The emergence of 5G networking and the Internet of things (IoT) is placing new emphasis on edge computing. Global enterprises are now able to wean valuable information in real time from branch sites located all over the world. However, this digital transformation becomes challenging without the speed and low latency provided by state-of-the-art networking technology. Software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) has the greatest benefit at the network edge, where the trade-off of cost, availability, and performance has the most significant impact.
SD-WAN allows businesses to take advantage of the edge computing revolution. These organizations are now able to reap the benefits of high-performance applications delivered over the cloud. They can also monitor activity at a remote branch on the other side of the planet as quickly as one located next door.
In short, this network edge revolution is transforming how business gets done. VMware SD-WAN™ by VeloCloud® powers this transformation by providing a framework for a modern network that’s fast, secure, and highly scalable. For more information on how your organization can optimize your infrastructure and create a more flexible and scalable network edge, check out the recently published eBook, Transforming the Network Edge with VMware SD-WAN. While the eBook represents a deeper dive into this topic, here are a few important highlights:
Current Wide Area Networks (WAN) Hamper Organizations Efforts to Grow
As companies look to take advantage of the promise of 5G and cloud-based services, they increasingly find their current network infrastructure functions as a bottleneck. Instead of improved efficiency and significant cost savings, the opposite is the effect for many. This bottleneck is due to the following problems with traditional WANs:
Expensive private lines and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) circuits
Slow maintenance and deployment times
Poor cloud connectivity
Poor application performance
These are some of the major reasons companies are turning to SD-WAN for their networking infrastructure. The benefits of this networking innovation include everything from lower costs to improved performance from cloud-based services.
The Benefits of a VMware SD-WAN Approach
Companies adopting VMware SD-WAN gain a host of significant benefits, including:
Cost savings with easy access to multiple network transport layers
Significant application and network performance boost
Scalable access to the cloud
Zero touch provisioning (ZTP) for quick deployment
As more companies embrace cloud-based applications or 5G networking, a robust network edge becomes essential. Providing additional power at the network edge using VMware SD-WAN creates a critical competitive advantage in a dynamic economic environment.
There are several components of VMware SD-WAN that help ensure each deployment is successful. The VMware SD-WAN Edge resides at the network edge, using VMware SD-WAN Dynamic Multipath Optimization™ (DMPO) to provide superior performance. The VMware SD-WAN Gateway helps onboard cloud traffic to an SD-WAN network. Finally, the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator serves as a management and monitoring portal for the entire network infrastructure.
Supercharging the Network Edge with VMware SD-WAN
The VMware SD-WAN Edge is available as either a hardware device or a virtual software component. VMware also provides this edge functionality as a virtualized network function (VNF). While it is typically deployed at the network edge, some companies install it in a data center or the cloud.
DMPO provides the performance boost that allows companies to supercharge their network edge. In addition to boosting network throughput, this path optimization technology also provides redundancy and resiliency when it comes to the network itself. This approach leverages a secure overlay, helping companies manage a mixture of different broadband, LTE, and MPLS circuits within their network infrastructure.
VMware’s DMPO technology also includes a deep application recognition, feature enabling it to detect critical application traffic. This ensures important apps receive preferred routing over other, non-critical apps, like Netflix or YouTube, ensuring a performance boost for your critical functions. The link qualification and remediation feature helps VMware SD-WAN automatically maintain quality of experience (QoE) even over degraded link conditions.
VMware Ensures a Secure and Flexible SD-WAN Experience
In an era where hackers are in the news seemingly every day, security is a critical piece of any network. Rest assured, VMware SD-WAN provides industry-leading security features, while seamlessly integrating with secure web gateways (SWG) from the top providers in networking, like Zscaler, ForcePoint, and Palo Alto Networks.
VMware also includes an application aware, software-based firewall as well as the VNF option included with the VMware SD-WAN Edge. Either can be deactivated in favor of a hardware firewall appliance. This is another example illustrating how VMware SD-WAN offers companies flexibility with their network infrastructure.
The firewall using a VNF highlights VMware’s emerging Virtual Services Platform, another technology innovation compatible with VMware SD-WAN. Network administrators use the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator component to insert VNF-based firewalls and other virtual services as necessary. Similar to SWG, we partner with industry leading security companies like CheckPoint for VNF firewalls.
If this blog piques your interest about how VMware SD-WAN provides a network infrastructure to empower your business, check out the full eBook, Transforming the Network Edge with VMware SD-WAN. It provides more detail on most of the topics in this post, while including network diagrams and other solution examples to increase your understanding of our emerging technology.
