SD-WAN is Simplifying Network Management and Saving Companies a Fortune
Walmart, Inc., is the world’s largest company and the world’s largest private employer. With eleven thousand stores worldwide, its networking requirements are among the most challenging you can find in the private sector. A few years ago, the retail giant was seeking a better point-of-sale (POS) experience and an improvement in its on-the-shelf inventory—two sure ways to enhance customer satisfaction.
Recognizing that it needed to allocate its network traffic more efficiently, Walmart transitioned to a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), which assigned special priority to processes directly affecting the customer experience—things like POS and inventory-management systems—while shunting less time-critical data through slower, less expensive connections.
The new SD-WAN system also allowed Walmart to monitor and manage its network in real time from a centralized location, reducing the need for on-site administrative and technical support. By decreasing its reliance on expensive legacy systems and a nationwide army of administrative IT personnel, this consolidation of network-management functions has boosted the productivity of Walmart’s technology infrastructure and substantially reduced its operating expenses.
What is SD-WAN?
The explosive growth in digital connectivity is driving many businesses to look for faster, more dependable, more cost-effective solutions to their networking requirements. Traditionally, wide area networks (WANs) were assembled around expensive and inflexible hardware; managing them required a significant amount of time-consuming manual configuration and monitoring by human administrators.
SD-WAN represents a revolutionary paradigm in network management. This rapidly expanding model simplifies the oversight and operation of wide area networks (WANs) by introducing a software-driven, abstracted framework for network hardware and control functions. This transformation yields numerous advantages, including enhanced performance, streamlined network administration, and substantial cost savings.
In essence, SD-WAN decouples the physical infrastructure of a network from its administrative and control components. This abstracted, software-based model for managing and overseeing a network provides businesses with the potential for greater adaptability and scalability, all while reducing operational expenses.
SD-WAN relies on a few central features and capabilities to deliver intelligent network routing, traffic optimization, and cybersecurity services.
The Features and Benefits of SD-WAN
- Centralized Control: SD-WAN allows organizations to centralize network management and control. A single administrator can oversee and manage the entire network comprehensively through a unified dashboard. This simplifies monitoring, configuration, and organization while facilitating the implementation of policies and network changes. For example, centralized control allows administrators to set rules prioritizing specific traffic types—such as VoIP or video conferencing—over less critical data. And centralized control has been shown to reduce troubleshooting response time by up to 70%.
- Overlay Network: SD-WAN creates a logical overlay network on top of the existing physical network infrastructure. The overlay network can be encrypted and is independent of the underlying physical network, simplifying management and optimization. New virtual topologies can be established without modifying the WAN hardware.
- Dynamic Path Selection: SD-WAN continuously evaluates available private and public network paths and selects the most appropriate route for network traffic by assessing available bandwidth, current latency, and network traffic to ensure that critical applications receive the resources necessary for peak performance.
By optimizing traffic paths and reducing reliance on expensive Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) connections, this process can reduce network costs by up to 90% when compared to traditional WAN solutions.
- Application-Aware Routing: SD-WAN also recognizes and prioritizes traffic based on application category, enabling businesses to allocate resources to mission-critical applications over less critical traffic (e.g., email or web browsing).
- Security Integration: Some earlier versions of SD-WAN did not place any great emphasis on security, but competition and demand have driven SD-WAN providers to offer increasingly comprehensive cybersecurity measures with their solutions. These include Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) systems, Security Gateway Appliances, and Cloud Network Security as a Service. These security measures are crucial for protecting sensitive information and preventing cyberattacks.
- Cloud Integration: Many SD-WAN systems are cloud-ready by default, allowing businesses to connect to cloud-based services and data centers with virtually no effort.
- Network Flexibility: SD-WAN is an inherently flexible and centrally controlled technology, so making rapid changes and additions to the network is a simple matter.
According to IDC, 65% of businesses adopting SD-WAN are doing so to enhance network flexibility and agility. SD-WAN eliminates reliance on a single service provider or network architecture, allowing companies to “mix and match” network links—including broadband, 4G/5G, and MPLS—to create flexible, resilient, and cost-effective WAN infrastructures.
Adding new branches or locations is a straightforward process, and the overlay network can accommodate network growth without extensive configuration changes. This scalability is particularly beneficial for businesses planning to expand or those with fluctuating network demands.
- Robust Business Continuity: SD-WAN’s ability to dynamically reroute traffic in case of network failure or congestion enhances business continuity. This resilience is invaluable for ensuring that critical operations continue uninterrupted.
Delta Airlines
Like Walmart, Delta Airlines adopted an SD-WAN architecture to streamline operations and cut costs. Major carriers like Delta require tremendously robust network infrastructures to handle a mass of complex processes, including passenger check-in, baggage handling, and—most critically—flight tracking. Delta incorporated SD-WAN to optimize its network traffic by allocating greater bandwidth to mission-critical applications and routing less time-sensitive information through more cost-effective connections like broadband and LTE. The move to SD-WAN improved the performance of Delta’s network processes and significantly reduced operational costs by lowering Delta’s reliance on its expensive Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) connections.
Walmart’s and Delta’s adoption of SD-WAN showcase the transformative power of this technology in large, indispensable industries, enhancing both consumer experience and operational efficiency while resulting in substantial cost savings.
So, SD-WAN technology is emerging as a game-changer for enterprises of any size seeking to improve network performance, reduce costs, and simplify network management. It provides the agility and efficiency to thrive in today’s competitive landscape by centralizing control, optimizing traffic, and integrating network cybersecurity measures.
The message is becoming clear: If you want to stay ahead of the curve and maintain your competitive edge in the digital era, embracing SD-WAN is rapidly becoming a strategic imperative.