How SD-WAN will advance in 2023
The coronavirus pandemic brought many changes, some of them rather drastic. One of these changes was how the organization worked before, during, and after the pandemic. Work from home became the new normal between the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic eras. However, with the advent of working from home, particularly during the pandemic, several changes were witnessed, especially in the in-office IT infrastructure plans. With more and more people working from home and the need for a secured network becoming the order of the day, cloud-based networking architecture has become the top choice of organizations worldwide.
The traditional network technology could not handle the amount of data the pandemic days thrust upon them. This opened the door for various developments in the networking field; one of those was Software Defined Wide Area Networks or SD-WAN. In SD-WAN, data, connectivity, and traffic between the branches and the headquarters are managed by the cloud environment. These hubs are the “edge” and are crucial for cloud security.
The issues with conventional networking technology were eliminated with SD-WAN. It helped boost the network speed, minimize downtime, improve efficiency, and cut costs, amongst several other advantages. And now, despite the pandemic slowing and people returning to offices, SD-WAN is here to stay. This is because it has helped the offices to work with better efficiency and security.
SD-WAN is constantly evolving and is expected to do so in the new year. The top four trends in the genre of SD-WAN expected to make significant inroads in the coming year are as follows:
1. Secured Remote Access
Security of the network is one of the most significant advantages of SD-WAN. As the employees from the branch offices and remote work setup logged in from different geographical locations, it resulted in serious security issues. SD-WAN helps resolve security concerns. With this architecture, employees could install SD-WAN endpoints in their homes. With SD-WAN, it has become possible for employees to log in to the company’s network with a high level of security, even during travel.
In the coming year, two trends in this particular genre are expected. These are:
- An amalgamation of SD-WAN and remote access technology
- Replacement of SD-WAN with secure remote access
2. SD-WAN As a Service
Companies offering SD-WAN solutions highlight management, optimization, and redundancy capabilities in their package. Companies offering SD-WAN solutions are now pitching it as a service, meaning everything with regards to SD-WAN, right from installation to maintenance, is the service provider’s responsibility. With such a solution, businesses can narrow their attention to their core competencies because they have fewer SD-WAN-related concerns to examine and address.
3. Secure Access Service Edge
Secure Access Service Edge is a combination of SDN and SD-WAN along with security features. SASE is an ultra-secure, high-on-performance, and highly adaptable network architecture. It is now anticipated that SD-WAN will eventually become a part of SASE. If a business uses SD-WAN as a service, it can quickly upgrade to SASE architecture down the road.
4. Artificial Intelligence in SD-WAN
Artificial intelligence is making its presence felt in SD-WAN in significant ways. It is helping in:
- Improving the choice of the traffic path
- Providing improved policy definitions
- Supplying automatic support for troubleshooting
- Improved performance and security surveillance
In addition to many other advantages, any new trend in IT networking aids businesses in maximizing their efficiency. Since these kinds of changes herald either partial or complete overhauls in specific IT systems, any organization needs to consult its networking team before deciding on any modification. As an experiment, these kinds of solutions can be used in a sandbox setting, and the same applies to SD-WAN.
Companies using SD-WAN or planning to implement it should focus on the latest trends in the discipline. This will help to maximize the return on investment.