For Jon Lloyd, Solutions Design Engineer at OnX Canada and CBTS, SD-WAN is a networking technology that unshackles customers from expensive telco carriers and non-agile networks. But there’s still some confusion about what it can do. Jon sat down with VMware Canada to discuss the benefits of SD-WAN and the ideal SD-WAN user.
It’s one of the hottest IT trends of 2019. A Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) allows customers with branch offices to simplify networking and optimize application performance over the internet and hybrid WAN. The popularity is largely due to the significant cost-savings that users see in comparison to a Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) infrastructure, making everyone eager to jump on board. For some clients, SD-WAN unlocks 30 to 40 percent monthly cost savings, making it possible to put those dollars back into the network to make it more robust, adopt a better disaster recovery strategy, and get real-time access into the performance of their network.
Beyond cost savings, SD-WAN can introduce a better cloud-based experience to your organization. SD-WAN enables bandwidth expansion, multiple virtualized network functions and automates branch deployments. This technology allows customers to build resilient and reliable networks with multiple connections. You can think of SD-WAN in the same way the navigation app Waze works to get you where you need to be, using the best route possible.
