There are many vendors on the WAN market offering digital transformation. IT decision makers must sort through marketing material to find the right partner for their company.
Partnering with a global SD-WAN provider is often the best option for companies that have international offices. They can offer access to consultants and professional installation services, as well as 24/7 support.
Business-driven SD-WAN can also support multi-cloud initiatives by providing direct connectivity to public and private enterprise clouds out-of-the-box. This allows users secure access to cloud/SaaS services from remote sites over an encrypted network, while optimizing the performance and security of critical apps across any WAN link.
Businesses that are using global SDWANs have the ability to easily add new locations or change existing ones without having to compromise on security, performance, or reliability. SD-WANs connect directly to enterprise datacenters over a secure network and offer cloud and internet access through a single policy engine. They also provide central management, zero-touch provisioning and advanced analytics capabilities to speed up cloud onramps.
SD-WAN architecture facilitates multicloud connectivity as well by providing direct links to the leading IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) providers, prioritizing them and speeding up their services for business-critical apps. Furthermore, its built-in resilience ensures that even if one connection goes down users won't lose access.
SD-WANs can be deployed in three different ways: Internet based, Telco or MSP managed service and OTT vCPE installed on premises. What option best meets the performance requirements of your applications and users depends on how well your team is trained and if you are willing to try new things. Alternatively, hybrid deployments that combine SD-WAN with WAN optimization and firewall capabilities may also be suitable.
Legacy solutions might offer some degree of security. However, their inability ensure reliable and high performance connections for essential business apps and services can present a formidable barrier for businesses that have multiple branch locations and global users.
SD-WANs are different from traditional routers because they use software to automate WAN management and make it easier for networking professionals to optimize connectivity and applications faster. It solves many problems with traditional WANs such as the long lead time for new connections, or hub-and spoke architectures that do not support agile apps or hybrid workforce models.
SD-WANs of the next generation offer solutions for these and other issues by combining routing, security, and optimization into a single integrated platform, which can be deployed on cloud. This platform connects the business site to their private network, as well as to public internet. It provides reliability and cost efficiency while providing seamless user experience.
SD-WAN, as opposed to MPLS which requires complex configurations and maintenance in every branch office to ensure performance, allows your branches and remote locations to connect to vital business applications via cost-effective commercial Internet and broadband links. This allows you to reduce costs and give users the tools they need to increase productivity, regardless of where they are located.
SD-WAN, a managed service, is offered by multiple providers. GCX offers four options to meet the needs of any organization: proactive overlay, reactive overlay, fully managed overlay and self managed solution with uCPEs.
GCX’s SD-WAN solution is fully managed, which eliminates the headaches of managing and purchasing networking hardware from different vendors. It also eliminates issues associated with DIY SD WAN deployments and support. By choosing GCX’s fully-managed service, customers can take advantage of global SLAs with carrier relationships providing 24/7 support. They also get engineers specialized on WAN connectivity technologies and NFV/SDN. GCX engineers are able to identify and resolve issues with both your SD-WAN overlay as well as the underlay circuits.