Organizations are progressively embracing digital transformation to keep pace with rising market trends, fluctuating customer demands, and enlarged competition. However traditional network architectures weren’t designed to handle the workloads and complexities of most digital transformation initiatives. More distressing is that business-critical services are typically distributed across multiple clouds, which might compromise network performance more, particularly at branch locations.
No wonder then that savvy network operations groups are turning to software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) as a way to scale back overhead and support new applications and services resulting from digital transformation. This innovative technology not solely simplifies the management and operation of a WAN but additionally delivers a variety of real-world business advantages.
5 ways in which SD-WAN will boost the bottom line – without the IT headaches:
Improves performance
Not all network traffic is made equal. Luckily, SD-WAN can be organized to prioritize business-critical traffic and real-time services like voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) then steer it over the foremost efficient route. By facilitating vital applications through reliable, high-performance connections, IT groups will help cut back packet loss and latency problems, thereby increasing worker productivity and boosting employees’ morale.
Boosts security
Digital transformation is a double-edged weapon. While it will improve customer satisfaction and extend market reach, it may expose a company to vital security risks. That’s a concern, given that 41st of respondents reported a rise in the frequency of cybersecurity events in 2017, per the U.S. State of Cybercrime survey. The great news is several SD-WAN solutions provide built-in security. However, the fundamental firewall and VPN functions provided by most SD-WAN solutions are typically not enough, forcing IT groups to do and overlay security across elastic and dynamic SD-WAN connections after the fact. A far better choice is to look for SD-WAN solutions that give a wide range of integrated security features, like NGFW, IPS, encryption, AV, and sandboxing capabilities which will help stop data loss, downtime, regulatory violations, and legal liabilities.
Lowers complexity
Digital transformation initiatives will add layers of complexity to a network. The result’s not only a risk of poor network performance but over-taxed IT groups and the need for locating onsite personnel at remote sites to manage the local IT infrastructure. Luckily, SD-WAN will ease the IT burden by simplifying WAN infrastructure, using broadband to off-load non-critical business apps, automating monitoring tasks, and managing traffic through a centralized controller. Take into account searching for an SD-WAN solution which will conjointly be integrated into the local branch infrastructure to drive security and management deep into the local LAN.
Enables cloud usage
Organizations are progressively adopting cloud services. The great news is that SD-WAN allows direct cloud access at the remote branch, thereby eliminating backhauling traffic – routing all cloud and branch workplace traffic through the data center – which means that employees will directly access cloud applications despite location without burdening the core network with further traffic to manage and secure. What’s more, SD-WAN improves cloud application performance by prioritizing business vital applications and sanctioning branches to directly communicate to the internet.
Reduces costs
As organizations deploy an ever-increasing array of cloud-based applications, the amount of data moving over a WAN will increase exponentially, increasing operational costs. luckily, SD-WAN will cut back this price tag by leveraging low price local internet access, providing direct cloud access, and reducing the quantity of traffic over the backbone WAN. According to an IDC survey (forecast), nearly 1 / 4 of survey respondents expect SD-WAN cost savings of upwards of 39th, with two-thirds expecting more modest savings in the 5-19% range.
Additionally, once properly elect and deployed, SD-WAN practicality can be extended deep into the local branch LAN to make sure that security and network functionality will defend locally deployed devices and secure direct connections to SaaS applications and other online resources. Eliminating network sprawl, security risks, and inconsistent performance are among the benefits of migrating to SD-WAN. But for organizations that dive deeper, this innovative technology offers huge business advantages that translate to lower total cost of ownership and support their larger SD-Branch initiatives.
Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in an exceedingly unified offering.
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