SD-WAN: What is it, why do you use it someday?

Aaron Gabrielson, technical project manager for industrial and commercial product supplier Redmond Inc., manages the company's network. He found that using SD-WAN made work easier than in the previous year.

The Redmond City Headquarters manages all of the state's telephone systems, point of sale, and fax centers, meaning that every Midwest branch needs a reliable connection back to its Utah headquarters. Some sites like Salt Lake City are easier than others because there are only a small number of workers on farms in rural areas.

According to Gartner's estimates, SD-WAN's market share is currently less than 5%, but it is expected that up to 25% of users will manage the WAN through software within two years. Gartner estimates that SD-WAN providers will grow at a rate of 59% a year and are expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2020. The city of Redmond was an early adopter of the SD-WAN.

One of the main features of SD-WAN is its ability to manage multiple types of network connections from MPLS to broadband to LTE. SD-WAN can be considered a younger brother of its more well-known Brother Software Definition Network (SDN). There is a connection between them - all software-defined, but SDN is suitable for internal data centers in campus or campus. SD-WAN uses a similar software definition concept and separates the control plane from the data plane to the WAN.

Read More; How SD-WAN Can Help Your Business