How to gain the full benefit SD-WAN products and services offer
To hear it told, SD-WAN will make your branch networking, fast, reliable, and cheap by letting you use 2 or more low-cost WAN connections and then manage traffic across them. Using multiple WAN connections at the branch is complex requiring carefully planned configurations that are also difficult and risky to change but using automation and integrated capabilities, SD-WAN products and services simplify the complexity away.
It’s too soon to kick your MPLS circuit to the curb, however. There are significant benefits that dedicated WAN circuits provide such as resiliency for running mission-critical applications and powerful security that business broadband cannot match. But legacy WAN services are expensive to scale especially when seeking to leverage cloud compute and other IaaS/SaaS tools.
One strategy to make a legacy WAN agile is to augment with other WAN types like business broadband and increase WAN capacity, lower monthly costs, and build in high availability while reducing operational overhead. That may sound too good to be true but for many organizations, SD-WAN will be an excellent drop-in replacement for branch networking provided you understand what you're getting into.
If you want to improve branch networking while lowering costs, you'll need to:
- Learn about SD-WAN benefits and how those benefits are achieved
- Compare and contrast the differences between DIY SD-WAN or a managed service
- Compare critical features from vendors and MSP's to narrow the selection
- Prepare for the future by aligning your plans with vendor roadmaps
Join GlobalData's team as we share our insights about selecting and using SD-WAN products and services to their fullest.
Presented by
Mike Fratto,
Research Director Enterprise Networking & Data Centre Technology
Mike is a Research Director with the Global IT Technology & Software team covering the Enterprise Networking and Data Center Technology markets. He has extensive experience reviewing and writing about enterprise remote access, security and network infrastructure products. Prior to GlobalData, Mike was with TechWeb for over 15 years finishing as Editor of Network Computing.
Joel Stradling,
Research Director Business Network & IT Services
Joel has 20 years of experience in high-tech. He is our specialist in global & European providers of enterprise voice/data network services, and international wholesale carrier-to-carrier services market. Including managed WAN, ethernet and IP VPN and developments in the wholesale space. A speaker at major conferences and is read and regularly quoted by telecom industry media. Prior held at IBM, Terayon and EMC2.