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SD-WAN, the Cloud, and the Future of Your Wide Area Network
Written by Joe Mauk, UCaaS/CCaaS/SD-WAN Engineer at C3 Technology Advisors
With the rise of health and safety concerns around COVID-19, many organizations have taken the action required from local and federal government advisors and for the protection of their employees, they’ve been asked to work from home. Remote work demands are challenging streaming capabilities and rapid access to data and necessary applications needed to do our jobs. With normal business operations being disrupted, the need to support current customers' organizations business continuity plans are being challenged like never before.
Software-Defined WAN (SD-WAN) has emerged as a viable and cost-effective alternative to router-based networking that allows for remote access to applications and infrastructure needed to keep business operations going. SD-WAN has the ability to optimize routing and prioritize various types of application traffic over broadband, traditional local exchange carrier access methods, or a combination of both. It evaluates network traffic patterns and chooses the most efficient route across the network in real-time to ultimately achieve the best performance possible.
Additional SD-WAN Benefits
There's more you can accomplish with SD-WAN. To name a few, you can:
- Eliminate router capital expenditures
- Take full control over application bandwidth utilization
- Utilize WAN optimization software that is most often included in the SD-WAN solution
- Experience accessibility to third party products and services with API’s tied directly into most SD-WAN offerings
- Manage every aspect of the network with dynamic dashboards and software-defined networking options
- Eliminate the need for hardware and spin up virtual SD-WAN appliances in the cloud for real-time provisioning and pay for what you use
- Minimize network outages with failover automation that takes effect in the event of the disaster, when diverse network paths are provisioned
A frequent question that comes up is how can a business incorporate SD-WAN into their existing solutions. We cover this and much more in a Beers with Engineers webinar led by C3 Technology Advisors.
Beers with Engineers Dives into SD-WAN
In a recent virtual event, panelists discussed deployment models that include placing edge devices in the cloud, to provide additional control and optimization for IaaS hosted applications. This approach to network design and simplified management is vital to the evolution of the WAN from a traditional hub and spoke that was difficult to configure, especially at scale, and limited in how it served applications in the cloud.
How US Signal Plays in the SD-WAN Conversation
SD-WAN management nodes can be stood up virtually in the US Signal Cloud or physically in a data center. What is the benefit?
- Enables low RTO/RPO for the management of VMs with US Signal Data Protection
- Places the applications, file, and object storage right next to the main hub of your SDWAN network for optimal traffic topology efficiencies, reducing unnecessary trips to the headend
- Adjacency to US Signal Managed Security
- Enable easy layering of additional services for protecting your applications, like Website and Application Security
- Adjacency of your applications and data to optimism participation in the SDWAN orchestration network overlays
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