SD-WAN – Software Defined Wide Area Network
This is a technology that helps ensure uptime, reliability and optimization of your existing internet services. You can use their combined upload and download to use the internet and virtually eliminates interruptions due to one or the other going down.
With traditional internet gateways, you will usually have an internet failover that uses the primary internet while the second sits unused. There is also a feature called “load balancing” that attempts to leverage both connections, but this still causes issues with the active internet connection constantly switching. Here are some benefits to SD-WAN technology.
- Time – When the internet fails over often traditional, onsite phone systems require programming to use one internet connection or the other. This costs time/money for technicians to manually configure the system as well as the employees that are interrupted. By the time the connection is configured to use the secondary internet the original issue may be resolved.
- Reliability – Many web based apps and banking sites are sensitive to changes in the internet connection. Say failover or load balancing is used when the primary internet has issues – this usually forces the user to log back into a website to continue working. Some websites even require a particular connection to be used through the use of static IP addresses which typically change as your internet switches.
- Optimization – Priority is given to sensitive phone traffic and other critical services such as Office 365. Since all internet download/upload speeds are combined you’ll notice a difference in your overall speed. Someone watching online videos or using social media won’t take priority over your important work.
SD-Wan has recently become more affordable and easier to deploy to SMBs across the world. From demos to live testing, SD-WAN has proven very reliable for cost savings due to internet issues that disrupt web usage, phone systems and anything else that touches the internet. It allows you to get the most out of multiple internet connections and optimizes traffic for business critical apps.