Let’s start with understanding the old way of business networking. Branch offices were traditionally connected to a data center, often in the company headquarters via a router over a private bidirectional connection, usually MPLS. This model worked without issue because most applications were hosted in enterprise data centers. Traffic was simply routed from originating sources to destinations based on TCP/IP addresses, access control list tables, and other routing protocols. In short, nearly all of the control functions were distributed across all the routers.
So what’s the problem? For starters, sending cloud traffic destined for the internet back to headquarters doesn’t make a lot of sense. Instead, what if we utilized the internet to access apps hosted on the internet? The router centric model can lead to costly delays, degraded application performance, and devour more bandwidth.
Simply put, SD-WAN is a software-defined, cloud-first platform to improve the WAN. Times have changed and so have traffic patterns with the introduction of applications moving to the cloud (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, etc.) or SaAS service such as Salesforce, Office365, Dropbox, and more. This drive to the cloud creates a need for a more intelligent software defined model for the WAN.
Instead of routing traffic based on addresses, SD-WAN intelligently directs traffic across the network based on your business requirements. Properly configured, SD-WAN lets businesses utilize the internet as a secure, reliable form of WAN transport. It’s important to understand this is a different model from the traditional router where everything ends up combined across every device. With SD-WAN, this control function becomes centralized, so the policies that dictate how an application should be delivered to the user are defined centrally and programmed automatically across thousands of SD-WAN appliances–saving you valuable time and expense.
Your business may be considering a “Do It Yourself” approach to implementing a SD-WAN solution. While this method works for some, it requires detailed planning, designing, implementing and managing of all components of the solution.
First consider everything a SD-WAN solution encompasses. Evaluating and implementing a SD-WAN takes significant time and increases the amount of resources necessary to complete a successful implementation. Does your in-house IT team have the skills and experience required to manage the lifecycle of the solution and if so, is this the most valuable use of your company resources? Can your team handle support issues or other ongoing maintenance requirements?
As described in the 2018 Guide to WAN Architecture and Design, more than half of all network organizations prefer a managed services solution versus doing it themselves. Instead of wasting valuable time and resources, let our experienced Dallas SD-WAN managed services team provide your business with a powerful turnkey solution.