SD-WAN Simplified: Leveraging SD-WAN to Avoid or Mitigate Outages

Author: Anonym/Friday, March 1, 2019/Categories: Data Services

No matter what type of business your IT function supports, network outages are never acceptable. When employees, contractors, and others users rely on cloud-based applications and solutions to meet business needs, network outages can be more than just painful; they can actually cripple the business.

Implementing Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN), and adding a circuit with a service level agreement on a separate network can help your organization reduce risk, ensure business continuity, and limit or even avoid the detrimental effects of unplanned downtime altogether.

Leveraging Third-Party Broadband Solutions

One way organizations historically reduced their risk of network outages was by using Type III connections. With Type III connections, companies use a third-party’s broadband, leveraging other networks to intentionally create redundancy.

The idea is that by relying on two separate providers’ connections, if one connection goes down, the company still has access to its critical business applications and systems. However, this redundancy comes at a cost many companies are hesitant to absorb, because the backup link will likely go unused the majority of the time. Using this approach, the additional link is used as a redundant failover option, only kicking in when the primary circuit DIA (dedicated internet access) connection fails.

Why Traditional WAN Technology Isn’t Adequate

You can use the third-party broadband/multiple network solution with archaic WAN technology, however you’re not using the networks efficiently. Here’s why: Traditional networks have static, pre-defined business policies that are flow-based, not application-based. While you may limit your risk of network outages by having a redundant network, your solution could result in performance issues.

In contrast, when your organization uses SD-WAN and utilizes two different networks within the same service offering, adding an additional circuit on a separate network becomes a simple, cost-effective solution. This limits the risks that can come with paying a third-party provider for something that’s rarely used, while also limiting overage charges.

Additional SD-WAN Benefits

Using SD-WAN solutions with multiple circuits also gives you the added benefits that come with dynamic monitoring. Continuous monitoring every 50 milliseconds limits the active LTE helping keep costs in check.

What’s more, SD-WAN configurations provide link aggregation, automatically sending traffic to the best connection at the moment it’s needed. This helps you make the most of your available bandwidth, improves reliability, power, and speed. You get to prioritize your network traffic, saving circuits for higher-priority needs such as sales CRM systems, VPNs, SSL connections, Office 365 use, and other business-specific tools rather than risking performance because an employee is streaming music on Pandora or uploading files or videos to social media sites.

Is Your Organization’s Network Prepared to Weather an Unplanned Outage?

As a leading broadband and business communications provider serving organizations of all sizes, Consolidated Communications provides businesses and other organizations SD-WAN solutions designed to improve performance and eliminate or mitigate outages. We offer a variety of solutions tailored to business’ specific needs, including the ability to utilize two different networks within a single Consolidated Communications service offering. With this type of redundant customer premise equipment (CPE), there is no single point of failure. This provides higher availability for your systems and solutions helping ensure business continuity and productivity remain high.

To explore how adding SD-WAN circuits can help improve your network’s performance and reliability, contact us today.

Sources:
https://www.networkworld.com/article/3295576/lan-wan/4-ways-to-avoid-cloud-outages-and-improve-system-performance.html

https://www.snetconnect.com/3-ways-to-prevent-internet-outages-from-damaging-your-business/

https://www.networkworld.com/article/3238130/techology-business/network-outages-unacceptable-how-to-ensure-availability.html

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