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What Is Software-Defined Wide Area Networking, and Why Would You Use It?

In this article, you will learn what is software-defined WAN and why you would use it in your business? First, it will cover the basics of SD-WAN: Cloud connectivity, WAN simplification, QoS policy, and cost savings. Then, you can move on to more advanced topics like implementing QoS policies and managing security risks.

Cloud connectivity

The emergence of cloud and mobility has necessitated businesses to develop their networks to meet the demands of these new environments. Traditional WANs use physical routers to connect remote users to applications hosted in data centers. They feature two distinct planes – the control plane and the data plane. In addition, traditional WANs require network administrators to write rules and policies to determine which data flow should be forwarded or not. With SD-WAN, this is automated and centralized. This feature helps administrators adhere to their business goals without the need to write rules and policies for each router.

SD-WAN provides secure and reliable WAN services at internet prices. In addition, companies can now use broadband instead of carrier-grade MPLS, which has long provisioning times and costly contracts. Another advantage of SD-WAN technology is that it allows companies to use all network connections. This makes it ideal for businesses that use public clouds or SaaS services.

WAN simplification

With cloud computing on the rise, WAN simplification is essential to ensuring that bandwidth requirements don’t exceed network capacity. Traditional WAN architectures backhaul data through centralized hubs, which are inefficient and costly. In addition, legacy WAN architectures relying on privately procured MPLS are complex and expensive to provision. SD-WAN, on the other hand, simplifies WAN management by providing quality networking services at a lower cost.

Wide Area Networking

WAN simplification with Software-Defined Wide Area Networking is a crucial benefit of cloud-ready networks. Cloud-ready networks deliver an optimized direct path to private and public clouds, eliminating backhaul penalties. In addition, with SD-WAN, network operations can be centralized for better management, with zero-touch branch deployment, automatic business policy updates, firmware updates, link performance and capacity measurements, and real-time visibility across multiple WAN links.

QoS policy

To implement a QoS policy for Software-Defined Wide Area Networking, an enterprise must identify the types of traffic it wants to prioritize. Identifying significant traffic is essential for several reasons. First, enterprises can guarantee the quality of particular traffic by assigning different priorities to different data flows and users. As a result, the enterprise will experience optimum network performance. To implement a QoS policy, enterprises must first identify which traffic is most critical and which is not. Once they have identified these requirements, the next step is to design a system to prioritize the traffic to maximize bandwidth usage and prevent packet loss.

QoS Policy provides a central control panel for QoS in Software-Defined Wide Area Networks. This feature makes it easy for administrators to manage QoS policies and configure them for individual users. QoS Policy works with multiple protocols, such as IPsec, and can prioritize different protocols. QoS Policy can also determine the priority of individual packets and the bandwidth of each traffic type.

Cost savings

So, what are the benefits of SDWAN? It provides faster internet connections, improved application performance, and quality-of-service prioritization. It can connect remote offices and branch offices in a matter of weeks.

SD-WAN offers significant cost savings for enterprises that don’t need to employ a full-time network administrator. The technology enables organizations to right-size their network circuits without spending a dime on IT management. It can result in cost savings of as much as $20 per month. However, the savings vary by geography and distance. However, for companies with international offices, the benefits of SD-WAN are more significant than those of MPLS.