Increasing amounts of data are being transferred between data centers, cloud environments, branch offices, and other remote locations; driven by data analytics, media traffic, demand for storage, and data backup. This traffic creates the need to optimize wide-area network performance (WANs) and the applications running on them.

Network administrators are also seeing an increase in latency-sensitive data transmissions as traffic levels are steadily increasing. WAN and application performance optimization solutions that deliver the scalability and the performance required by this traffic have become a necessity.

Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology is emerging as a networking approach capable of delivering multiple performance and cost benefits including end-to-end network visibility and feedback to improve on-fly transmission efficiencies. This technology also creates a painless path from proprietary hardware devices to agile and programmable software-defined WANs which enables organizations to keep pace with IT innovations.

Reasons why SD-WAN is the right choice for networking:

Enhanced network security

It is helpless to get intercepted, stolen, or compromised when data travels through the network. Information, users, and applications need protection for all. Protecting and securing transit data is particularly important given that companies are adding more branch locations and encouraging remote workers.

The right SD-WAN solution will protect all connections within your company, whether on-site or in the cloud. SD-WAN can give all business locations a multi-layer security strategy. The network can be segmented and protected with a firewall, by taking a zero-trust approach to network security to guard against internal and external threats.

Improved performance

With SD-WAN, businesses gain multiple exit points to the Internet. These additional exit points add network bandwidth and allow companies to improve the user experience by avoiding bottlenecks. Network traffic can be controlled in real-time, depending on the company sets policies.

Rapid deployment & network management

SD-WAN may be deployed as an as-a-service model. Instead of configuring hardware and the laborious tasks associated with legacy networks, organizations can quickly bring new locations to bear, make changes, or apply policies to the entire SD-WAN.

Better still is SD-WAN, which is delivered as a service, where the provider handles implementation and management. Companies can easily scale out and avoid capital outlays. The top SD-WAN solutions provide zero-touch deployment to ensure a fast and risk-free process.

Network resiliency

To deliver the user experience employees and customers expect, a WAN must remain up and running at all times. Because of its redundant components and connections, SD-WAN is a highly available solution. The software empowers the solution to quickly recover from faults. Centralized monitoring and management give visibility throughout the whole network. The performance of the network is monitored and measured to determine the best information path and to generate information about any latency or data loss.