If you’re wondering what the heck is SD-WAN, you’ve either been living under a rock or you’re just not a nerd! All jokes aside, let us techy types enlighten you: up until recent years, the vast majority of enterprises have been utilizing MPLS for their business’ internet connectivity. This was fine until businesses began relying on the internet more for essential functions, and then SaaS came along. Now companies require more bandwidth than ever, and legacy systems are proving to be insufficient.
Without the lightning-fast internet connection that your employees and customers expect, you're going to have problems. Since we’re throwing lots of acronyms at you, let’s go ahead and include the trendy, yet critical CX (Customer Experience) and EX (Employee Experience) for your business. Overlooking these means more turnover, less traffic, and fewer sales. Faster internet connectivity will help tremendously with both your CX and EX.
What is MPLS?
Back to the brass tacks - what is MPLS? Multi-Protocol Labeling Service is a routing technique for enterprises. It’s kind of like a shared web hosting plan for a website. Essentially you are paying for a portion of your internet service provider’s network, in order to guarantee performance for your multiple business sites.
This indirect way of accessing the internet has many drawbacks. It’s slower and less secure. Here’s why: to access the internet or cloud via MPLS, you’re going to need to pass through many layers: the MPLS cloud, a data center, a firewall, and finally you reach the internet.
Why SD-WAN?
In contrast, SD-WAN, Software-Defined Wide Area Network is a virtual WAN (Wide Area Network) that allows you to access the internet via multiple connection points, resulting in a more stable and secure cloud environment for enterprises.
SD-WAN is more cost-effective and fast as it routes your traffic based on apps and usage... as opposed to IP addresses with MPLS. With SD-WAN, you have the option to utilize a direct connection to the internet or cloud and if it slows down it can switch to another connection or circuit.
There are many players in the SD-WAN space right now, as everyone wants faster, more reliable and secure internet for their multi-site businesses. Not to mention there is significantly less hardware to invest in, update, and maintain. So where do you turn? You want to stick with a solution you can trust. Cisco's Meraki MX is the industry leader for SD-WAN enterprise security & SD-WAN appliances. The Meraki MX is designed for distributed deployments that require remote administration.
According to Gartner and IDC, “Cisco is the market leader in SD-WAN,” Cisco noted in a statement, “we have more than 20,000 SD-WAN customers globally, including 70 of the Fortune 100. We believe this market traction speaks for itself — our customers and partners are trusting their business to Cisco Secure SD-WAN.”
Imagine, when one of your locations has a network problem, you don’t need to send an engineer to fix it. You can remotely administer network solutions across various business locations. Your IT system just got a heck of a lot more simplified and more affordable by switching to SD-WAN.
At Emerge IT, we have achieved the Cisco Master Service Provider Certification for cloud and managed services. Our team has expert level technical certification from Cisco Systems. If you’re ready to upgrade your network or collaborate on other Cisco solutions such as Cisco Data Center, Cisco Route / Switch and Security or Cisco Wireless, give us a call at 859-746-1030.