FEATURE: SD-WAN
SD-WAN IS A NEW WAY
TO BUILD AND MANAGE
WAN ARCHITECTURES
AND EQUIPMENT IN A
SIMPLIFIED AND COST-
EFFECTIVE MANNER. IT
ALLOWS ENTERPRISES
TO ADOPT HYBRID
APPLICATIONS
AND HYBRID WAN
NETWORKS WITH
GREATER AGILITY
AND EASE. IN SHORT,
IT REALIGNS THE
CAPABILITIES OF
NETWORKS TO THE
MODERN NEEDS
OF APPLICATIONS,
ALLOWING IT TO
BETTER SUPPORT THE
NEEDS OF MODERN
BUSINESS
PAUL O’FARRELL
SVP & GM, Riverbed Technology
Supporting business where
business gets done – in the
branch
Retail outlets, manufacturing plants,
natural resource exploration sites,
consulting offices, and health care
facilities – these are all examples of
locations where business get done.
With all the innovation and attention
centred on data centres and the cloud,
optimising your support of business
at remote locations remains critical to
a successful IT strategy. Companies
operate 55 remote IT facilities for
every large data centre. Nearly half of
all employees work in branch offices,
about 50% of all data resides outside
the data centre, and IT often devotes
50% of its budget to remote and
branch office locations.
36
INTELLIGENTCIO
So while remote locations are critical
for business, they represent points of
inefficiency and security risk for IT.
These challenges are exacerbated by
the rise of hybrid and more complex
network topologies at remote sites
that combine Internet broadband
capacity with traditional MPLS
connectivity. While Internet broadband
can increase capacity at a lower cost,
and provide reduced latency to cloud-
based services, the cost and security
risks associated with managing an
exponentially more complex network
often outweigh the gains.
The emergence of SD-WAN
In order to embrace faster and lower-
cost hybrid WAN topologies without
www.intelligentcio.com