Director of Community at PeerSpot (formerly IT Central Station)
Real User
Feb 22, 2022
@reviewer1193265 thanks for your answer!
Is SD-WAN the only technology option that is taken into consideration when you like to improve your WAN performance?
Search for a product comparison in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions
The answer is simple, SD-WAN needs to be considered if:
1. We have at least 2 available connectivity links.
2. We have a SaaS, PaaS or IaaS solution/applications as part of our core business.
SD-WAN allows dynamic routing to use the best link based on applications, meaning:
1. It optimized the utilization of all available links, providing redundancy and minimizing the impact on application performance with temporary connectivity degradation.
2. Cloud services and applications can be prioritized and treated as core applications over internet links.
MD at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
User
Feb 24, 2022
A suitable SD-WAN solution will ensure network performance and reliability for applications hosted in public, private, and SaaS clouds. It will provide resilient connectivity to branch and remote users, and prioritize business-critical applications, ensuring the best possible experience for voice, video, CRM, ERP applications, etc, everything that a business needs to function and mitigate possible disruptions.
The decision on which SD-WAN solution to opt for would depend on a couple of key points:
Simplified architecture – The SD-WAN solution needs to be capable of replacing all branch equipment ie. routers, firewalls and WAN optimization appliances, and consolidate all of these functions into a single branch device.
Simplified management & Automation – The SD-WAN solution must be able to manage the network from a single pane of glass, automate repetitive tasks and provide branch deployment automation through a centralised orchestrator.
Network analytics – The SD-WAN solution must provide rich data on WAN performance and security and provide monitoring of application performance across the SD-WAN ecosystem.
Supported WAN transport mediums – The SD-WAN solution must lower costs - traditional MPLS is expensive. It must be provider/connection medium agnostic. It needs to maintain application performance and availability and the solution needs to provide failover capabilities with little to no service interruption, especially when you consider the sensitivity of voice and video applications during WAN link service degradation, interruption and failure.
Simply throwing "cheap" bandwidth at this will not ensure network performance and reliability, will not provide resilience for enterprises, nor mitigate possible disruptions.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions. Updated: October 2026.
Software Defined Networking allows network administrators to manage networks using software applications, reducing hardware dependencies and improving flexibility. It enables dynamic and programmatically efficient network configuration, enhancing performance and monitoring within organizations.SDN is an innovative approach shifting traditional hardware-based networking to a more agile and flexible software-defined model. By decoupling the network control and forwarding functions,...
Migrating to SD-WAN does not happen like the way the alarm goes off in the morning to signify it's time to wake up.
It's gradual and largely determined by deliberate research on ways to improve WAN performance while bringing down the WAN leasing costs.
The 2 twin requirements will almost certainly land: one to SD-WAN solutions; then it boils down to a matter of choosing the vendor.
@reviewer1193265 thanks for your answer!
Is SD-WAN the only technology option that is taken into consideration when you like to improve your WAN performance?
The answer is simple, SD-WAN needs to be considered if:
1. We have at least 2 available connectivity links.
2. We have a SaaS, PaaS or IaaS solution/applications as part of our core business.
SD-WAN allows dynamic routing to use the best link based on applications, meaning:
1. It optimized the utilization of all available links, providing redundancy and minimizing the impact on application performance with temporary connectivity degradation.
2. Cloud services and applications can be prioritized and treated as core applications over internet links.
A suitable SD-WAN solution will ensure network performance and reliability for applications hosted in public, private, and SaaS clouds. It will provide resilient connectivity to branch and remote users, and prioritize business-critical applications, ensuring the best possible experience for voice, video, CRM, ERP applications, etc, everything that a business needs to function and mitigate possible disruptions.
The decision on which SD-WAN solution to opt for would depend on a couple of key points:
- Simplified architecture – The SD-WAN solution needs to be capable of replacing all branch equipment ie. routers, firewalls and WAN optimization appliances, and consolidate all of these functions into a single branch device.
- Simplified management & Automation – The SD-WAN solution must be able to manage the network from a single pane of glass, automate repetitive tasks and provide branch deployment automation through a centralised orchestrator.
- Network analytics – The SD-WAN solution must provide rich data on WAN performance and security and provide monitoring of application performance across the SD-WAN ecosystem.
- Supported WAN transport mediums – The SD-WAN solution must lower costs - traditional MPLS is expensive. It must be provider/connection medium agnostic. It needs to maintain application performance and availability and the solution needs to provide failover capabilities with little to no service interruption, especially when you consider the sensitivity of voice and video applications during WAN link service degradation, interruption and failure.
Simply throwing "cheap" bandwidth at this will not ensure network performance and reliability, will not provide resilience for enterprises, nor mitigate possible disruptions.