Anytime a particular project can save your company money, increase reliability, improve performance and provide additional security, it’s well worth exploring. More and more businesses are switching to SD-WAN for its ability to do just that. However, there’s still some hesitation within the industry to adopt SD-WAN due to worries that the implementation costs are too high and outweigh its advantages. Similarly, some engineers may see a benefit only in small sites where broadband internet can replace MPLS or slower links.
However, SD-WAN significantly reduces costs for wholesale network access use that doesn’t lock service into one provider. Additionally, it cuts overall operating costs and improves performance and security. Here are some of the ways a good SD-WAN implementation accomplishes this.
SD-WAN uses software-defined networking that lies on top of any routing configuration. The software determines the best way to route your traffic to your remote locations. This intelligent software-based routing is much more efficient than traditional WAN routing. It allows a business to connect to many different types of transport services, be it MPLS, direct internet, LTE, etc. You don’t need to have the same kind of connection at each site, such as MPLS. This versatility allows you to customize your connections based on what that particular site needs.
The need for expensive WAN hardware is going down significantly. Not only do companies like Cisco provide virtual routers that can run on your existing virtual infrastructure, but Cisco ACI can provide robust routing for all of your SD-WAN. Other companies offer some similar features as well.
SD-WAN reduces cost through flexibility in the WAN. Its central provisioning, management, application visibility and policy control help simplify operations for your business. SD-WAN creates a more robust and resilient network by leveraging your bandwidth-rich and cost-effective WAN connections to improve network performance, saving you money on operating costs.
SD-WAN allows your organization to expand its network capabilities without risking its connections or spending on bandwidth that isn’t necessary. It also drastically simplifies the management of your network infrastructure.
SD-WAN significantly improves network performance. As an example, SD-WAN technology allows you to aggregate many different links to your offices, so they function as a single virtual overlay network. This overlay network is completely transport-agnostic, allowing the software to determine the absolute best path for your traffic to take.
With this combination of links in your network instead of the traditional one or two best path links, an organization with several offices over a wide geographic area can achieve better connectivity and continuity. Also, SD-WAN makes application failover seamless and simple, allowing you to avoid interruptions and outages. With seamless failover for your mission-critical applications, you can easily avoid unnecessary downtime.
On the security front, SD-WAN can eliminate VPN and DMVPN concerns. SD-WAN takes care of the connections and encryption, which saves on the costs of the firewalls needed for VPN connections. The SD-WAN software intelligently builds the IPsec tunnels needed between your locations seamlessly and automatically.
Xigent Solutions is a results-focused managed services company that specializes in SD-WAN implementation. Xigent partners with leaders in the industry in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for SD-WAN, including Viptela by Cisco, Cisco Meraki, VeloCloud by VMWare and FortiGate by Fortinet.
Xigent offers full-range managed IT services, including consulting, implementation and ongoing monitoring of SD-WAN solutions. We will partner with you in a holistic approach as your IT provider on a tactical and strategic level to help you succeed.
To learn more about how we can partner with you to minimize the costs of your SD-WAN implementation, download our free guide to SD-WAN.
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