The Trend
SD-WAN is all the rage in the network space now with the sudden demand for a solution capable of withstanding the perilous COVID-19 disruption. The concept of a cloud-delivered technology applied to WAN connectivity such as broadband internet, 4G, LTE, or MPLS seems tricky, but on the contrary, SD-WAN has proven to be a highly secure, fast, and cost-efficient alternative to traditional means.
The ease of simplicity behind SD-WAN connectivity has become increasingly attractive to major corporations, especially those with global operations in multiple locations. Top players across the telco, tech, aviation industry, and even governments are making the big WAN shift. As they scale up their global operations, the data boom and time taken to deploy new services has become increasingly slow and insecure. The costs to keep everything in sync, in real-time is a different pain altogether. Heavy investments have been made to seamlessly coordinate this move on low bandwidth, but given the speed of growth, this has become a major expense for many. In order to distinguish the importance of SD-WAN to the success of any business, let us take a step back and understand how traditional networking infrastructure has fared so far, and why this system may not be ideal going forward.
Global connectivity is complex and chaotic
Today’s global enterprise network is highly complex and chaotic. It is possible to use the traditional networking infrastructure for application rollouts, but this could take days, even weeks to fully execute on multiple networks. It has proven to be quite a challenge to implement this efficiently on all the network components such as remote-locations, sites, campuses, stores, and much more through traditional WAN. We are looking at a tedious process of inputting the same instruction to each router’s control plane and repeating the process in each and every single location in order to synchronise the entire network infrastructure globally. This approach has opened up a myriad of risks and cyberthreats that not only waste time but are costly. Traditional WAN is heavily reliant on human intervention at every step in order to successfully deploy standard commands to each site. It has been previously established that humans are the weakest link in cybersecurity, and with the current pandemic, travel is no longer a viable option to maintain global networks for operation’s sake. Travel restrictions limit the capability of traditional WAN deployment, leaving businesses stranded.
That’s where SD-WAN comes in…
SD-WAN provides a premier solution that is sophisticated with routing, path selection, security, and segmentation to fully optimize WAN. It not only cuts down application costs but also increases enterprise agility and responsiveness with higher bandwidth. It provides a seamless transition across different applications. With the centralized system, commands can be implemented in seconds across the entire network. This feature negates the need for travel to the different site locations to deploy commands in each site. The deployment can be done from one central location, and it will be reflected in the global network instantly.
This explains the sudden shift exhibited by major industry players over the past few months. This shift has also heightened the SD-WAN market validation to a promising projection. The global SD-WAN market size is forecasted to grow from USD 1.9 billion in 2020 to a whopping USD 8.4 billion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34.5%. The market growth is attributed to growing needs among organizations to simplify network management. This need also falls in line with the current rise in demand requirements flooding our inbox as more and more clients are waking up to the powerhouse that is SD-WAN.
So why SD-WAN?
Change can seem quite daunting but when you closely analyze the transformative benefits, it makes sense to jump onto the shift. A solution that brings operational efficiency while cutting costs at the same time? Sign me up!
So how exactly does SD-WAN simplify network management?
- WAN Optimization: Complex WAN networks are often connected by expensive and fixed bandwidths which are difficult to maintain. SD-WAN gives you a bird’s eye view over your entire network by connecting every corner of the network to a single platform. It helps reduce the time spent troubleshooting and inputting commands in each control plane.
- Speed: System and application roll-outs don’t have to get slower as your organization expands. SD-WAN seamlessly connects every user to applications using broadband internet services in just a few minutes. This eases the burden of upgrades and saves on time.
- Cost efficiency: Networks become more complex due to expansion efforts, so managing the equipment is even more costly. Time is money. By replacing MPLS connections with SD-WAN, you can cut down costs by up to 50%! This gives you a chance to scale up your connectivity and roll-out speeds while cutting costs simultaneously.
- Security: SD-WAN uses software to provide cutting-edge routing and firewall. It’s a solution to provide secure connectivity across your entire network. No matter how complex the network, you can be assured of complete and secure coverage.
This is just a fraction of the benefits of leveraging SD-WAN for your network infrastructure. On our next post, we’ll delve into the specific SD-WAN components, and how they are changing the world of network infrastructure.
Don’t get caught up in the fuss of traditional WAN. IX Telecom provides robust and secure large scale SD-WAN connectivity for businesses across the globe. We ensure comprehensive coverage in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Australia. For your peace of mind and hassle-free connectivity, we assign reliable access to 24/7 monitoring and customer service capabilities. Regardless of your location, reach out to our global team for more information on how to make the smart shift today. Get in touch with us at sales@ixtelecom.net for a free consultation on how to easily scale up your global operations.
