With a robust SD-WAN solution, companies can significantly increase branch bandwidth. But a successful deployment requires specific operational considerations.
Establishing alerts is essential to proactively identify performance issues and quickly resolve them before they impact users. Also, ensure your team is adequately trained to monitor and analyze data for insights continuously.
Use a Static Route
So, what is SD-WAN configuration? A key consideration when implementing SD-WAN is the network connection. The quality of the link largely dictates how successful SD-WAN will be. A network connection must be reliable for the best software-defined WAN to provide the required performance, availability, and reliability.
IT teams should also carefully plan the overlay configuration for the network. This includes determining routing redistribution points and the supported SD-WAN technologies. Additionally, they should evaluate the Internet/cloud exit points for the web and consider the impact of cascading hubs on the overall network topology.
In addition to addressing network connectivity, IT teams should carefully assess the application requirements for their business. Identifying critical applications like voice and video can help avoid unexpected SD-WAN problems post-launch. Additionally, identifying latency-sensitive applications can be used to determine how to prioritize traffic for better performance over the SD-WAN link.
Another vital planning step is to decide who will manage the SD-WAN. IT teams may DIY or work with a third-party managed service provider. If desired, a partner can facilitate access configuration and bandwidth prioritization to ensure the project stays on track and within budget. They can also bolster the IT team by providing a single pane of glass portal to view and manage all aspects of the network.
Use a Dynamic Route
A dynamic route lets you prioritize your network traffic based on business policies and avoid common issues like latency, jitter, and packet loss. This is a perfect solution for VoIP and other voice-centric applications requiring more bandwidth than data. With a dynamic route, you can use quality of service to create different priority layers and ensure consistent and high-quality data delivery.
Unlike static routing, dynamic routing uses multiple internet connections to provide reliable connectivity. If one of your connections is degraded or offline, data will be automatically rerouted to another available link. This reduces outages and downtime and makes your organization more resilient.
SD-WAN can also adapt to bandwidth needs, automatically combining any internet connection to improve speed. This helps you get the most out of your existing infrastructure while reducing costs.
Finally, SD-WAN can increase telemetry to provide insights into specific sessions and flows. These insights help you make decisions and automate manual tasks that would otherwise require humans to complete. Using machine learning in SD-WAN enables you to perform better and lower operating costs.
As a result, a comprehensive SD-WAN strategy can boost productivity and reduce costs. The more time IT teams spend on improving services, decreasing response times, and removing everyday toil, the more they can dedicate to projects that drive their organization forward.
Use quality of service
When designing an SD-WAN, it is essential to use quality of service. This will help to prioritize traffic and improve performance. This is especially important when using Internet connections, which often have variable rates. Using quality of service, you can ensure that the most critical applications get priority over other traffic.
Another reason why it is best to use quality of service when configuring an SD-WAN is because it will help to avoid packet loss. This is because service quality will help ensure that the highest priority traffic gets the most bandwidth, while other traffic will be routed over lower-quality connections. This will help to avoid losing data and resulting in lost productivity.
Before making any decisions about an SD-WAN, it is essential to consider the organization’s business model and goals. This will help to ensure that the new technology aligns with the company’s overall objectives, according to Danilowicz. Determining how the new SD-WAN will work with existing network equipment and connectivity will also be essential. It is also important to plan for long-term network management and monitoring, requiring a team of IT professionals with the appropriate skill sets. Finally, it is essential to test the SD-WAN service. This will help ensure that it works correctly and the network is optimized. This will also allow the team to make necessary adjustments before deploying it across the enterprise.
Use a VPN
A VPN provides encrypted tunnels that create secure, stable user connections. But these connections can slow down when encryption takes up valuable bandwidth. Moreover, VPNs require network administrators to manually configure each tunnel between sites and maintain and update the security keys, creating additional work for IT staff.
SD-WAN decouples networking hardware from its control mechanism, reducing setup and management. IT staff can quickly and easily turn up new links to remote locations without working with physical network connections. It also makes it easier to support cloud usage and SaaS applications requiring much bandwidth.
When selecting an SD-WAN solution, look for one that provides enterprise-grade security by leveraging the latest encryption and authentication. It should also offer regular and frequent key refreshes, ensuring attackers can’t intercept or forge the traffic. It should also include an intuitive management interface and support for advanced security features, like antivirus, sandboxing, firewalls, and encryption.
Choosing a managed service provider with experience in migrating and deploying hybrid MPLS/SD-WAN connections is best. This will help reduce the risk of network outages during migration and deployment. It is also best to select a solution that can support full mesh VPNs (where each branch connects to every other site) to simplify routing and improve application performance.
