With a growing remote workforce, businesses must ensure their employees have effective data connectivity when working from home. SD-WAN is one way to accomplish this.
Unlike traditional MPLS, an SD-WAN can route critical traffic over the lowest cost, high-quality path while prioritizing business-critical applications for optimal performance.
Location-aware routing
Whether working from home, on the road, or in the office, remote workers must be able to use company applications. However, if these applications are accessed over a broadband internet connection, poor network performance can cause frustration and slow productivity. Organizations must find a secure, flexible SD-WAN solution to help employees collaborate efficiently.
One way to do this is to implement an SD-WAN remote access solution (SD-WAN RA). These platforms combine WAN optimization and unified remote access management into a single platform that can be used to manage all of the organization’s connections. It helps to create a centralized, seamless architecture that can be easily deployed in branch offices, remote sites, and multi-cloud environments.
SD-WAN explained that Ras can increase security by utilizing consistent identity-based policies and offering flexibility. All connected devices, including those with remote access, may be affected by these policies, which are set on the Cisco ISE server. It can reduce the complexity of managing security in a distributed environment and make it easier for remote workers to use company applications.
However, when choosing an SD-WAN RA, it is essential to consider the underlying security capabilities of each solution. Understanding how a solution works is crucial, as bad guys will likely exploit it. For instance, threats can hide in encrypted traffic and evade security controls.
Load balancing
Providing reliable work-from-home (WFH) access is one of the biggest challenges for enterprise networks. Even the most reliable hardware and broadband service can fail, leaving remote workers stranded with no way to get their jobs done. However, there are ways to increase reliability and improve the quality of application performance in a WFH environment.
The best option is to use a business-driven SD-WAN solution that supports advanced security capabilities such as NGFW and SASE. It will enable the network to protect all users across a distributed workforce, regardless of location. Additionally, it will support multi-factor authentication with single sign-on and integration with identity providers. It will help prevent unauthorized access to the corporate network.
A business-driven SD-WAN will also provide centralized configuration and management for all aspects of the WAN edge, including routing and security services. This will allow enterprise IT teams to quickly deploy changes to the WAN, saving time and money. In addition, it will help improve network security by ensuring that all traffic is encrypted.
A business-driven SD-WAN solution will also provide high resilience to outages. It is achieved by ensuring that all traffic is routed via multiple paths and implementing a redundant infrastructure. This approach ensures the system can cope with a total transport outage and will not interrupt critical applications such as VoIP and videoconferencing.
SLA management
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, a secure SD-WAN has become essential for enterprises that rely on distributed teams. It helps ensure cloud connectivity and enables business continuity for the entire company, even during remote work. Moreover, it provides seamless access to enterprise data across multi-cloud and hybrid environments. This way, distributed employees can easily collaborate, regardless of their location. In addition, it can also provide a secure connection to internet services that aren’t part of the enterprise network.
Unlike traditional WAN architecture that relies on manual device-by-device configuration, SD-WAN can automatically deploy policies on all devices, including remote and mobile users. It allows IT teams to manage the network from a single dashboard easily. SD-WAN can also increase application performance and resiliency, reduce costs, improve security, and simplify the WAN architecture.
Another benefit of SD-WAN is the ability to mitigate SPOFs and improve reliability proactively. It is essential because, most of the time, multiple points of failure cause downtime. SD-WAN solutions offer redundant connectivity to address this. This technology virtualizes data streams and packets into a network policy and deploys them based on existing connectivity, such as mobile or DSL connections. This way, mission-centric applications are prioritized over other connections and ensure that they remain available if one or more links fail.
Security
Security should be a primary concern for any business considering an SD-WAN solution. Fortunately, secure SD-WAN solutions offer easy-to-manage features like multi-factor authentication and single sign-on. In addition, they integrate with identity providers to help secure remote access. It is essential to protect remote workers from hackers and other malicious actors.
A secure SD-WAN can also ensure that business-critical applications always perform at their best. For example, it can prioritize bandwidth-intensive applications over high-performance connections and reroute less sensitive traffic to cheaper broadband lines. Additionally, it can use network intelligence to monitor and identify potential problems with a connection and automatically shift sessions to better links.
Lastly, a secure SD-WAN can reduce the threat of costly downtime. It is important because even an hour of downtime can cost a business up to $300,000 in lost revenue and productivity. It can also lead to customer frustration and damage the brand’s reputation. A secure SD-WAN can provide unstoppable uptime by combining redundant WAN connections and ensuring the performance of latency-sensitive applications by bonding multiple WAN services.
Using an SD-WAN to deliver on the anytime, anywhere work promise is an excellent way to boost remote worker productivity and empower your team. However, the right solution will depend on your network infrastructure and unique requirements. Partnering with a managed service provider to help you assess your current infrastructure and plan for future needs will maximize ROI and minimize risk.
