SD-WAN has become one of the most talked about and adapted technologies in the last decade, helping industries and businesses overcome multiple networking and operational challenges. As per the market experts of the industry, the use of SD-WAN will grow; with 25% more users will manage their WAN with SD-WAN in the next two years.  SD-WAN vendors will increase with a growth of 59% in revenue. The SD-WAN market is expected to have a turnover of $1.3 billion towards the end of 2020 and early 2021. SD-WAN has been providing the perfect solution to maintain cohesive connectivity across a broad spectrum of an industry and its services. In this article, we will look into what is SD-WAN and why any industry should use it?

What Is SD-WAN?

SD-WAN is the acronym for Software-defined wide-area network solutions. It helps in augmenting an organization’s capacity by strengthening the wide-area network (WAN). It also delivers multi-cloud connectivity to high-speed applications of WAN edge. Furthermore, SD-WAN offers dynamic and multiple connectivity options to the users, like broadband, MPLS, or 4H/5G, thus making it possible for businesses to access essential cloud applications easily.

SD-WAN offers fast, flexible, and scalable connectivity for a myriad of network environments, which makes it a popular technological solution. The option of being used in a wide variety of network environments, SD-WAN lowers the cost of the ownership without disrupting the value of the business and the user experience.

The SD-WAN is now often used as the critical solution for replacing the traditional routing architecture. The technological solutions provided by SD-WAN can be used beyond an organization’s branch office requirements. The functionality of the SD-WAN can be used extensively by home offices, teleworkers, and their usage as well as can be distributed among clouds. 

To avail, the full benefit of the SD-WAN solution, a virtual version of it must be used so it can be used for a multi-cloud environment. It is also essential that it is set up for a sufficient Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) version.

Benefits of SD-WAN

Any company that requires flexibility to adjust bandwidth across its multiple locations, while maintaining its scalability so that new connections can be added for growth SD-WAN is the solution.  SD-WAN offers several advantages to a business, here are some:

• Compared to traditional WAN it provides higher performance, and better reliability at a lower cost.
• It can be used with existing connectivity technology since it is compatible with MPLS, Ethernet, LTE, 3G, 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi, etc.
• Offers single-source security, unlike the expensive private WAN.
• A business can adjust it as per its needs with centralized traffic control
• A company can access the applications that are cloud-based and also avail of the option of automated device management.

When a business decides to migrate from traditional WAN to SD-WAN, they often witness an increase in their services and added benefits and increased productivity of the employees. But this can be achieved only when a business has evaluated its requirements and understands its need for growth, scalability, and future-proofing. Like any other technology, SD-WAN too can pose a few challenges for a business like integrating the legacy system of a company. A non-responsive service provider can pose a challenge in troubleshooting. Also, any business that still uses traditional phones and not looking to expand their bandwidth requirement is unlikely to benefit from SD-WAN.

Why Should You Use SD-WAN?

As discussed above, SD-WAN offers quite a few benefits to almost all businesses. While SD-WAN were first used by the retail chains, over the years, it has found its way to other industries and businesses too. The industries or businesses who were looking for bandwidth growth and increased productivity should consider switching to SD-WAN.

• Manufacturing and OT Networks: While managing better traffic flows for manufacturing industries and OT networks, it offers security features that are safe and reliable. It also integrates and weaves together multiple facets into a single solution, thus reducing the threat of cyber security and the complexity that comes with it. SD-WAN minimize the cost of OT networks by improving their visibility and reducing the downtime that can be costly for production.

• Financial Sector: SD-WAN has proved to be especially beneficial for financial services with its Security-Driven Networking approach. It combines security and networking in a single appliance. With financial organizations requiring high-speed application performances while maintaining the integrity of the transaction and advanced firewall functionality, SD-WAN has proved to be the solution.

• Healthcare Industry: SD-WAN ensure high-bandwidth connectivity which is essential for the healthcare industry. This is more so given the present situation caused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The demand for telehealth is on the rise, and the forecast says by 2025 it will increase by 40%. In such a scenario, SD-WAN is going to play a crucial role in the development of the healthcare sector by improving the quality of the services with remote location facilities.

SD-WAN solution is for all the businesses and industries with the changes that are being made. It is going to play a vital role in providing better connectivity while maintaining security across a wide range of locations and remote usage. Secure SD-WAN will warrant a safe and dynamic transaction of all the businesses and industries while mitigating cyber security threats.

Infinity Labs recently launched a Make in India SD-WAN Product – InfiNXT. This home-grown SD-WAN product provides flexibility that expands with your business to solve a growing array of networking & security challenges across cloud computing and mobility. Learn more about InfiNxt – The Next Generation SD-WAN: https://www.InfiNxt.co.in/Product