Navigating Network Challenges for Modern Businesses

How to Enhance Security, Performance and Scalability with SD-WAN 

With increased reliance on digital solutions and businesses expecting more from their technology than ever before, having access to a reliable, high-performance network has never been more vital. However, many businesses, across the globe, still do not have access to suitable networking solutions, leading to significant challenges affecting the profitability of their business, such as security, scalability and management.  

According to statistics published in the ITIC’s 2022 Global Server Hardware Security survey, 91% of SME and enterprises, globally, reported the hourly cost of downtime now exceeds $300,000. In addition, 44% of mid-sized and large enterprises indicated that a single hour of downtime can cost over $1 million. So, no matter the size of your business, it is clear that the cost of not having access to a robust network is significant. 

There are a number of critical challenges posing a risk to a business’s network that can hinder efficiency and whilst many businesses will have experienced these pain points, the solution may not always seem clear.  

We’re here to change that. 

If you have struggled with frustrating network issues and downtime and are looking for a resilient solution that not only keeps your business operations running, but improves the performance, scalability and security of your network, let us introduce you to SD-WAN.  

Understanding Common Network Challenges 

From safeguarding your business data against emerging cyber threats to avoiding latency and downtime, there are many risks that your business has to traverse in order to remain productive and profitable. Before we outline exactly how SD-WAN works, let’s first explore some key network challenges that could affect your business. 

Network Performance 

With businesses relying on more advanced technology, a high-performance network ensures easy access key applications, platforms and data. From powering feature-rich communications systems and cloud computing infrastructures, modern technology solutions place heavy demand on robust connectivity. Without access to a suitable network, users can become frustrated with issues, such as jittery video calls, slow application performance and more interrupting activity and slowing down operations.  

High-performance networks ensure that workers can be seamlessly productive through not having to cope with costly downtime and disruptive latency. Not only does this save your business time and money through not having to deal with downtime and technical problems, it improves employee engagement, speeds up processes and enables teams to work more efficiently. 

Network Security 

As technology advances, so do the methods of cyber criminals. Cyber security threats do not discriminate businesses according to their size, brand recognition or profitability. Every business is at risk and the consequences can be catastrophic. According to government statistics, a cyber security breach can cost around £10,830 for medium to large businesses. When it comes to larger enterprises, this figure can be in the millions. Key factors that contribute to these extraordinary costs include fines, lawsuits and reputational damage.  

The simplistic anti-virus software used in days gone by is no match for modern security threats, so sourcing comprehensive, multi-layer network security solutions is vital to ensure your network is infiltrated by unauthorised users.  

Limited Scalability 

When it comes to increasing the capacity of your network as your business grows, this can throw many challenges into the mix. The biggest issue with network scalability is maintaining consistent performance. As your team grows and demand on youir network grows which can make sustaining high speeds and reliability more difficult.  

It takes careful management, specific technology and network management tools (more on this shortly) to enable this increase in capacity without affecting the performance of your network.  

Traditional Networking Solutions: MPLS 

MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) is a method for efficiently directing data traffic in a network by assigning labels to packets. These labels help routers make quick forwarding decisions, improving speed and efficiency. It’s not a physical entity but a protocol implemented in the network’s infrastructure, usually over a wired network.  MPLS is used to ensure an efficient flow of network traffic and is popularly used for its ability to manage high-performance data traffic.  

Despite this solution serving businesses efficiently for a long time, it has several limitations that can limit business agility and increase operational costs.  

MPLS Limitations 

• Cost: MPLS solutions are often expensive to deploy and maintain, which may not be appropriate for businesses with smaller budgets. 

• Flexibility: MPLS lacks the flexibility and adaptability to suit the operations of a modern business.  

• Complexity: Managing an MPLS network can be tricky and requires specialised knowledge that can be expensive to hire in-house.  

SD-WAN Technology Explained 

In simple terms, SD-WAN (Software-defined Wide Area Network) is a solution that streamlines and enhances the way your business connects different office locations and remote workers to your main network. Instead of relying on a single point of connection, SD-WAN uses software to connect multiple sites and monitors the performance of all available connections before selecting the best path. If one connection fails or is slow, SD-WAN can instantly switch to another one to avoid disruption or latency. SD-WAN solutions offer improved visibility over your network as it is managed from one, centralised dashboard. 

How SD-WAN Works 

• Multiple Connections: Instead of relying on a single type of internet connection, such as a leased line, SD-WAN allows businesses to utilise multiple types of connections, such as regular broadband, LTE and MPLS. 

• Smart Routing: SD-WAN constantly monitors the performance of all available connections and automatically selects the best path for data to travel, ensuring it uses the fastest, most reliable route.  

• Centralised Control: SD-WAN offers a central dashboard where IT managers can have clear visibility across a business’s entire network; so, it is easier to monitor performance, apply security measures and implement adjustments when required.  

• Optimised Performance: Through the intelligent management of traffic, SD-WAN ensures that applications receive the bandwidth they need to run smoothly and improves the overall performance of your network.  

What are the Benefits of SD-WAN? 

From boosting the performance of your network to bolstering your security, there are many benefits to implementing an SD-WAN solution within your business.  

Performance 

One of the biggest benefits of SD-WAN is its ability to significantly improve the performance of your network. Here’s a few ways SD-WAN solutions can optimise your network: 

Dynamic Path Selection 

SD-WAN continuously monitors the performance of all available network connections and dynamically selects the best path for each data packet, based on real-time factors, such as latency, jitter and packet loss. This ensures that data takes the most efficient route, improving speed and reliability. 

Bandwidth Aggregation 

SD-WAN can combine multiple types of internet connections to create a single, high-performance network. This aggregation increases the total available bandwidth and ensures that even if one connection fails or degrades, the others can maintain optimal performance. 

