Even the most well-planned business expansion can suffer from latency issues if you don’t have an optimized network. And given the importance of agility and flexibility for the modern business, you need to be able to exercise granular control over how your network behaves and connects your infrastructure. That is why it’s so important to have software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN), especially if you have a multi-location business. Here are a few reasons why.

Cost Savings

When put side-by-side with a traditional WAN deployment, SD-WAN saves you both time and money, which, according to most, equate to the same thing. A traditional wide-area network requires extensive hardware, time, and manual configuration. But with a software-defined wide-area network, your provider can set up and configure many of the most time-consuming elements for you. Plus because of the nature of SD-WAN, companies can deploy much faster with significant cost savings.

Centralized Management

With SD-WAN, you benefit from centralized management of your network. Whether you have one location or hundreds across the U.S., you can monitor your network in real-time using a centralized orchestrator. The centralized technology also gives you the ability to perform remote remediation of issues that pop up. As a result, you can save the time and expense you would normally have to invest in addressing problems onsite in other locations.

Optimized Routing

With SD-WAN, you let the activity of your applications determine how much bandwidth each one gets. This is far superior to a traditional MPLS system, which forces you to manually decide how much bandwidth you allocate to each application. Because you can optimize your routing, you don’t have to worry about applications or users not having the throughput they need to operate efficiently.

Network Agility

SD-WAN also makes for a more agile network because it runs using software, which decides how the network reacts to situations. This gives you what amounts to a self-healing network that’s agile enough to adjust to changing circumstances. In addition, because it’s software-based, you can also set up automations and free up your team to handle other important issues.

Ease of Deployment

SD-WAN gives you the flexibility to deploy in various environments. For example, you can use a full cloud deployment or one based on your campus using your hardware. You could also use a hybrid setup that combines on-premise hardware and cloud-based software.

Reliable Internet Connections

If your business depends on a reliable internet connection, you can also use SD-WAN to combine more than one internet service. While using two internet connections simultaneously, you can take advantage of advanced functions, such as:

• Dynamic link steering
• Automatic failover to a backup system if one fails
• Jitter buffering
• Forward error packet correction

With these features in place, you can consistently reduce the possibility of internet problems interrupting your operations.

Cloud Optimized Functionality

When you have an SD-WAN, you can use broadband links to connect to multiple locations. In this way, you’re able to provide access to the cloud resource that’s closest to whichever location needs it. This can significantly limit how often you have to deal with backhauling traffic to your data center. And the reduction in latency can enable far smoother operations across your organization.

There are so many benefits that SD-WAN brings to businesses of all sizes. Interested in learning more about SD-WAN? Read our ebook, “Business Internet + SD-WAN: The Network of the Future.”

If you’re ready to learn more about how SD-WAN can help your business, reach out to a representative today for more information. With TPx, you get a team of SD-WAN experts who know exactly how to configure your system to give you a more stable and efficient networking solution.