You
must be knowing that nowadays, SD-WAN is fast gaining popularity.
Simultaneously, the demand for WAN Optimization is waning. A bit of research
will reveal the reasons. SD-WAN has the technology to optimally route the
traffic, considering an overlay of systemized multiple modes of transport on
WAN. Resultantly, you experience a substantial boost to usable capacity. It
decreases your requirements for the WAN optimization application. But, the
process of WAN optimization is still relevant. SD-WAN does not cover all the
benefits that WAN Optimization renders to your system.
Importance
of WAN
About
fifteen years ago, in the year 2004, WAN
optimization started to become popular, along with wan acceleration process. It aimed to
address three major networking users that you, as an end-user, had to
experience while accessing data across the WAN. Those networking issues were
–
- Bandwidth
- Latency
- Packet
loss
Solving
the bandwidth issue
The
technology addressed the bandwidth issue by minimizing the data quantity that
passed across the system network. It did the job by using compression
techniques and deduplication algorithms. If you implement the technology in
your system, it also prioritizes application traffic. With wan acceleration
technique, you get guaranteed access to the wire even when you are heavily
using it.
Managing
latency problems
You
must know that when the distance between the end-users or clients and their
data increases, latency, and packet loss become the principal determinants of
the session capacity. Latency has another term for itself, that is network
delay. It is the time that the packets take to travel from one designated point
in the network to another. You can minimize latency by application of caching
techniques. You also use optimizations specific to protocols.
Minimizing
packet loss
You
experience packet loss when you experience network congestion or
infrastructural glitches. You express the loss with percentage points. WAN uses
the forward error connection technique, or FEC in short, to address the problem
of packet loss. It aims to regenerate lost packets without any requirement of
the transmission process.
Significance
of SD-WAN
You
must be aware of the fact that SD-WAN improves the performance of the overall
network. IN the case of WAN optimization, it is about the performance of a
single network connection. You can read below the particular issues that SD-WAN
addresses.
- The cost – Your organization,
would enjoy flexibility in designing networks with the implementation of
SD-WAN. The reason is SD-WAN uses inexpensive internet circuits.
- Capacity and
system performance – SD-WAN provides you more capacity at various
locations. With load-balancing connections, your business can potentially
increase the capacity even more.
- Cloud
technology access – WAN cannot optimize specific cloud access.
SD-WAN, with its simple installation, can optimize cloud access.
Implement
both to boost performance
You
will get cost and network performance benefits with SD-WAN. With WAN, you get
better solutions in traffic management issues. Once the traffic leaves the
endpoint location of the network, it follows the rules of WAN. SD-WAN has no
role to play after that. Hence, it is rational that you integrate both WAN and
SD-WAN in the system. It will undoubtedly overhaul the performance of the
network.
