SD-WAN is a new concept proposed in recent years, but it has become the focus of current attention, and even become one of the future development trends. SD-WAN can not only simplify network management and deployment, but also effectively reduce equipment investment and personnel input costs. Its advantage is that it does not require private network leased lines and public network IP, which solves most of the pain points of traditional network technology.

Simply put, SD-WAN primarily employs software-defined networking (SDN) technology to manage a wide area network (WAN).

What does SD-WAN mean?

If you want to understand the concept of SD-WAN, you have to start with what most people know as WAN (Wide Area Network). Everyone knows that WAN is a network with a large coverage area, which connects different LANs and MANs. It can even be said that the Internet we currently use is a worldwide network connected by WAN.

But in fact, remote networking is difficult for 99.9% of enterprises. One is the physical layer of the remote network, including cables, optical fibers, switches, servers, etc., and the other is the logical layer protocol, including IPSEC, MPLS, and leased lines. In addition, these complex transmission protocols and software configurations also require professional operation and maintenance personnel to complete.

Therefore, the general solution is to purchase services from an ISP (Internet Service Provider, Internet Service Provider), apply for a dedicated network and dedicated line, and complete the construction of a dedicated WAN with the assistance of the other party. Although it does save time and effort, according to news reports, the number of public network IPs is scarce, so the cost is expensive, and a dedicated line usually costs more than 10,000 yuan per month. These two heavy burdens are enough to discourage many small and medium-sized enterprises. And these various pain points have prompted the emergence of SD-WAN.

Compared with traditional networking methods, what are the advantages of SD-WAN?

In order to solve this network pain point, technicians applied SDN technology to wide area network, and SD-WAN officially appeared. The specific principles of SD-WAN are somewhat similar to cloud computing. It realizes the separation of control mechanism and the virtualization of network hardware, and has the advantages of flexibility and reliability.

In practical applications, SD-WAN can be implemented not only on physical hardware, but also on software. In other words, SD-WAN-based applications are not constrained by underlying hardware and protocols, and have no requirements for public network IP, and can even build private WANs based on public networks such as the Internet. Thanks to the particularity of the software layer, users can control the network and improve the security of data transmission.

Due to SD-WAN's virtualization of the underlying hardware, traffic can have high visibility, data can be distributed in a targeted manner, and it can be accelerated by various means during this period.

Summary of SD-WAN advantages:

1. No public network IP is required to support multiple connection types, and the Internet or 4G and 5G networks can be used to build a private WAN.

2. Possess the ability of line selection, and can realize load balancing or shunting.

3. It has a simple and fast deployment process and management interface.

4. It can support firewall, flow control, virtual private network and other services and applications.