If your organization has multiple locations and relies on SaaS & IaaS, SD-WAN is a great solution to improve cloud performance. However, implementing an SD-WAN can be difficult and costly if done incorrectly. IT teams should ensure that the SD-WAN distribution partners, integrators and resellers understand the full digital transformation landscape.
Scalability
What to consider with SD-WAN solution? One of the factors to consider in an SD-WAN solution is its scalability. The right SD-WAN solution will provide high scalability so that organizations of all sizes can implement it. It shouldn’t matter if the business is a two-branch retail chain or a 200-branch financial organization—the network should scale to meet all requirements with ease and efficiency. To deliver a truly scalable SD-WAN solution, the platform should support various data services, offer multi-tenancy to reduce hardware costs, and allow centralized policy management and monitoring. It should also be capable of determining the best route to send traffic based on real-time network conditions and use a stream-by-stream aggregation method that ensures each session takes the best path available. Large, mature networks often have a significant investment in infrastructure. Rip-and-replace is expensive and impractical, especially for branch offices with existing applications and traffic patterns that require uninterrupted access. Zero-touch deployment models make it simple to deliver an SD-WAN overlay without disrupting current applications and connections. In addition, a good zero-touch solution will have license management that is centrally managed so that new sites can check out the licenses they need to operate. Older sites can be reassigned to unused permits.
Flexibility
To connect branch offices to network and cloud resources, enterprises traditionally need a secure line installed on each site. This costly process can lead to significant downtime while a new connection is set up.
However, using the public internet instead of a dedicated private network, an SD-WAN can provide more flexibility and agility. This can be a major cost savings and deliver a much better user experience by reducing latency and improving the performance of business-critical applications. Look for a solution that offers software-based virtual tunnels between locations with dynamic path selection at packet granularity. This allows for a much more flexible way to prioritize different types of traffic depending on its needs. You also want to ensure your SD-WAN can handle a complete transport outage and provide sub-second failover to a new path. This is a critical feature and should be offered by all vendors. In addition, you want a solution that can be installed with zero-touch provisioning and enable new sites to get up and running within minutes rather than weeks or months.
Security
When evaluating SD-WAN solutions, IT teams should consider how the platform will be managed long term. Will it be DIY, co-managed with a managed service provider, or fully offloaded to an MSP? In addition to ensuring network connectivity, SD-WAN can also provide security. A good solution will encrypt data in motion over all tunnels and at rest at the edge devices. If it retains any internal data — and most do if they incorporate vendor cloud components — it should also encrypt that. To ensure the best possible performance and security, organizations must understand their current network architecture and what they want it to look like after the migration to SD-WAN. This will help them avoid costly missteps that could delay or derail the project. It’s also critical to align with all stakeholders involved in the project, particularly security and networking, to ensure everyone is on the same page and clearly understands how the technology will work in their specific environment. This will help build advocates, prevent conflicts that may halt the project and ease the transitional process.
Performance
The performance of the business-critical applications is the key. If there is a loss of the underlying transport or any failure, it may disrupt business processes and a lack of productivity. The WAN architecture should handle these issues with minimal or no downtime. Traffic distribution across virtual tunnels provides multiple failover options for a seamless transition to alternate connections, ensuring that critical applications are not interrupted. An SD-WAN solution offers centralized management control and enables IT teams to connect directly to software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers, minimizing costs for additional router infrastructure in branch offices and minimizing maintenance contracts. This approach also reduces the attack surface compared to traditional and hybrid WAN architectures. It is also important to consider the support capabilities of an SD-WAN solution. Ensure the vendor you choose has a track record of customer satisfaction and technical support. This is especially crucial for larger enterprises with a distributed IT team. For instance, larger organizations may opt for an MSP model in which the vendor handles the deployment of a secure WAN and manages ongoing connectivity and monitoring.
Cost
The cost of an SD-WAN solution depends on the number of users, their data size, and what equipment is required. In addition, the recurring fees associated with the technology include software licensing and WAN connectivity, which is offered as an Internet-based VPN or via dedicated circuits. Understanding strengths and weaknesses in your existing network is vital to ensuring a successful transition to an SD-WAN. This requires identifying peaks in usage, bandwidth requirements, and recurrent patterns that impact network performance. It also means assessing the compatibility of devices and applications with SD-WAN technology. An in-house implementation model can work well for smaller organizations with an in-house team of IT technical experts. However, larger companies often opt for a managed service provider or MSP model, where they work with an MSP to manage end-to-end deployment and relationship management with WAN providers. In both models, costs are based on how much bandwidth is used and what features are incorporated into the network, like load balancing, traffic shaping and policy-based routing.
