What is SD-WAN and What Can It Do for My Business

Julian Gutierrez

Blog, SD-WAN

When you add a new cloud-based tool or service to your operations, you increase the demands on your bandwidth. If you don’t increase the amount of bandwidth on your broadband plan and you don’t have the capacity to keep up with these demands, however, the quality of your internet service and user experience can suffer. These issues can then translate throughout your organization, affecting customer service, operations, and more.

This is where SD-WAN technology comes in.

Rather than letting your solutions compete for your bandwidth, SD-WAN automatically analyzes and prioritizes your web traffic. This optimizes the performance of your most important services and ensures your data quickly gets to where it needs to be. SD-WAN also helps route traffic through your entire network, utilizing each mode of available connectivity to guarantee peak performance.

Now that you know a little more about SD-WAN technology, keep reading to see how this tool can improve your operations and business.

1. Improving performance

As we mentioned above, SD-WAN works behind the scenes to ensure the best possible performance from your internet- and cloud-based solutions. If your company uses a VoIP phone system or relies on video calls, for example, your SD-WAN service will prioritize this data over other traffic. You’ll still receive timely emails and be able to browse the web, but you won’t have to worry about quality issues, such as frozen screens or dropped calls. When these services aren’t in use, your SD-WAN will then prioritize the next most important traffic, keeping your operations running smoothly in all circumstances.

2. Limiting costs

Increased bandwidth use raises your internet costs. To keep up with your demands without the help of an SD-WAN solution, you would have to find an internet package that meets your bandwidth requirements. But, as you add new solutions and increase web use, you could easily find yourself exceeding your new package’s limits. To avoid this problem, SD-WAN allows you to utilize less expensive broadband packages while enjoying even better performance. Your technology finds the best uses for your available data, keeping costs low and performance high. And, since many SD-WAN providers also provide other essential services, you can bundle this solution with your current tools. With fewer vendors to deal with, you can improve your network’s management as well as its use.

3. Strengthening reliability

Along with data prioritizing, your SD-WAN solution can provide an effective way to bundle your internet connections across your locations. Bundling gives your SD-WAN access to even more bandwidth and data routes, further improving performance and connectivity for each office. Even better, this capability also provides a dependable failsafe against network outages. If one of your locations experiences an outage, your SD-WAN automatically processes the lapse in connection and finds a stronger route for your data. As you work to fix the problem, your company will stay connected, maintaining operations without a lapse in communication.

Want to optimize bandwidth use without increasing costs? Request a demo today  and explore our SD-WAN solution to see how this service can improve your communications, connectivity, and reliability.Â