Is SD-WAN helping organizations rebound from the post-COVID era?
Are we expecting a slowdown post-COVID era in the networking arena? What is the current health of the communication solutions? Post lockdown, many organizations have vanished though some with strong digital bases have survived the storm. Reinvention is the essence of the success of any organization, and now it is time for resilience to bring your business to the forefront. Enterprise connectivity has taken a new leap post-pandemic. Today top companies are keen to adopt digitalization with legacy hardware and top-of-the-rack applications for a flexible, efficient, secure, and scalable working environment. In this context, SD-WAN is expected to see growth and sustenance.
Enterprises have seen several networking generations from client-server to the internet. We are already into the cloud and data centre age, and SD-WAN is the right solution to take your business to greater heights. The COVID era has only strengthened SD-WAN with built-in VPN overlay crucial for companies that believe in reinforcing their branch and remote offices. SD-WAN has become a necessary security tool.
SD-WAN supports MPLS circuits to give affordable internet connectivity without compromising security while cutting bandwidth costs. Please find out the latest developments in SD-WAN and how it is used for the digital transformation of your business.
1) Optimizing networks for greater flexibility
SD-WAN has transformed the way applications are moved to the cloud. Due to this, data centres are losing their value. Businesses require flexible WAN connectivity to transport the cloud-based application traffic securely. Apart from allowing digitalization in organizations, it helps to enhance the alliance between various IT systems, keeping the organization’s objectives in mind. Moreover, it offers the advantage of providing flexible and cheaper internet connectivity without compromising user experience. In SD-WAN, the traffic is directed intelligently with the help of SaaS optimization, where the right path is chosen automatically.
2) Faster migration to hybrid cloud
The growth in migration to a multi-cloud environment is increasing, only to reiterate that there is a solid need to direct network traffic from the data centre onto the cloud and between cloud providers. Cloud-native applications are rising, using scalable architecture to grow business adaptability. For all this, seamless connectivity is a must. SD-WAN technology can be smoothly deployed, offering comprehensive and secure connectivity onto the cloud. Moreover, businesses can quickly move their tasks from one cloud service provider to another.
3) Mitigating cybersecurity threats
Cybersecurity attacks have become standard on insecure networks that lack compliance. Do not give room to cyber-attacks endangering the reputation of your business, leading to financial losses. We cannot forget the SolarWinds attack that happened in 2020, arising out of software updates, where miscreants were able to break through Microsoft 365 mails. With traffic on the rise post-2019 COVID, businesses are heading towards the cloud rather than data centres to rest their sensitive data. It is here that Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) combines SD-WAN potentials with cloud-hosted network security features. Organizations can combat security threats by coupling SD-WAN with SSE, SWG, ZTNA, and CASB. Advanced SD-WAN comes with the potential to connect to a host of cloud security providers, giving organizations a fleet of best-in-class SSE to build a stable and dynamic SASE architecture for your business.
4) Remote working made easy.
Despite the relaxation of the lockdown and people returning to the office, experts predict that Work From Home may become part of the work environment in the future. Organizations are now focusing on hyper-distributed edge environments as creating security networks around enterprise networks has become challenging. In today’s digital environment, a completely centralized network may experience feasibility issues as organizations embrace distributed approach for remote connectivity.
5) Managing IoT devices
The rise in IoT devices like CCTVs, sensors, POS terminals, etc., all need the internet to export data. These devices are causing a risk as they use simple architecture. The manufacturing industry is at greater risk as IT, and OT networks are coming together, unlike in the past. Advanced SD-WAN solutions apply zero-trust architecture complementing SASE. In this case, the devices or users are given access to only networks that complement their role. This dynamic segmentation restricts the spread of malicious code attacking the enterprise network.
The pandemic has disrupted our everyday life, forcing us to adapt to newer technologies for a comprehensive digital transformation enabling remote working and keeping security protocols in mind. At this, SD-WAN is a viable solution.
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