Is SD-WAN the right solution for my business?
SD-WAN is arguably the word that is on everyone’s lips at the moment. Businesses want to know how they can go about adopting SD-WAN and incorporating it as part of their digital transformation, but is SD WAN the right solution for my business?
This should be the main question that you’re thinking about, subsequently how SD-WAN is a supplement to MPLS.
The thing with SD-WAN is it’s not tailored to be able to be the right solution for all businesses.
As a responsible Managed Service Provider Data Installation & Supplies would never profess that SD-WAN will be the solution to all.
(As much as we love SD-WAN, it just unfortunately doesn’t suit every business.)
So, today’s post is about the consideration’s businesses should be considering, when they begin thinking about adopting SD-WAN and asking the question…
Is SD WAN the right solution for my business?
When it comes to some key sectors that meet the requirements for SD-WAN we will look to the following four industries…
- Transportation: Mobile vehicles, buses, trains etc.
- Construction: Pop-up sites, no good physical connectivity.
- Retail: Retail is driving standardisation and is looking to build security into their networks, whilst intending to drive down the costs of and the footprint of IT in individual shops.
As always SD-WAN isn’t limited to these sectors.
However, the information above will allow you the opportunity to think if this is how SD-WAN can work in these particular scenarios.
Furthermore, how might it fit your business situation.
At Data Installation & Supplies we’d love to speak with you and see how we can help in your digital journey.
In the meantime, we’ll identify our top 3 tips for businesses who may be considering adoption of SD-WAN…
Top 3 Tips:
Understand your applications:
It’s important that you consider the services which will be reliant upon your network.
It’s imperative that visibility is built in, along with prioritisation and control, considering the needs of the business to build the quality-of-service policies to ensure success and that it’s working for the customer when it’s delivered.
Driving Standardisation:
Build sites and branches out so that they fit within standard templates that fit across the sites.
By driving standardisation it can benefit as a result of building cost projections and expectations around what will be delivered going forward when further sites may be added at a later date.
Security:
The big one, as everything network is reliant on robust security and that security is built in from the get-go.
Security can be easily overlooked, with networks built without security as part of the package.
It can’t be an afterthought as it won’t be as effective, so security capabilities when bringing on direct internet access to sites.
It’s important to mitigate risk, this is where tools such as intruder prevention and web filtering, ensuring consistent protection.
We hope that you’ve found this introduction to the consideration around SD-WAN and whether SD-WAN is the right solution for your business useful, check out our video here which offers some further insight to SD-WAN.
If you would like to speak to us further or would like any more information, please call us on 01274 869 099 or email info@disnorth.com.