When implementing SD-WAN, you’ll need people to like and support it. This article will guide you in identifying your potential customers, sketching a functional architecture, and selecting an SD-WAN provider. In this article, we’ll focus on how to implement an SD-WAN middle-mile network. After that, we’ll discuss how to monitor, manage, and optimize the network.
Identify Potential Customers
A successful software-defined WAN solution will address the top issues that your customers care about. While some enterprises view these issues differently depending on their industry, some have a similar concern: application performance. For example, intelligent traffic management may better serve a SaaS application that takes a long time to load. On the other hand, for an enterprise that uses cloud applications, application performance may be one of the top concerns. Fortunately, SD-WAN is becoming an increasingly popular solution among companies.
One way to identify potential customers for SD-WAN is to identify customer needs. Business applications such as VoIP, data processing, and videoconferencing often have immense bandwidth requirements, so determining the number of applications a company has is an excellent place to start. In the long run, a company with three or more communications applications could quickly find itself running out of bandwidth. By contrast, an enterprise with one or two applications may have ample space for growth.
Sketch Up a Working Architecture
When planning to implement an SD-WAN solution, there are several essential things to consider. The design should take into consideration the overall architecture of the network, as well as specific requirements for the technology. Fortunately, many resources are available to assist in the design process, including an SD-WAN design guide. The guide provides a consistent methodology for creating a solution, starting with high-level elements and expanding on them to determine the best approach for the organization. It’s essential to design a consistent and easy-to-troubleshoot and diagnose network.
First, you’ll want to sketch up the various connections your organization will use across its network. SD-WAN typically requires two or more WAN connections per location, including broadband internet connections, LTE connections, and MPLS connections. Next, note which address families will be required for each transport and which method will be used to obtain IP addresses. These variables may vary between sites, so you may want to consider a NAT device between sites to ensure seamless connectivity.
Find the Right SD-WAN Provider
One of the biggest challenges of SD-WAN deployment is educating people on what it can do. Technology has been around for a while, but most businesses still don’t know much about it. For example, there are many myths about how it can help businesses, such as that it will make network performance worse. But some benefits can make the technology a hit with users. The following are just a few benefits of SD-WAN for your organization.
First, understand that it’s not as easy as it sounds. Many people are used to the idea of a traditional WAN. While this may be a good strategy for some organizations, there are also other advantages to SD-WAN. Regardless of which approach you choose to take, be sure to demonstrate that SD-WAN can help your organization achieve its business objectives. It will also help you build a stronger business case and better design.
Implement an SD-WAN Middle-Mile Network
There are a few reasons why an SD-WAN middle-mile network is an excellent choice for your business. One is that it will help you reduce the unpredictability of the internet. Another is that it represents an opportunity for you to sell into the much larger MPLS market. Almost three-fourths of enterprises are experimenting with the technology, and only a quarter have fully implemented it.
Another benefit is the ability to create security rules in real time. SD-WAN has the ability to onramp users to an MPLS-grade private network. For global enterprises to succeed with software-defined wide-area networking, they need a WAN-based solution. Implementing the technology across geographies is critical to ensuring that customers can take advantage of the opportunities presented by cloud and SaaS applications.
Prioritize Applications for SD-WAN
SD-WAN provides the flexibility to prioritize applications and traffic. It can offer different classes of service and prioritize them accordingly, ensuring that critical applications are not slowing down the entire network. It can also provide intelligent policy-based routing of traffic. It can even insert virtualized network functions into the traffic flow without ffecting the underlying network. The list of applications available for prioritization is limitless. Whether your business relies on one application or several, SD-WAN solutions should allow you to prioritize them according to their importance.
One of the biggest IT challenges is application performance. Questions about application performance can reveal business issues and help determine possible solutions. SD-WAN can provide a flexible and efficient solution that addresses application performance issues. In addition, it can be easily customized to fit your needs. The goal is to prioritize applications and optimize network performance for optimal business operations. With the right tools, SD-WAN can improve the overall network performance while improving security and scalability.
