security. Feature consolidation and centralized management also help to reduce operational costs. SD-WAN enables enterprises to add value to their IT architecture by virtualizing underlying private or public connectivity such as MPLS, cable, fiber, and wireless. It provides real-time application traffic management and a single control point for network services.
Real-time Analytics
Traditional WAN technology backhauls traffic from remote sites to central locations, which adds latency and reduces application performance. By contrast, SD-WAN uses network virtualization and automation to make connections more straightforward and cost-effective. Unlike traditional WAN routers, which only offer basic features, business-driven SD-WAN solutions such as Versa Networks monitor and analyze data on multiple connections to detect performance issues and provide granular, session-based visibility. This allows them to route traffic to the best available link and deliver a better application experience. The centralized management plane of an SD-WAN solution can also prioritize paths to critical applications, provision new sites, and perform software and firmware upgrades from one central point. This helps reduce complexity and cost while providing visibility into applications and their performance from a single pane of glass. Business-driven SD-WAN technologies provide a seamless on-ramp to the cloud that improves applications and productivity without compromising security or data privacy. This enables enterprises to benefit from a secure, reliable, high-performing connectivity infrastructure while lowering costs and optimizing bandwidth efficiency.
AI/ML
ML and AI are central technologies in SD-WAN, providing more robust security, efficient performance, and simplicity. They allow for faster implementation of new connections to branch offices and improve how traffic is routed. In legacy WAN architectures, traffic from branch offices is backhauled to a centralized Internet security point at the data center and then sent to the Internet or a private network. This back-and-forth traffic can cause latency, hinder application performance and productivity, and negatively impact the user experience. By separating networking hardware from the control pane, SD-WAN can set policies and combine them with the real-time performance of network connections to direct traffic to the best available path. This eliminates the trombone routing problem and allows advanced techniques like link-bonding to improve last-mile bandwidth. SD-WAN is a powerful replacement for expensive MPLS links and offers better availability and resiliency for cloud and mobile services. It also simplifies operations and reduces costs by allowing businesses to use existing broadband or wireless WAN (e.g., 4G, LTE) connections instead of costly MPLS circuits.
Quantum Computing
Traditional WANs need to catch up with many organizations as they move more and more applications into the cloud. Backhauling traffic from branches and remote workers over private networks to centralized internet gateways and back again introduces latency that compromises application performance, user experience, and security. An advanced SD-WAN can dynamically divert traffic to a different path when link degradation or other issues are detected, making it more responsive than essential solutions. This translates into consistent QoE and more efficient operations across the entire network. Unlike classical computers that only operate on binary numbers, quantum computing uses qubits to store information in multiple states simultaneously, expanding processing power exponentially as the number of qubits grows. This allows for a much faster, more accurate model of the natural world that can be used to solve complex problems in areas such as artificial intelligence and extensive data analysis. This technology’s potential is immense, attracting the attention of major corporations around the globe. This could have massive implications for the future of networking and beyond.
Disaggregation
The WAN has long been one of the most expensive and rigid aspects of networking, often slowing down a company’s ability to be agile. A conga-line of add-on boxes sprung up on the WAN edge in attempts to make the network more secure, mobile-oriented, and application-intelligent, but this has made networks more complex, less resilient, and more expensive to operate. SD-WAN is transforming the WAN, providing greater agility and cost savings. It can centrally manage multiple WAN routers, allowing them to automatically identify applications and route traffic across the most effective path. It also enables enterprises to use any data service, including MPLS, DIA, and broadband, to build a single logical link. Disaggregation sounds painful, but reducing network complexity and costs is great. It involves moving features previously needed on every device across the network into an orchestration layer, such as WAN optimization and security.
Cloud
As enterprises increasingly shift their business applications to the cloud, SD-WAN enables faster and easier on-ramps to applications with a seamless transition and superior application performance. This leads to increased productivity, higher customer satisfaction, and profitability. Consistent security reduces the risk of costly data breaches. Traditional WAN architectures backhaul traffic to a central internet gateway, which adds latency and impairs application performance. SD-WAN eliminates this overhead while providing centralized management and scalability and enhancing telemetry for visibility into network performance. With SD-WAN, an organization can deploy network functions in a virtualized environment instead of monolithic appliances. This reduces the total cost of ownership and improves operational efficiency. SD-WAN can replace costly MPLS connections with economic VPNs and deliver improved application performance through dynamic best path routing, improving availability and decreasing bandwidth costs. It can also integrate with cloud-native security technologies such as secure web gateways (SWG), CASB, and zero trust networks to help secure cloud connections and prevent lateral threat movement. All these benefits come with the added benefit of a centralized delivery model, which accelerates deployment and simplifies ongoing management.