What is SD-WAN?

Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) is a technology that allows you to manage and control your wide area network (WAN) using software, rather than hardware. This is different from traditional networking models, which typically rely on dedicated hardware devices to manage and control the network.

One of the main benefits of SD-WAN is that it allows you to manage your WAN more flexibly and dynamically. With SD-WAN, you can use software to configure and manage your network, which means that you can make changes to your network more quickly and easily. This is in contrast to traditional networking models, where changes to the network often require reconfiguring and replacing hardware devices.

Another benefit of SD-WAN is that it can improve the performance and reliability of your WAN. With SD-WAN, you can use algorithms and policies to dynamically route traffic across your network, which can help ensure that traffic is always routed along the best path. This can improve the performance of your applications, and can help prevent downtime and other issues.

Below I’ll dive into these benefits in more depth.

Key Features of SD-WAN Solutions

Here are some of the key features of modern SD-WAN solutions.

Dynamic routing

One of the key features that SD-WAN vendors should offer is the ability to dynamically route traffic across the network. This allows the SD-WAN to use algorithms and policies to automatically determine the best path for traffic, based on factors like network performance, link availability, and traffic patterns. This can help improve the overall performance and reliability of your network, and can make it easier to manage and maintain your network.

Traffic Shaping

Another important feature that SD-WAN vendors should offer is the ability to shape traffic to optimize network performance. With traffic shaping, you can use techniques like prioritization and rate limiting to ensure that your most important traffic is always given the highest priority, and to prevent congestion on your network. This can help improve the performance of your critical applications, and can help prevent network issues that can affect application performance.

Cloud Integration

A fourth key feature that SD-WAN vendors should offer is the ability to integrate with cloud services. This can be valuable because it allows you to easily extend your SD-WAN to support applications and services that are running in the cloud, which can help improve the performance and reliability of these applications.

Flexible Bandwidth Allocation

Flexible bandwidth allocation is a key feature of SD-WAN solutions that allows you to easily and dynamically allocate bandwidth to different applications and services on your network. With flexible bandwidth allocation, you can use algorithms and policies to automatically determine the optimal amount of bandwidth that should be allocated to each application or service, based on factors like network performance, link availability, and traffic patterns.

Reduce Packet Loss

Another key feature of SD-WAN solutions is the ability to reduce packet loss. Packet loss occurs when data packets are lost or dropped during transmission across the network, which can cause delays and disruptions in communication. SD-WAN solutions can use features like link aggregation and error correction to reduce packet loss, which can improve the overall performance and reliability of your network.

Centralized Management

A fifth key feature that SD-WAN vendors should offer is centralized management. This allows you to manage and control your entire SD-WAN from a single, centralized platform, which can make it easier to monitor and manage your network. This can be especially valuable in a large or complex network, where it can be difficult to manage multiple individual devices.

5 Key Benefits of SD-WAN

Improved Network Performance

One of the key benefits of SD-WAN is that it can improve the performance of your wide area network (WAN). With SD-WAN, you can use algorithms and policies to dynamically route traffic across your network, which can help ensure that traffic is always routed along the best path. This can help reduce the latency and jitter that can affect network performance, and can improve the overall speed and responsiveness of your applications.

Increased Network Reliability

Another benefit of SD-WAN is that it can increase the reliability of your network. With SD-WAN, you can use features like link aggregation and traffic shaping to improve the resiliency of your network, and to ensure that your applications are always able to access the resources they need. This can help prevent downtime and other issues that can affect network performance, and can improve the overall reliability of your applications.

Reduced Rosts

A third benefit of SD-WAN is that it can help reduce the costs of your network. Because SD-WAN uses software to manage and control the network, it can be less expensive to implement and maintain compared to traditional networking models that rely on dedicated hardware devices and private MPLS links. Additionally, SD-WAN can help improve the efficiency of your network by reducing the amount of bandwidth that is required to support your applications, which can lower your network costs.

Increased Network Agility

A fourth benefit of SD-WAN is that it can increase the agility of your network. With SD-WAN, you can use software to quickly and easily make changes to your network, which can help you respond more quickly to changing business needs. This can be especially valuable in a fast-paced environment where you need to be able to quickly deploy new applications or services, or to make changes to your network to support new business initiatives.

Improved Network Security

A fifth benefit of SD-WAN is that it can improve the security of your cloud network. With SD-WAN, you can use features like encryption and secure tunneling to protect the data that is transmitted across your network, and to prevent unauthorized access to your network resources. This can help safeguard your sensitive data and protect your network from potential security threats.

Conclusion

In conclusion, SD-WAN is a technology that offers several benefits for organizations. It allows for faster and more efficient communication, improved security, and increased flexibility in terms of network management. Additionally, it can help reduce costs by reducing the need for expensive hardware and dedicated WAN links.