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Today’s network management is taking on an increasingly heavy load. With communications from email, video conferencing and chats increasing network traffic to the added data flow from cloud solutions and mobile devices, the demand on networks and on the staff members that manage them has significantly changed. For companies feeling the burden of an overtaxed network and network management team, an answer often lies in software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN).
What is SD-WAN?
With a virtual layer that is placed over the physical network, SD-WAN automatically detects any connectivity problems and automatically reroutes network traffic based on predetermined business policy. SD-WAN gives administrators the ability to manage the network through software with the potential to optimize the network for cost and performance.
SD-WAN is an appropriate solution in a variety of industries and IT environments. In a recent survey conducted by Spiceworks, 45% of IT professionals said that they have implemented SD-WAN, while 73% have plans to implement the solution in the next two years.
The Benefits of Deploying SD-WAN
There are a variety of reasons that organizations find SD-WAN to be advantageous, either supporting improved customer experiences or, the factor that most often drives initial consideration of SD-WAN: cost savings. While many companies do realize significant cost savings by optimizing their network, most find the solution is critical for driving innovation and gaining a competitive advantage. Take a look at the four most important benefits you can expect from SD-WAN:
Better security: With the threat of a data breach changing by the day and almost by the minute, SD-WAN offers administrators the ability to set and update permissions to different applications from a central console. In addition, your company can meet compliance requirements with tools that automate this process. If a threat is detected, network traffic can be isolated to prevent a threat from affecting other areas of the network.
Prioritizing network traffic: There’s more demand than ever on the network, but SD-WAN automates the prioritizing of mission-critical data transmissions so that your most important data receives priority on high-reliability, high-performance pathways. This allocation occurs automatically, eliminating the need for manual intervention from IT staff.
Reporting and management: Gain more opportunity to optimize your network and efficiently manage bandwidth needs with extensive reporting and analysis capabilities. You’ll not only be able to prioritize the applications that are most critical for receiving bandwidth support, but you’ll also have a better understanding of staff needs for network management.
Identifying network issues: Monitoring the network for problems is a time- and labor-intensive job, but with SD-WAN, monitoring is automated and centralized. You’ll receive alerts that tell you there’s a potential issue before an end-user is affected and before it affects any critical applications.
If you’re contemplating a network infrastructure improvement, consider implementing SD-WAN. At Access One, we leverage the best SD-WAN solutions to help you maintain a reliable network to support your changing IT environment. Contact us today to get started.