Organizations with distributed workforces constantly seek solutions to manage their networks and improve operational performance. Wide-Area Networks (WANs) can be expensive and often pose performance, connectivity, and management challenges.
Software-Defined Wide-Area Network (SD-WAN) technology acts as a virtual route planner, selecting ideal network paths, providing multiple route options, and managing network traffic and security.
This article takes a closer look at the pros and cons of SD-WAN and explores how MetTel’s unique, simplified solutions address complexities and streamline the deployment process.
What is SD-WAN?
SD-WAN is a virtual wide-area network technology that uses software to manage and optimize WAN performance. It streamlines the operations of traditional WANs, whose traffic performance is limited in an era of cloud applications.
With this software-defined architecture, enterprises can connect and monitor their users, data, and applications while enjoying improved network performance. As we explore the pros and cons of SD-WAN below, you’ll discover the numerous ways this technology benefits organizations.
Traditional WAN traffic often experiences increased latency and poor performance. SD-WAN addresses these IT issues and helps organizations centrally manage their networks through network visibility. Being software-defined, SD-WAN is more scalable and reliable than traditional WAN.
IT managers must carefully evaluate the MPLS vs SD-WAN pros and cons when considering how to upgrade their wide-area network technologies. The following sections outline SD-WAN pros and cons to help you make informed choices for your organization’s IT objectives.
SD-WAN Benefits
Initially conceived as a cost-effective solution for WAN management, SD-WAN has gained popularity among organizations using cloud applications for several reasons. It has evolved from a simple IT tool into a comprehensive solution for cybersecurity and fast, flexible connections. As a result of its widespread adoption, the SD-WAN market is projected to expand at an annual growth rate of 31.9% by 2026.
Improved Network Operation
SD-WAN solutions enhance network operations by enabling enterprises to integrate multiple connection technologies, such as MPLS, broadband internet, and LTE, into a unified network. This centralization improves overall bandwidth utilization and provides redundancy. SD-WAN simplifies network management by automating routing policies based on application requirements.
This innovative technology continuously monitors latency and jitter, redirecting traffic to more reliable connections to prevent packet loss and disruptions. Using this information, SD-WAN employs sophisticated algorithms to route different applications along the most suitable paths.
Optimized User Experience
SD-WAN elevates user experience and boosts productivity by providing reliable, accessible connectivity. By utilizing multiple broadband connections simultaneously, SD-WAN guarantees high bandwidth availability for users’ applications, resulting in faster response times and smoother operations.
Security is another key aspect of SD-WAN’s enhancement of user experience. It protects network segmentation, encrypted overlays, and integration with cloud-based or on-site security solutions. These features safeguard data and foster trust in the network.
Furthermore, artificial intelligence in SD-WAN enhances both user and admin experience by dynamically adjusting configurations, alerting administrators to potential issues, and swiftly identifying and isolating security threats based on detected patterns.
Reduced Costs
SD-WAN offers significant cost reductions for organizations in several ways. It’s less expensive to install than traditional WANs, as it can be deployed as an overlay on existing network infrastructure. This approach minimizes the need for extensive hardware upgrades. Additionally, SD-WAN automates most processes, reducing the requirement for manual labor and associated operational costs. The improved bandwidth efficiency through the utilization of multiple internet connections further contributes to overall cost savings.
Incorporating next-generation firewalls into SD-WAN solutions bolsters network security, adding a robust layer of protection. This enhanced security helps shield organizations from the costly implications of security breaches, which can be expensive to identify, contain, and mitigate.
In the long run, SD-WAN ensures a strong return on investment by increasing network flexibility and reliability while reducing the total cost of ownership. These benefits make SD-WAN an attractive option for organizations looking to optimize their network infrastructure while effectively managing costs.
Automated Tasks
SD-WAN harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate network tasks, significantly improving efficiency and reliability. One of its key features is the ability to automatically select the optimal network path for traffic in real-time, adapting to changing performance conditions. This dynamic routing ensures that data always travels along the most efficient path, minimizing delays and maximizing throughput.
SD-WAN automation capabilities extend to network changes, utilizing APIs and configuration templates to reduce human errors and improve accuracy.
Increased Application Performance
SD-WAN boosts application performance through speed optimization, application prioritization, load balancing, and effective latency management. SD-WAN prioritizes applications, ensuring that latency-sensitive services like VoIP, video conferencing, and cloud desktops are routed through optimal paths. This approach minimizes disruptions and enhances the user experience.
This intelligent routing mechanism selects the optimal path based on each application’s specific requirements, ensuring critical, time-sensitive services receive priority treatment while maintaining overall network efficiency.