Prioritising Critical Applications 

SD-WAN can identify and prioritise traffic for critical applications, ensuring they receive the necessary bandwidth to perform optimally. This prioritisation improves the performance of important solutions and applications, such as VoIP, video conferencing and cloud services through reducing delays, disruption and interruptions.  

Centralised Management 

With a centralised management interface, SD-WAN allows network administrators to configure, monitor and manage the entire network from a single location. This streamlines and simplifies troubleshooting and optimises network performance by providing better visibility and control over all connections.  

Security  

The prospect of traffic being directed by different channels is obviously a clear positive for efficiency and productivity, but it may raise concerns for businesses when it comes to cybersecurity. With cyber threats being more advanced than ever before, this is an understandable worry. However, not only is SD-WAN a secure solution, but it can also actually improve the security of your network.  

When configured correctly, SD-WAN enables greater visibility over your network from a centralised location, enabling you to have better control over security and visibility of emerging threats. In addition, security policies can be rolled out across the entire network, far more quickly compared with other network configurations.  

Scalability & Flexibility  

The ability to leverage multiple types of connections, such as broadband, LTE and MPLS, allows your business to scale your network capacity quickly and cost-effectively. By automating traffic routing and prioritisation based on real-time network conditions, SD-WAN reduces the complexity of managing network performance and ensures consistent application performance across all locations.  

Use Cases and Applications of SD-WAN 

SD-WAN is a varied technology that can benefit businesses in all sectors, but particularly in industries where reliable connectivity is vital to operations.  

SD-WAN in Retail  

From managing inventory to maintaining surveillance cameras to connecting multiple branches and even offering customer wi-fi, retail businesses require a robust, high-performance network. With many businesses within the retail sector embracing digital transformation and implementing advanced IoT technologies in order to offer the best experiences to consumers, it is more imperative than ever to invest in efficient network solutions.  

SD-WAN provides the answer to many of these pain points. Firstly, its ability to aggregate multiple types of internet connections to provide seamless connectivity and prioritise traffic across these connections, to ensure the optimum performance of critical applications. Furthermore, this prioritisation of traffic ensures that if a connection fails, solutions, such as payment systems can remain online and keep operations moving.  

To demonstrate this within a real-world context, let’s take a look at a retail giant like Asda that boasts over 1000 stores in many locations across the UK. SD-WAN would enable Asda to connect its numerous branches, to ensure a consistent network performance. Furthermore, with Asda (like many other businesses) increasingly relying on cloud connections, security is a big concern. However, with SD-WAN, the security of their network is bolstered by robust firewalls, perimeter security and the centralised management of their network makes it more efficient to roll out security protocols and processes across their locations. Finally, if an outage was to occur at one store, with traditional network solutions this disruption could spell disaster for operations within that location. However, with SD-WAN, traffic can be directed along another channel within the network, to enable processes, such as payments and inventory to continue.  

SD-WAN in Healthcare 

With large amounts of data being shared, monitored and utilised on a regular basis, as well as the use of hundreds of connected devices, consistent access to reliable connectivity in the healthcare sector is critical. An outage at a healthcare facility, such as a GP surgery, care home or hospital would have a negative impact across communication, administration and patient care.  

SD-WAN solutions enable healthcare providers and organisations to benefit from enhanced network performance and secure connectivity across multiple sites. Encryption and prioritisation of critical healthcare applications, ensures the secure and efficient transmission of patient data, bolstering operations and empowering healthcare workers to provide the best care to their patients.  

To put this into context, let’s use the example of a hospital. A hospital can deploy SD-WAN to effectively manage and efficiently direct traffic across their network. IT personnel can effectively manage all network traffic and applications from a central location rather than having to visit sites. Enhanced security features can be seamlessly rolled out across the entire network to ensure the secure distribution of data, such as patient records and prescriptions between clinics and hospitals.  

SD-WAN in Financial Services 

Financial Services is a sector that is closely regulated due to the sensitive nature of the data it utilises. As an industry, it has to delicately manage the balance of leveraging technology to ensure efficient operations, whilst traversing strict regulatory requirements. As such, they face many network-related challenges that impact their operations, such as the need for high-performance networks to support transactions, remote branch operations and compliance.  

Traditional network infrastructures, such as MPLS, are often expensive and lack flexibility, causing issues like latency, which can make processes like transactions slow and inefficient. Naturally, security is a major concern that also needs to be handled effectively to avoid breaches and cyber attacks, which not only have a negative impact on customers, but can also result in hefty penalties from governing bodies, like the FCA and reputational damage.  

SD-WAN offers a comprehensive solution to these challenges by ensuring reliable connectivity with enhanced security features. To put this into context, let’s take the example of a bank with numerous branches and remote workers that has chosen to replace its out-of-date MPLS infrastructure with a more flexible, cost-effective SD-WAN solution.  SD-WAN provides secure, high-performance connectivity across all branches and remote locations, ensuring efficient transaction processing. In addition, features such as WAN optimisation and end-to-end encryption enhance the overall security and performance of the bank’s network, supporting its digital transformation efforts, whilst remaining compliant.  

Optimise Your Network with SD-WAN Solutions from Elite Group 

When you work with Elite Group, slow connectivity and networking challenges are problems of the past. Our team of expert specialists will take the time to get to know your business, its needs and its goals, before finding the best SD-WAN solution for your needs. We make the installation process seamless and time-efficient, so you can start taking advantage of your new solution as soon as possible.  

Are you ready to optimise your network for improved resilience, productivity and security? Speak to one of our connectivity specialists today. Call 0344 875 8880 or fill in our contact form.