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Benefits of SD-WAN in the Digital Journey

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Benefits of SD-WAN

Before we understand the benefits of SD-WAN in the Digital Journey, let us first look at the role and the impact of digitalization.

The Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is the most buzz word in the business world today. Every business wants to embark on the digital transformation journey to create, monetize and defend value. This gives companies the much-needed competitive edge.

Digitalization has resulted in evolving and transforming the business models globally. Technology has been a great equalizer. It has enhanced connectivity around the globe and widened access to trade and public services.

Digital business transformation has provided new avenues and value-producing opportunities. It has drastically reduced unemployment. It is also improving the quality of life. Digitalization has integrated technology into all the areas of business.

Digital Transformation Strategy has repositioned the businesses in the digital economy. The consumer is more informed. The digital customer journey has been rapid. It has helped consumers in making educated decisions.

Basic Understanding of WAN

WAN is a large network of information. These networks communicate with one another. WANs help in communication. It facilitates in sharing of information between devices from around the world. WANs help to extend computer networks over large distances. It connects remote branch offices to data centers.

How is WAN Useful

WAN helps organizations to allow their employees and customers to work together. They can be connected irrespective of their locations. Organizations create unified networks and connect their branches with the main office.

WAN gives the employees lot of flexibility and independence to work from any location. It reduces costs to the organization.

Challenges With WAN

Security gaps are a major weakness in WANs. Security becomes a major challenge when users access devices at multiple locations. Therefore, security measures like anti-virus and firewalls are required to prevent unauthorized access.

WAN security can be at risk when a single device is connected to multiple networks. WAN requires routers and security solutions so installation cost is high.

WAN faces disconnection issues in remote areas due to electricity problems. Troubleshooting WAN issues requires a lot of time due to its broad coverage.

Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN)

About SD-WAN

SD-WAN is a software approach to manage wide-area networks. It offers ease of deployment at reduced costs. SD-WAN control the connectivity and services between data centers, remote branches and the cloud. It uses software for controlling this connectivity. SD-WAN can be managed centrally.

Benefits of SD-WAN in the Digital Journey

SD-WAN provides bandwidth efficiency, WAN simplification, and lower costs, with significant application performance without sacrificing security and data privacy. Some of the other main benefits of SD-WAN are as under:

  • SD-WAN rely on software to manage their connections. This helps in minimizing the dependence on manual labor to optimize a WAN.
  • SD-WAN simplify the management and operation of a WAN. It simply disconnects the networking hardware from its control mechanism.
  • SD-WANs select the best connectivity option by tracking application performance. It thus increases the organization’s efficiency
  • The driving principle of SD-WAN is to simplify the way big companies turn up new links to branch offices. SD-WAN manages how those links are utilized for data, voice or video in a better way.
  • SD-WAN enable businesses to replace expensive private WAN connection technologies. It allows companies to build higher-performance WANs with low-cost internet access.
  • SD-WANs manage multiple connections from MPLS to broadband to LTE. It can segment secure the traffic traversing the WAN.
  • Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) makes WAN architectures easier to deploy, operate, and manage. It relies on onsite SD-WAN devices, software platforms and virtualization.
  • SD-WAN enhance data-transfer capacities across a WAN. It moves traffic to lower-cost network links to do the work of more expensive leased lines.
  • The advent of applications like Office 365 and Amazon Web Services (AWS) requires secure remote access. SD-WAN allow customers to set up secure regional zones. It enables them to securely direct the traffic to where it needs to go.
  • SD-WANs are adept in supporting applications that require high bandwidth like voice or video. The software chooses the best connection available when the user may be accessing their enterprise’s network at different locations.

SD-WAN- A Key to Digital Transformation

Digital transformation helps improve the performance and reach of the business. SD-WAN can rapidly turn business objectives into reality. It can respond to business needs in a very cost-effective way. SD-WAN will ensure performance across a cloud-connected network and empower digital transformation.

Cloud-Based Technology

Digital transformation requires innovations everywhere. It can be facilitated by a new agile and dynamic WAN infrastructure. Digital transformation is redefining the business models on regular basis at the global level. Organizations are embracing cloud-based technologies and launching products and services more quickly.

In this fast-paced technological race, the smaller enterprises are struggling to keep pace. The current WAN architectures are not compatible with the cloud-centric realm.

All organizations are driven by external pressures. They have to adopt the new technological shifts. In such a competitive environment cloud adoption has evolved as the most critical aspect of the digital transformation strategy. Moving operations onto the cloud require a much more agile workforce and greater security. Digital transformation is the latest shift. Businesses of all types and at all levels are striving hard to adapt to it. The benefits of SD-WAN help organizations in the digital transformation.

Agility and Flexibility of SD-WAN

Increasing bandwidth on WAN requires a huge investment. Lead time to upgrade traditional WANs is a lengthy process. However software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WAN) can deliver agility and flexibility. It is required for digital transformation.

All key business services and data applications are now moving out to the cloud. Therefore SD-WAN can offer secure and reliable connectivity to managed cloud service providers. SD-WAN is a cost-effective and flexible option. It is a low-cost way to enhance the capacity and flexibility of the network. The direct internet links can accommodate demand so there is less need to invest in costlier Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) links.

The agility of the network to change and adapt to IT requirement is one of top benefits of SD-WAN.The network can change and adapt to IT requirements with SD-WAN. It delivers the organizational agility needed to support digital transformation ambitions. Application-aware routing of traffic is the primary feature of SD-WAN. It can respond to changing IT services and applications. SD-WAN can dynamically allocate network resources.

SD-WAN-Potential to Deliver Changes

SD-WAN has the potential to deliver the required changes that enterprise networks need. It can help organizations to keep pace with customer-driven digital transformation.

Digital transformation is driven by new technology adoption and rapid change. To effectively move the needle on digital transformation strategy, business leaders need to address network connectivity. It is the foundation upon which the rest of the agile work environment will be built. The organization will then enjoy a plethora of new efficiencies and an excellent return on investment.

SD-WAN enables network transformation by improving application performance, optimizing access to public cloud services and improving network security.

SD-WANs use tools such as encryption and VPNs to secure traffic sent through the public or unsecured connection. The provision of visibility into SD-WAN enables teams to identify weaknesses. This helps keep the network safe. The use of virtualized next-generation firewalls instead of traditional hardware-based firewalls adds immensely to the benefits.

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