Hence the introduction of SD-WAN technology for the SME market could be precisely what is required to keep up with this fast-paced and complex developments.
SMEs lack the capacity and resources to have their own in-depth in-house networking expertise that can optimize the investment and performance of their communications infrastructures. Hence, the need to improve, evolve and reduce the complexity of the management of these networks to adapt them to the new needs arising in SME environments is vital.
This is why software-defined (SD) networks – and in particular SD-WAN (Software defined Wide Area Network) technology – can be just what the SME market require. However the proposed network communications solution must face some important challenges.
In the first place, the solution must improve the network service for IT users in a number of ways. It must:
* Allow easier deployment of applications.
* Increase resilience.
* Provide scalable bandwidth.
* Provide a system that can be adapted to public data centers and SaaS.
The network technology must also offer simple operation and development, focused especially on the SME market, where it is not usual to find expert profiles in these areas. Hence, this allows for:
* Increased levels of automation for deployment and configuration tasks.
* Faster network configuration for new IT applications.
* Automatic network provisioning.
* Abstraction of network complexity.
SD-WAN networks for SMEs must also provide high levels of visibility, visualization and usability. This ensures they can:
* Monitor application performance.
* Monitor SLA parameters.
* Facilitate anomaly detection and prediction.
* Notify alarms.
* Establish automatic mitigation.
One thing that is very important to SD-WANs for SMEs is improved cost-efficiency, which is something these kinds of companies are constantly fighting for. This is manifested by:
* Reduction in network costs by being able to use simple Internet networks and transfer the entire control plane to a central location, independent of the network.
* Avoidance of congestion by being able to use Internet networks that are not only simpler and cheaper but have greater bandwidth. By forming a single underlay point, the actual physical network can be composed of several networks; cable, fiber optic or even cellular.
These kinds of SD-WAN technologies also allow resellers to increase their performance and operations. This is due to a number of reasons:
* Fast and easy implementation.
* Fewer personnel required for operation.
* Realization of failure cause/justification reports.
* Simple fixes to problems.
* Scalability.
* New branch/service development.
* Easy-to-configure VPN.
* SaaS support.
Although thus far I have talked about SD-WAN technology, for an SME it is important to understand that SD-WAN is not only applicable to WAN networks, but also to LAN (Local Area Network) and Wi-Fi communication networks, and thus become part of the same project and be managed from the same platform. In this way, an SME can save valuable resources and assign them to other parts of the company, concentrating their activity on developing new business and caring about their current customers. For more visit http://www.teldat.com/telecommunications/sd-wan/unique-sdwan-software-platform-configuration-dpi-simplified-network/
