Software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) has been hyped in the marketplace for several years now with the result that many organisations recognise the technology as a means to enhance the security and performance of their enterprise networks. Now, as workers have dispersed due to COVID-19, these attributes are in great demand – but what has been missing is a way to integrate SD-WAN with the large number of applications that enterprises use to collaborate on. In addition, benefits beyond the headlines of enhanced security and performance can be achieved with a focus on the user experience.
With this goal in mind, Microsoft Teams voice solutions specialist SCB Global has added SD-WAN, powered by award winning Versa Networks, to its OPTO family with the introduction of OPTO4Edge, which provides a SD-WAN overlay capability to enable improved and optimised experience on the OPTO4Teams platform. “We’re not jumping on the SD-WAN bandwagon with this new overlay because we’ve been providing SD-WAN to customers that could benefit from it for a number of years now,” confirmed Shams Khan, a Principal Solutions Consultant at SCB Global. “What’s new is that we’re now able to offer SD-WAN’s deeper network visibility, advanced security and reporting tools as part of a single pane of glass experience alongside our customers’ other applications.”
For users trying to cope with increased remote and home working, the capability that SD-WAN adds to OPTO4Teams includes Stateful SIP transfer (SST) functionality that enables a session to be kept active during transfer between WAN connections. These transfers are more likely to happen with degraded network conditions or as a consequence of outages. The changed network utilisation profile caused by the pandemic has resulted in these service interruptions becoming a bigger issue for enterprises that want to ensure high quality voice performance regardless of the locations of workers.
“Our SD-WAN as-a-service capability ensures enterprises are able to move from face-to-face interactions to virtual interactions securely, so the office user can work in a similar business-grade environment to before,” adds Khan. “The focus is on supporting homeworking and flexibility and ensuring workers’ efficiency isn’t hampered – but there are additional benefits in security optimisation.”
“Don’t forget, threats have increased over the last few months and cyber-crime has increased significantly because of the pandemic”
SCB Global says its approach to SD-WAN is different to that of other vendors, who focus on the common SD-WAN attributes. While SCB Global acknowledges the standard SD-WAN benefits, its solution is also focused on delivering a simplified and optimised end user experience. To achieve this, SCB Global is making its SD-WAN capable of integration with other collaboration platforms and applications to create a truly unified experience that is simple to manage and easy to use. Khan added:
“By adopting this single-pane-of-glass approach, enterprises can simplify their digital landscape,”
“For example, they don’t need to go back to a separate SD-WAN vendor to address any issues associated with this part of their service because, with our OPTO4Edge SD-WAN overlay, we are the single vendor. SCB Global can therefore provide the clarity and support to customers across both their network and their application layer for a collaboration experience that is completely optimised”.
