As 2022 unfolds, improving the digital user experience will remain a top priority for CIOs.
Efforts to enhance customer experience will be incorporated into the broader digital plan. IT teams and frontline departments need to work together for a business to impact how customers interact with it, meaning innovation and collaboration are essential.
Consumers evaluate what a company offers predominantly based on their personal experience.
On-demand services have normalized their expectations of amazing online and offline experiences, and their expectations have never been higher. Keep up with the changing needs of consumers adds additional IT pressure to regularly scheduled business operations.
Users interact with the backend through various platforms, applications, and data to create a new user experience (UX). As business functions become more complex, the network becomes even more essential.
Cloud services have complicated the wide-area network (WAN) and added a layer of complexity to it. Multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) has served IT needs in the past.
As a replacement for MPLS, software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) has become increasingly popular. This transformation to SD-WAN technology-enabled networks, allows businesses to connect their applications and services to end-users worldwide, enabling them to achieve new levels of performance, agility, and intelligence.
The link between SD-WAN and UX
Technology for leisure activities, such as social media, video streaming, and Netflix, provide seamless experiences.
Why would they expect anything less in a world where the same technology is used for work? Having poor user experience directly affects business results as users are less productive.
Remote working is also an important consideration. The rise in work from home; challenges businesses in providing employees with the tools needed to succeed. Remote working also poses a challenge for employees.
SD-WAN essentially solves this problem.
Software-defined WANs control the network connections, services, and management between data centers, remote branches, and the cloud, simplifying management and operation by connecting on-premise Data Centres, branches, and the cloud using a single fabric.
As a result, the network is easier to manage and operate since a ‘single pane of glass’ provides complete visibility of the status and performance of the network.
Enhanced visibility will allow security and performance to be tracked and maintained, and anomalies will be highlighted.
Changing things quickly allows a business to be much more agile. At its core, the SD-WAN network is architected with business objectives, and performance and security are primary considerations, not optional.
Key areas where SD-WAN will help to facilitate deeper innovation and realize new UX
Enhancing service-oriented functions
When businesses grow in size, traditional WANs like MPLS can cause infrastructure sprawl. There are a lot of devices and appliances connecting different WAN links, which makes branch IT more complicated to manage. The inability to manage this complexity, negatively impacts IT operations, affecting frontline employees.
Retail companies’ branch locations may experience great disruptions in their customers’ shopping experiences if they cannot access their corporate Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. This means the staff cannot find out what stocks are available and cannot manage new customer orders.
With SD-WAN, your network becomes more organized and controlled. Also, it allows for better branch connectivity management, mitigates the impact of network outages, and improves overall efficiency.
Moreover, it provides enterprises with real-time network analytics and monitoring tools to gain better insight into their networks. Keeping track of, shaping, and improving their network to business demands allows them to stay ahead of the curve.
Expanding into new locations – At lightning fast speed!
Suppose your business is rapidly expanding and you need to set up multiple branches in key markets – how quickly can you establish new telecommunications links? Similarly, can you do it cost-efficiently without getting shocked by your bills?
There’s no better solution than SD-WAN!
SD-WAN allows for rapid changes to existing services and the configuration of new WAN links, allowing for increased agility and flexibility.
The deployment of the technology is 10 times faster than traditional WANs, meaning your business will be online almost immediately. The equipment in the new locations is plug-and-play and can be managed remotely from a central control panel. By doing so, businesses can meet the increasing demands in fast-growing markets and provide their services more readily.
Optimizing and securing your business data
Today, enterprises must secure a number of types of data, including customer and operational data.
Due to data protection regulations like GDPR, network security has shot to the top of the priority list. The UX design process should also include protecting customers’ data. There are now many SD-WAN services that integrate security features into their services.
An IT department can manage centralized network traffic security policies and intelligently monitor network traffic with a single network security controller. Security functions for the WAN include leading-edge firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPs), such as unified threat management (UTM).
Using the same controller, IT departments can monitor each WAN link’s health and swiftly reroute traffic when a link malfunctions or is overloaded. This way, all enterprise network infrastructure is optimized and secure so that applications and data can perform efficiently and are not susceptible to unauthorized interception.
Find the ideal SD-WAN supplier for your business
Implementing and managing SD-WAN technology with software solutions and IT services is easier!
Investing in today’s solution must be future-proofed for at least ten years. – Suppliers and SD WAN companies use MPLS and SD-WAN models so organizations can begin taking advantage of SD-WAN’s benefits.
Infinxt- A secure SD-WAN solution from Infinitylabs will solve all your networking problems. It assists in providing a secure, scalable, flexible, and fast SD-WAN edge to enterprises concerned with security.
The integrated security-driven networking solution from Infinity Labs includes an advanced firewall, routing, and SD-WAN. This helps:
- Accelerate network convergence and security with simplified WAN edge architectures
- Provide the highest quality of service at all scales
- Boost operational efficiencies with deep analytics, automation, and self-healing
- Orchestrate policy implementation
- Make your business’s network consistent.
Conclusion
Organizations increasingly require fast, scalable, and flexible connections between diverse networks, making secure SD-WAN solutions increasingly popular. SD-WAN’s goal is to establish and maintain a good user experience while simultaneously lowering the costs associated with the overall infrastructure for connecting remote offices, users, and mission-critical applications and resources.
A bad SD-WAN solution can, however, hinder rather than accelerate an organization’s ability to adapt quickly to changing business demands, as it can with most technologies. One of the biggest challenges of SD-WAN solutions is that they can introduce serious vulnerabilities that can bring the entire system to a screeching halt.
To know more, get in touch with experts at Infinitylabs!