How To Simplify Your Multicloud Environment With SD-WAN

While investing in the cloud has been a priority for many companies for the past several years, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 accelerated the process. By 2023, many companies had multiple public cloud investments and were using various software as a service (SaaS) solutions to equip workers at home and on the road. The expansion of multicloud environments has led companies to upgrade their networks to software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN).

SD-WAN offers a virtualized networking experience that abstracts the network into a software layer. It enables networking teams to simplify and optimize management and performance. SD-WAN comes with many benefits, including:

  • Scalability for ease in managing surges in network traffic and company growth or expansion.
  • Centralized management and zero-touch provisioning allow network administration to identify issues and solve them from a single dashboard.
  • Better management of network pathways and bandwidth for cost savings and efficiency, as well as performance.
  • Improved security and the ability to isolate areas of the network are a threat is addressed.

One of the biggest reasons to implement SD-WAN may be the most compelling. When paired with edge security tools, SD-WAN forms an integrated secure access service edge (SASE) that answers many of the networking and security challenges inherent in a geographically dispersed environment.

When workers are utilizing SaaS platforms across a multicloud environment and connecting from a wide range of locations, the result can be varied performance and speed, leading to an inconsistent work experience. Unpredictable interruptions, including downtime, slow load times and latency, can all add up to a dissatisfying work experience.

SD-WAN equips companies with a true work-from-anywhere environment, allowing employees to securely access corporate resources from anywhere they choose to work. Many companies are further ensuring a secure, consistent connection through the use of zero trust network access (ZTNA), which uses a combination of tools and policies to safeguard devices and data.

SD-WAN allows network teams to set centralized policy that prioritizes some types of traffic over others. For instance, video conferencing requires a low-latency, high-speed connection to feed its bandwidth-hungry performance specifications.

On the other end of the spectrum, email can be deprioritized because it doesn’t rely on real-time transmission. Network teams can designate all videoconferencing traffic to be transmitted over multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) pathways, while other types of traffic get a lower-priority setting.

While some companies using SD-WAN didn’t set out to design a multicloud environment, multicloud seemed to best address their workload needs. The downside is that it comes with a lot of complexity – but SD-WAN can help add some balance.

To learn more about SD-WAN and the specific benefits it could provide for your multicloud environment, contact us at One Connect.