Higher Bandwidth
As organizations adopt more cloud applications and services, the demand for higher bandwidth continues to grow—a demand that traditional WAN often struggles to meet. SD-WAN addresses this challenge by delivering reliable bandwidth through intelligent network management. By monitoring network links and assessing bandwidth availability across each, SD-WAN is able to efficiently load-balance and direct traffic across the most advantageous link, be it broadband internet, MPLS, or 4G/LTE.
This load-balancing technique ensures optimal utilization of all available bandwidth resources. In cases where one link approaches capacity or fails, SD-WAN swiftly redirects excess traffic to alternate pathways with spare bandwidth capacity. This dynamic approach to bandwidth management allows organizations to maintain high performance and reliability even as their network demands fluctuate.
Private Data Centers
SD-WAN offers a secure and efficient solution for organizations connecting office locations to private data centers. It creates encrypted virtual overlays between sites by employing dynamic path selection to route traffic privately and securely. This eliminates the risk of unauthorized access, ensuring that sensitive data remains protected as it travels across the network.
In the event of a primary path failure, SD-WAN instantly switches to secondary routes, preventing disruptions to data flow. This way, SD-WAN functions as a global virtual private network, seamlessly connecting all private network edges to data centers. This configuration allows remote employees to access private applications and data from any location, providing an experience comparable to working on a local private network.
Integrated Security
SD-WAN offers integrated security controls that surpass traditional network security measures. Its multi-layered structure incorporates next-gen firewall capabilities, intrusion detection, URL filtering, and malware protection. By tightly integrating these security functions, SD-WAN enforces consistent policies across all applications.
Centralized management enables updates to be applied quickly and makes handling threats more efficient. SD-WAN applies controls based on application and user identification, enhancing security precision. The technology utilizes encrypted tunnels in the cloud for additional protection while employing behavioral analysis to detect anomalies and block high-risk applications.
Cons of SD-WAN
While SD-WAN offers numerous benefits, it also has some limitations. Here are two potential drawbacks to consider:
Need for Additional Bandwidth
Many SD-WAN platforms have advanced auto-healing features while enhancing network reliability and performance, which can lead to increased bandwidth consumption. Features such as packet duplication, forward error correction (FEC), and dynamic jitter buffering work together to ensure seamless connectivity but often require additional bandwidth overhead. Packet duplication sends multiple copies of data packets across different paths, potentially doubling the bandwidth usage for critical traffic. FEC adds redundant data to transmissions, allowing for error correction without retransmission, but this extra data increases overall bandwidth needs. Dynamic jitter buffering, which helps smooth out variations in packet arrival times, may also contribute to higher bandwidth requirements as it temporarily stores packets. While these features significantly improve application performance and user experience, network administrators must carefully consider and plan for a small increase in bandwidth demands when implementing SD-WAN solutions.
Public LTE can present issues for SDWAN
SD-WAN enhances consumer-grade wired access circuits, offering robust resilience and disaster recovery options. However, cost-effective broadband isn’t universally available. While 5G/LTE provides an alternative, public cellular networks present challenges for enterprises seeking consistent performance and security due to congestion, variable quality of service, and potential vulnerabilities. These issues can compromise SD-WAN’s intelligent routing and application-aware features. Private LTE/5G networks, in contrast, offer superior experiences for SD-WAN deployments through dedicated spectrum, customized coverage, and enhanced resource control, allowing organizations to tailor network slices to specific requirements.
MetTel’s IoT Single SIM solution ensures continuous connectivity by hunting for the best signal across all wireless carriers. It provides 5G/LTE backup over a secure, encrypted, and non-public transport. This IoT connectivity mitigates dependence on internet quality, offering unparalleled mobile signals that maintain application performance for SD-WAN deployments, thus enabling enterprises to fully leverage SD-WAN capabilities for reliable connectivity, improved performance, and greater network control.
Learn More About Managed SD-WAN from MetTel
SD-WAN revolutionizes an organization’s IT environment by strengthening its network operations. Whether you’re a retail business or you’re helping the government move to SD-WAN, it offers a cost-effective connectivity solution with higher bandwidth than traditional WAN. It provides secure remote connections through multi-layered security features.
At MetTel, we do the heavy lifting by handling the complex implementation work and streamlining installation through zero-touch provisioning of pre-configured devices. We also ensure your devices never go offline with our IoT single SIM technology.
Experience the full benefits of SD-WAN with minimal hassle. Contact MetTel today to boost your business agility through award-winning managed SD-WAN service.