Managed Services

What are Managed SD-WAN Services?

It’s quite clear that the outsourcing of managed IT services to third parties tasked with the 24/7 maintenance, security, and affordable upkeep of IT infrastructure and cloud computing has been nothing short of a miracle for firms of all sizes. Perhaps ‘peace of mind’ should be the operative term every provider should use to market themselves.

Yet as a small business trying to engage with these services for the first time, it can feel somewhat dizzying to figure out what the jargon means, how it applies to your business, and what you should be paying for. In this post, we’ll discuss what Managed SD-WAN services are and how you may wish to integrate them.

What is managed SD-WAN?

SD-WAN stands for ‘software-defined wide area network,’ which refers to a means of delivering managed software orchestration as part of an IT managed service.
This serves as a virtualized WAN connection that incorporates all existing network connections as an overlay. In effect, it helps the management of the network remain simplified, as data packets are sent through the most optimized and security-conscious processes possible. This means that enterprises can more easily administratively control all network traffic through a single, unified dashboard.

What does SD-WAN do?

Some of the most popular uses for SD-WAN include increasing WAN capacity by integrating both public and private network services, also known as dual connectivity. This means that a firm can reserve private network potential for business-essential or low latency applications. Cloud migration is also a big utility worth considering here, as application-based routing is now possible through this service. Of course, SD-WAN also unlocks geographic expansion through these means, too.

How is SD-WAN as a service different from managed SD-WAN?

Managed SD-WAN is a provision curated by managed IT service providers, solving a problem any organization may have when they don’t have the time or resources to manage their own SD-WAN. This means that the provider makes the service available on its own private network, as opposed to partnering with an SD-WAN vendor to add that to their portfolio.

Furthermore, the pricing is typically available as a monthly bundled addon, rather than a multiyear service contract offered by the alternative. SD-WAN as a service typically means the end-user and customer is responsible for the monitoring, management, and changing the SD-WAN service through a cloud-based portal.

Is SD-WAN the same as a VPN?

VPN’s are generally designed to send traffic over an isolated network link, while SD-WAN-enabled optimized traffic which routes many different packages. In other words, SD-WAN is a combination and collection of technologies that use a competent graphics interface to ensure VPN connectivity between remote locations is simpler, easier, and generally cuts costs much more effectively.

Frequently Asked Questions

The most frequently asked questions we hear regarding these topics are::

1. What is Software-Defined WAN?

Software-defined WAN allows distributed organizations with many different branch offices the means to improve application performance and communication by using multiple WAN circuits to route traffic. This uses wireless 4g, 5g technologies, the MPLS, and standard internet connections to achieve this result.

2. What is SD-WAN as a service?

SD-WAN as a service is where you, as the end customer, is responsible for the monitoring and management of changing the WAN service via a management portal based in the cloud. This is opposed to managed SD-WAN, in which the provider takes care of the backend.

3. What are the benefits of using SD-WAN?

You will gain the benefits of ensuring the latest functionalities and compatibilities while still being able to easily upgrade, with autonomy, from the cloud.

4. What are the benefits of a managed service?

Peace of mind. Having your SD-WAN managed by a secure and trustworthy provider allows you to outsource the headaches of providing access to your data centres and servers.

5. What are the leading managed SD-WAN providers?

ExertNetwork, as well as some of the larger providers such as Comcat, Verizon, AT&T and more.

6. What are the benefits of using us?

We handle every step of the process while still allowing you to make adjustments and consult with how your SD-WAN is handled as appropriate. This means you have no products to buy, no inventory to maintain, and no upgrading, patches, deployments, testing, monitoring, or management to worry about. It just works.