SD-WAN
| Software Defined Wide Area Network
An SD-WAN uses a centralized control function to securely and intelligently
direct traffic across the WAN. This increases application performance,
resulting in enhanced user experience, increased business productivity and
reduced costs for IT.
Traditional WANs based on conventional routers are not cloud-friendly. They
typically require backhauling all traffic – including that destined to the
cloud – from branch offices to a hub or headquarters data center where advanced
security inspection services can be applied. The delay caused by backhaul
impairs application performance resulting in a poor user experience and lost
productivity. Unlike the traditional router-centric WAN architecture, the
SD-WAN model is designed to fully support applications hosted in on-premise
data centers, public or private clouds and SaaS solutions such as
Salesfore.com, Workday, Office365 and Dropbox, while delivering the highest
levels of application performance.
Why
SD-WAN?
As applications continue to migrate to the cloud, networking professionals
are quickly realizing that traditional WANs were never architected for the
cloud.
Applications are no longer hosted solely in enterprise data centers. They are
also hosted in:
- On-premise data centers
- Public or private clouds
- Subscription-based Software as a service (SaaS) solutions such as
Salesforce.com, Workday, Office365, Box and Dropbox
Enhance business agility and responsiveness
Improve security and reduce threats
Simplify branch WAN architecture
Reduce WAN costs by up to 90 percent
Sending SaaS and IaaS traffic directly across the internet delivers the best
application Quality of Experience for end users. However, not all cloud-bound
or web traffic is created equal. Many cloud applications – and their providers
– natively apply robust security measures. Accessing these “trusted”
applications directly from the branch, across the internet provides the needed
security to protect the enterprise from threats. A few examples include Salesforce,
Office365, ServiceNow, Box, and Dropbox.
The intelligence and ability to identify applications provides an
application-driven way to route traffic across the WAN instead of simply using
TCP/IP addresses and ACLs. This software-driven approach delivers a much better
QoEx than possible with router-centric WAN model.
Advanced software-driven security and performance features enable enterprises
to securely, reliably and actively use broadband to transport application
traffic instead of simply using it as an idle backup. By augmenting or even
replacing MPLS with broadband, enterprises can significantly increase WAN
bandwidth while lowering overall WAN costs.
Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): With ZTP, configurations and
policies are programmed once and pushed to all branch locations without having
to manually program each device individually using a CLI. It eliminates the
need to send specialized IT resources out to branch locations whenever a new
application is added or a policy is changed. ZTP also reduces human errors,
resulting in more consistent policies across to enterprise.
The SD-WAN architectural model is similar to SDN in many ways: Centralized
management or orchestration – the control plane, Distributed data forwarding
function – the data plane and Application-driven traffic routing policies.
SD-WAN, similar to SDN solutions, do not support interoperability between
vendors. However, various SDN and SD-WAN industry working groups continue to
propose and debate the creation of industry standards.
An SD-WAN uses a centralized control function to securely and intelligently direct traffic across the WAN. This increases application performance, resulting in enhanced user experience, increased business productivity and reduced costs for IT.
Traditional WANs based on conventional routers are not cloud-friendly. They typically require backhauling all traffic – including that destined to the cloud – from branch offices to a hub or headquarters data center where advanced security inspection services can be applied. The delay caused by backhaul impairs application performance resulting in a poor user experience and lost productivity. Unlike the traditional router-centric WAN architecture, the SD-WAN model is designed to fully support applications hosted in on-premise data centers, public or private clouds and SaaS solutions such as Salesfore.com, Workday, Office365 and Dropbox, while delivering the highest levels of application performance.
Applications are no longer hosted solely in enterprise data centers. They are also hosted in:
- On-premise data centers
- Public or private clouds
- Subscription-based Software as a service (SaaS) solutions such as Salesforce.com, Workday, Office365, Box and Dropbox
Enhance business agility and responsiveness
Improve security and reduce threats
Simplify branch WAN architecture
Reduce WAN costs by up to 90 percent
Sending SaaS and IaaS traffic directly across the internet delivers the best application Quality of Experience for end users. However, not all cloud-bound or web traffic is created equal. Many cloud applications – and their providers – natively apply robust security measures. Accessing these “trusted” applications directly from the branch, across the internet provides the needed security to protect the enterprise from threats. A few examples include Salesforce, Office365, ServiceNow, Box, and Dropbox.
The intelligence and ability to identify applications provides an application-driven way to route traffic across the WAN instead of simply using TCP/IP addresses and ACLs. This software-driven approach delivers a much better QoEx than possible with router-centric WAN model.
Advanced software-driven security and performance features enable enterprises to securely, reliably and actively use broadband to transport application traffic instead of simply using it as an idle backup. By augmenting or even replacing MPLS with broadband, enterprises can significantly increase WAN bandwidth while lowering overall WAN costs.
Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP): With ZTP, configurations and policies are programmed once and pushed to all branch locations without having to manually program each device individually using a CLI. It eliminates the need to send specialized IT resources out to branch locations whenever a new application is added or a policy is changed. ZTP also reduces human errors, resulting in more consistent policies across to enterprise.
The SD-WAN architectural model is similar to SDN in many ways: Centralized management or orchestration – the control plane, Distributed data forwarding function – the data plane and Application-driven traffic routing policies.
SD-WAN, similar to SDN solutions, do not support interoperability between vendors. However, various SDN and SD-WAN industry working groups continue to propose and debate the creation of industry standards.
|
SDN
|
SD-WAN
|
|
Mainly
used in data centers
|
Deployed
in branch offices and data centers
|
|
Centralized
orchestration and control
|
Centralized
orchestration, control and zero-touch provisioning
|
|
Separation
of control and data forwarding plane
|
Separation
of control and data forwarding plane
|
|
Technology
has taken a long time to mature
|
Recent
technology but maturing very rapidly
|
|
Savings
come from improved operational efficiencies
|
Savings
come from leveraging lower WAN transport and infrastructure costs and
improved operational efficiencies
|
|
Variations
of commodity and specialized switching hardware
|
Off-the-shelf
x86 appliances – physical, virtual, cloud
|
Network Academy
Comments
Post a Comment