What are the benefits of SD-WAN solutions?

SD-WAN solutions offer many benefits to meet the demands of modern enterprise networks, including:

Improved application performance and quality of service for remote and branch workers
Reduced WAN costs and scaled capacity through the use of lower-priced broadband and mobile connections
Increased flexibility to prioritize business-critical applications over other network traffic
Improved business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities that maintain connectivity even during multiple network failures
Increased connection security across the WAN as applications and data migrate to the cloud
Reduced branch networking complexity by consolidating services into an integrated WAN edge appliance and centralizing management and policy definition

How does SD-WAN technology work?

SD-WAN provides IT stakeholders with better tools to manage several types of internet connections, including broadband and MPLS, as well as 3G/4G/LTE. As with internal software-defined networking solutions, SD-WAN solutions leverage policy management tools to improve IT's ability to optimize how data moves between office branches, data centers and cloud.

SD-WAN is perhaps best understood within the context of the data plane and control plane. The data plane describes the flow of information packets through a network infrastructure. Meanwhile, the control plane tells the data where to go, as defined by a developer or network engineer. Traditionally, an administrator would define rules and manually program policies. In a large enterprise, distributing policies across the network in this manner is not only prone to error but also incredibly time consuming.