SDWAN

What is SDWAN?

SDWAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network) is a Wide Area Network (WAN) management approach based on the software-defined network (SDN), achieving network visualization, automation, and centralized management. SDWAN addresses the bottleneck where the traditional WAN topology and infrastructure cannot adapt to cloud computing and network security requirements. It is also designed to enhance network performance and reliability. SDWAN enables the organization to achieve network device management and adoption of the globally distributed network with centralized management.

Why is SD-WAN Important?

As business-critical cloud applications continue to grow, organizations with distributed infrastructure deployed across remote offices and increasing number of remote workers are moving from static wide-area networks (WANs) with limited performance to software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) architectures.

SD-WAN is an emerging network technology that solves the challenges faced by traditional network architectures when accessing foreign servers through intelligent network management and acceleration capabilities. The main functions of SD-WAN include improving access speed, enhancing network reliability and stability, and providing flexibility and scalability.

How does SDWAN Work?

The key working principle of SDWAN is to decouple the control panel based on software from the data panel based on hardware, which enables routing working on the software in commercial hardware rather than private hardware routers. The control panel assigns the direction of data traffic, while the data panel is responsible for forwarding data according to the control panel's instructions. 

What are the Advantages of SD-WAN?

Better Agility: SDWAN can adopt multiple transmission methods (such as Internet, LTE, and MPLS) to build connections between branch offices, achieving high flexibility and scalability. 

Cost-Efficiency: The high transmission compatibility enables SDWAN to adopt cheaper traditional connection methods such as the Internet rather than expensive MPLS.

Enhanced Performance: SDWAN improves application performance by optimizing network traffic with load-balancing. A faster network connection is also provided by enhanced bandwidth utilization via data compression and caching technology.

Simplified Operation: Network administrators can configure, monitor, and control the network using the control interface based on strategy.

Reliability: When one link fails, the traffic will be automatically switched to the redundant link, ensuring uninterrupted business.

Higher Security: SDWAN integrates multiple advanced network security and service functions, including firewall, WAN Acceleration, NGFW, DNS, NGAV, etc. 

What are the Application Scenarios of SDWAN?

Remote Work: SDWAN technology ensures employers access networks with fast, secure, reliable connections anywhere.

Branch Office Network: SDWAN helps enterprises centrally manage and optimize network connections. 

Cloud Computing: Organizations can connect and manage multiple public and private clouds for cloud computing. 

Backup and disaster recovery (BDR): SDWAN provides cloud-ready backup and fast failover and recovery through a flexible network infrastructure and load-balancing scheme.

Internet of Things (IoT): SDWAN offers an easy way to manage and optimize the growing IoT devices.