If you are in the market for a reliable network for your enterprise, and you have a wide campus to cover, you should look into SD-WANs. SD-WANs offer cost-effective, flexible options for businesses of varying sizes.
SD-WANs can handle high-bandwidth data and remote work. For businesses concerned about another global quarantine taking hold, maintaining the ability of your organization to let employees work remotely without compromising their efficiency is key.
Here are 3 reasons why SD-WAN could be the right choice for your business.
What is SD-WAN?
SD-WAN stands for software defined wide area network. SD-WANs connect enterprise networks that cross a wide swath of geographic area. Software defined networks separate the control and forwarding planes of the traditional network setup, managing network functions from a centralized control hub.
SD-WAN reduces the need of enterprises to accommodate bulky hardware for their business network. Traditional wide area networks rely on physical hardware architecture, whereas software defined wide area networks allow users to use cloud-based computing or a combination that reduces the need for physical space.
While there is still a centralized location in SD-WAN set ups, everything is digitalized, and you can still manage the network remotely. This is an incredible advantage for businesses of any size with tight budgets or ever-evolving needs that require flexibility in their business networks.
Even though SD-WANs cover a lot of ground, they can still support the high bandwidth needs of enterprises of any size, unburdened by the limitations of traditional WANs.
Open Source Options
If you are concerned about having maximum control over your network and your SD-WAN options, you are not alone. The monolithic solutions offered by traditional SD-WAN vendors are not a great fit for every organization.
Unfortunately, those same vendors do not allow for a lot of customization. Even worse are the shady restrictions some SD-WAN vendors employ to stifle competition and keep prices high. This problem is widespread through the technology sector and is of course not a problem isolated to SD-WAN services.
Open source SD-WAN options help mitigate the problems associated with traditional SD-WAN vendors. Open source wide area networks are a great option if your enterprise has specific needs that make acquisition through vendors more costly.
Plus, “low code” programming options are becoming more common. This makes programming more accessible to all enterprises who may not have expert programmers at their disposal. Low code development allows users to start coding and programming without years of schooling or professional training.
And open source programs give you the tools to create the programs that your organization needs, exactly to your specifications. Low code removes the highest barriers of entry to using those tools!
Open source programs are incredibly popular for their ability to democratize the digital world while giving your average joes the tools to totally control their traffic and data.
Scalable for Remote Work
While there may be an end in sight for the COVID-19 pandemic specifically as a pandemic, the global workforce will never be the same. That is a good thing. The coronavirus has reminded us just how susceptible human infrastructure is to being dismantled swiftly by a virus.
Any enterprise worth its salt will be preparing for the inevitable next wave of quarantine orders worldwide. We live in age where our interconnectedness as humans has proven to be our downfall, but we mustn’t forget that it is also our strength.
Telecommunication and the digital age have allowed us to be flexible when it comes to the way we work. Remote work (also referred to as telework) will become increasingly common, so your organization would be wise to invest in a network that can accommodate that.
Software defined WAN is best means of distributing a network over a wide geographic location. Other solutions like VPNs won’t cut it in terms of security, speed, and cost-effectiveness for most enterprises in need of a wide area network.
Flexibility
SD-WAN can be cloud-based, housed on location with physical architecture, or a combination of the two where the hardware serves as a “backbone” for the cloud network. With increased popularity of remote work as mentioned above, this is just another example of why SD-WAN is the future of business networks.
Without having to accommodate physical hardware, your enterprise can save money on the costs associated with housing hardware, large equipment, or other space-wasters we usually associate with complex networks.
Simplified management of SD-WAN networks makes network management more accessible for in-house technicians at your enterprise. The management of your business network no longer will require years of programming expertise to run smoothly.
All in all, SD-WAN represents a democratization of network management for businesses that previously would have been unable to internally manage their own networks.
