SD-WAN Benefits

How organizations can best realize SD-WAN benefits

With the rise of cloud computing, hybrid networks and new technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), enterprises everywhere are experiencing greater demands for bandwidth that put increasing pressure on their wide area networks (WANs). To address this challenge, many organizations are considering a move to software-defined wide area networking, or SD-WAN.

SD-WAN enables organizations to manage traffic across a WAN using software-defined networking instead of hardware like switches and routers. By routing traffic across any combination of connections – including MPLS, LTE and lower-cost broadband internet services – SD-WAN benefits organizations by reducing networking costs, improving reliability, optimizing bandwidth and simplifying network management.

Despite clear SD-WAN benefits, many organizations may be slow to adopt this technology because of the burden it places on IT teams that are already dealing with constrained budgets and the demands of digital transformation. That’s where Spectrum Enterprise can help. Our Managed SD-WAN solution allows organizations to migrate to SD-WAN while continuing to meet their current needs, relying on our experts for everything from solution design and installation to portal-based management and ongoing support.
 

What are SD-WAN benefits?

As enterprise networks accommodate an increasing number of user demands, the cost and complexity of network management continues to rise. From high-definition video conferencing and real-time collaboration to IoT networks and smart city or smart campus technology, the connectivity and bandwidth requirements for modern networks is rapidly increasing.

SD-WAN technology addresses these challenges in several ways. SD-WAN benefits include:

• Improved performance and agility. As a virtualized network overlay, SD-WAN benefits organizations by making it easier to manage available resources to enhance performance and increase agility.
• Optimized allocation. SD-WAN allows networks to take full advantage of unused or underutilized circuits as well as redundant connections to efficiently access available bandwidth.
• Bandwidth for mission-critical applications. SD-WAN networks enable IT teams to prioritize high-priority, bandwidth-intensive applications and other important traffic in near-real time, while offloading non-critical traffic to secondary connections.
• Simplified network management. By virtualizing network functions so they can be managed from a central source, SD-WAN simplifies the task of managing bandwidth, orchestrating resources and ensuring enterprise network integration.
• Increased availability. Because SD-WAN incorporates different transport methods, the network can route traffic around network congestion or points of failure to ensure high availability.
• Reduced costs. SD-WAN reduces the cost of connectivity by leveraging lower-cost connections and by reducing network complexity, minimizing security risks and avoiding inconsistent performance.
   

Managed SD-WAN with Spectrum Enterprise

To enable organizations to reap significant SD-WAN benefits, Spectrum Enterprise offers a managed SD-WAN service that reduces the complexity of designing, creating and managing an SD-WAN deployment.

Managed SD-WAN from Spectrum Enterprise includes:

• End-to-end support. As a single-source provider, we design, implement and manage SD-WAN services across all locations, with 24/7/365 U.S.-based support and hands-on help from local technicians.
• Centralized control. IT teams can access SD-WAN benefits via an easy-to-use management portal that delivers real-time visibility into network performance, utilization, traffic and policies.
• High-bandwidth options. To take advantage of SD-WAN benefits, we offer multiple high-speed connectivity options that include fiber, coax and wireless.
• Public cloud integration. Our solution can quickly and securely leverage key public cloud computing and storage environments.
• Intelligent routing. Managed SD-WAN adapts easily to workloads with application-aware intelligent routing that steers traffic across best-performing paths.
• Enhanced security. Our solution offers a variety of measures to meet or exceed security requirements, including network-wide security protocol updates.
• Expansive reach. The Spectrum Enterprise fiber network offers a national reach, spanning 2245,000 fiber-route miles and 317,000 fiber-lit buildings.
   

Managed SD-WAN benefits

With a fully managed solution from Spectrum Enterprise, it’s easy for IT teams to enjoy every SD-WAN benefit. With Managed SD-WAN, you can:

• Increase cost efficiency. Managed SD-WAN reduces the upfront cost of infrastructure by moving functionality usually supplied by on-premises equipment to the cloud and also allows you to migrate away from higher-cost network connections such as MPLS.
• Works with your current network. Managed SD-WAN lets you design and migrate to your plan  while you enhance existing infrastructure. Alternately, you can create an entirely new network by layering SD-WAN on top of internet access.
• Adapt to different workloads. Prioritize traffic through application-aware intelligent routing to ensure that various applications and workloads get the bandwidth, performance, reliability and security they need.
• Gain greater visibility. With a centralized approach and a single console, IT teams can gain greater control of and insight into network performance, traffic and utilization.
• Reduce multivendor complexity. Managed SD-WAN includes infrastructure, network access, security and WAN service, providing an end-to-end solution that eliminates the complexity of multivendor, multi-technology deployments.
• Add multiple layers of security. Increase protection with firewalls and unified threat management (UTM) through provider-managed, integrated security from edge to the cloud.
• Easier implementation and management. Managed SD-WAN frees up internal IT staff to focus on other higher-priority initiatives.
   

Why Spectrum Enterprise?

Spectrum Enterprise provides scalable, fiber technology solutions that serve the nation’s largest businesses and communications service providers. Our portfolio of services is built on a wholly owned fiber network that’s engineered for growth and
an Industry-leading service-level agreements (SLAs) which includes a 100% uptime guarantee, end-to-end performance nationwide and unrivaled remedies.¹

In addition to managed SD-WAN, our offerings include:

• Internet services that deliver connectivity everywhere it’s needed, with symmetrical service up to 100 Gbps.
• Networking solutions that provide reliable connectivity to every location and every cloud, along with hybrid remote solutions that deliver fast, secure remote access for work-from-anywhere employees.
• Voice and unified communications solutions that empower teams to collaborate however and wherever they want.
• HDTV technology that entertains, informs and engages viewers with popular channels and programming, with solutions designed for viewers in hospitality, healthcare, education, government, and other industry verticals.
   

FAQs

What is SD-WAN?

SD-WAN, or software-defined wide-area networking, is an approach to enterprise networking that is designed to reduce costs, improve performance, optimize bandwidth and simplify network management. SD-WAN eliminates the sole reliance on expensive, proprietary hardware and private connection technologies like MPLS that make traditional networking so expensive and inflexible. Instead, SD-WAN enables the use of low-cost, commodity connections and software-defined networking (SDN) to automatically route traffic over the most effective connections. This allows high-priority traffic to be routed over high-performance links, while less important traffic can be routed to other resources like less-expensive internet links.

What are SD-WAN benefits?

SD-WAN simplifies network management. It helps organizations reduce the cost of networking by increasing capacity and performance without increasing budgets. SD-WAN benefits also include greater agility, improved reliability, easier management, and the ability to optimize application performance by ensuring that each application has the bandwidth it needs. SD-WAN also supports a SASE framework for managing networking and security.

What’s SASE?

Secure access service edge (SASE) is an IT model that combines SD-WAN networking with cloud-native functions to improve cybersecurity. SASE simplifies network management and moves security functions closer to users and devices, making it easier for organizations to provide secure access to cloud applications and network resources for remote workforces and work-from-home employees.

¹100% uptime SLA guarantee applies only to Dedicated Fiber Internet, Secure Dedicated Fiber Internet, Ethernet Services, Cloud Connect and Enterprise Trunking.