SD WAN (Software Defined Wide Area Network) lets you connect multiple agencies to multiple interfaces on an SD WAN capable firewall. The SD WAN firewall is application aware and automatically steers traffic over different providers determined by certain conditions.

As an example you could possibly connect an MPLS network using one WAN connection and correct online for the second WAN connection. With SD WAN the traffic would then dynamically route over either connection according to policies you define.

Overview
To understand how SD WAN works and the way it benefits your organization it is important to first understand how things were configured previously.

Consider hot and cold taps with an traditional wash hand basin. Imagine the hot tap (WAN 1 Interface) is linked to the MPLS Network and the cold tap (WAN 2 Interface) is coupled to the Internet.

When the hot tap and cold taps are operated separately it is not easy to control the temperature and flow from the water as they are totally outside of the other. Similarly, just before SD WAN it turned out hard to mix, control and manage traffic (business applications) across separate independent WAN Interfaces (within this example MPLS and Internet) the same as the water in the old wash hand basin.

Exactly why is SD WAN better?
SD WAN is a little like a modern wash hand basin with the and cold taps combined in a an easy task to adjust mixer tap. The temperature of the water could be controlled which enable it to be also automatically regulated to give you the perfect water temperature constantly.

With SD WAN you can have granular control over traffic across all WAN networks with advanced flexibility and agility. By way of example, you’ll be able to define policies that always send traffic from a main business application over the MPLS network for instance but automatically change to the Internet VPN when the MPLS network is congested or unavailable.

SD WAN transfers the responsibility of traffic management from physical devices to software and lets you effectively and securely route website visitors to remote locations including branch offices. Centralised control gives full visibility across the network and enables simple management.

In conclusion SD WAN provides you with complete treatments for how we dynamically route and prioritise traffic depending on application type as well as other factors such as congestion and availability.

How can SD WAN benefit your business?
Lower bandwidth costs
Centralised network management
Full network visibility
Increased choices for vendor selection and connection type
SD-WAN benefits businesses by removing expensive routing hardware and instead provisioning connectivity and services from your cloud. With all the increased reliance upon cloud-based services in the modern workplace SD WAN features a a lot more robust and reliable network.

SD WAN can be a a lot more flexible option allowing a small business to scale connectivity along as his or her business dictates and can automatically adjust and steer cloud-based traffic over different routes when congestion or service provider failure occurs. This gives an enterprise to own a much more efficient and cost-effective enterprise reducing bandwidth costs as required without compromising availability. Businesses are effectively avoiding over provisioning which lowers overall WAN costs.

The centralised control enables changes to become implemented and quickly pushed out to network hardware for example routers and switches.

After a primary investment SD-WAN can improve a business’s connectivity between branch locations, the primary office, data centres and also the cloud while reducing running costs making long lasting savings over time.

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