Not everyone is fully aware that software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) solutions can be designed differently. Enterprises considering SD-WAN should understand how the design impacts total costs, network reliability, application performance, and service-level promises. The good news is that your choices are no longer limited to expensive MPLS networks or unreliable Internet-based VLANs.

 

The first type of SD-WAN design is the appliance-based pure overlay, which uses an on-premises router. This unit often replaces the standard site router at smaller offices or is a software feature activated in an edge router. In this design, the SD-WAN router leverages whatever WAN connections are provisioned – it’s agnostic about the uplinks. The unit will provide traffic shaping, prioritizing real-time protocols and latency sensitive data, and will seek the best performance pathway among the WAN links.