What is SD WAN?
If you're a multi-site organisation or geographically dispersed then SD-WAN might be just for you. SD-WAN stands for Software-Defined Wide Area Network and the industry is going completely bonkers at present.
SD-WAN is a direct replacement for traditional VPN based WANs (wide area networks). Furthermore if you pulled yourself away from VPN technology to MPLS - SD-WAN is better than both worlds put together.
Benefits of SD-WAN
The answer is in the name. 'Software defined' means its predominately a software based solution. Therefore all the functionality of MPLS and VPNs has been wrapped up into zeros and ones to make for a very cost efficient solution.
The marketers of the world are currently jazzing up the benefits into some of networking phenomenon, in my opinion its being a little over-cooked at present however, let's not lose sight of the true business benefits which are:
- Faster more efficient data transfer
- Less interruptions - better quality data transfer
- Less hardware - less cost
- Voice and video friendly - much better packet prioritisation and control
- Low TCO - simple to deploy and manage
- Higher levels of security
The SD-WAN market is poised for growth in 2017 due to the technology now being widely adopted and proven. The best SD-WAN vendor and product remains to be seen...
