Leverage the power of a SD-WAN to improve security and increase flexibility

Leverage the power of a SD-WAN to improve security and increase flexibility

Across industries, enterprises are grappling with changing circumstances that are largely out of their control—supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and increased regulations—just to name a few. Meanwhile, employee expectations continue to rise, with more and more demanding hybrid or even remote work environments.

While cutting-edge technologies such as cloud computing, data analytics, and artificial intelligence offer organizations the tools they need to quickly react to changing circumstances and maintain exceptional digital experiences for employees, it’s not an easy mission for IT. That’s because at the core of all these trends lies the network. It’s the foundation that defines a digital environment.

Legacy network challenges and solutions

The problem is most enterprises face a hodgepodge of networks and equipment that have been cobbled together over the years. These disparate systems are often connected by multiple providers and spread across different locations. This has resulted in networks that are rigid, difficult to manage, and challenging to protect.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that technologies like SD-WAN, which offer more flexibility, have emerged as a valuable solution for enterprises to support current and future IT developments. SD-WAN can help networks rapidly scale, connect to clouds, improve local office cloud access, and employ security rapidly while automatically optimizing networks and traffic routing to deliver a better application or user experience.

As with all digital adoption, it’s usually easier said than done. With most enterprises spanning various branches and locations, how can enterprise leaders be confident they’re truly harnessing the full power of SD-WAN for multi-site networks?

By bringing improved network performance, multiple connectivity choices, and security together as a managed service, organizations can enhance their user experience and simplify their IT operations. Here are 3 reasons why enterprises should consider a secure network edge solution for SD-WAN that is delivered as a managed service.

Enhanced security from the edge to the cloud

The pressing need to keep up with industry trends and consumer expectations through advanced technology has brought with it exposure to cybersecurity risks. Enterprises need to understand the security issues related to managing different internet, cloud, application, and data services.

In a business environment where the network infrastructure and security teams have spent most of their time functioning separately, rationalizing network and security at branch sites seems to be the biggest challenge while deploying a SD-WAN.

With a secure network edge solution for SD-WAN, enterprises can integrate both security and SD-WAN with multiple network connections, including legacy or new networks from other carriers, as well as remote workers. By taking a centralized approach to security and SD-WAN management, companies can manage, administer, track status from one portal. This is particularly pertinent for companies with multiple branches and locations as it offers visibility into performance, routing, SD-WAN configuration, and other network components within a single view for comprehensive control.

Take, for instance, a regional credit union. They must be able to securely connect with their headquarters, processing centers, offsite storage, and other branch locations to execute transactional needs. This requires a connection that is optimized for security and architected in a way that does not impede network performance so they can securely process transactions in a timely manner. It’s also critical for the credit union to ensure they keep their security profiles and software up to date, which can be a cumbersome task. But, if they don’t make their network protected—and keep it protected—they risk exposing themselves, and, more importantly, their customers to cyber threats. With the right secure network edge solution, the regional bank can more effectively process transactions while ensuring protection from a wide range of threats.

Flexible to fit your needs

In today’s ever-changing environment, enterprises need to set themselves up not only for success today but also for tomorrow. A secure network edge solution for SD-WAN gives enterprises a flexible and comprehensive solution with intelligent routing and scalability for thousands of locations. That means they can expand to more locations or add more bandwidth in the future. For example, if a retail company was looking to add more store locations, they could expand their enterprise network to accommodate more workloads, applications, or clouds and still maintain a more secure connection.

Similarly, let’s say an insurance company wanted to hire an influx of remote workers. As many enterprises rely on a mix of public and private networks, they need to ensure complex routing needs are accommodated to support these new remote employees and connect to multiple clouds. As such, there is a business case to be made for using SD-WAN to automatically prioritize and route applications based on business intent, so work-from-home employees have a consistent user experience to maintain productivity. With a secure network solution, the insurance company could securely extend their enterprise network to remote employees and even segregate business traffic from personal traffic.

A complete envelope of support

The often-overlooked complexity of having multiple networks and clouds is the management and operations component of this equation. Support across multiple WAN endpoints is costly and complicated, especially at an enterprise level. Having a secure network edge solution that is delivered as a managed service helps relieve much of this burden.

According to a recent survey from Frost & Sullivan, 80% of organizations evaluating SD-WAN prefer it to be fully managed or co-managed. Enterprises should look for an experienced partner who is always available, offers guaranteed SLAs and has experience with managed networks, including SD-WANs.

Enterprises should invest in a solution that gives them the ability to choose the level of management they need, whether it is part-time or a complete envelope of support. That complete envelope of support should include round-the-clock assistance for changes, upgrades, or maintenance in addition to having a single point of accountability for resolving client issues.

In addition, enterprises want a solution that gives IT users visibility across the platform, network, or location, so they can monitor everything from traffic to settings and performance. With a secure network edge solution for SD-WAN that’s delivered as a managed service, enterprises can rest easy knowing their network and users are connected and protected.

Spectrum Enterprise recently announced Enterprise Network Edge (ENE), a secure network edge solution for SD-WAN that is delivered as a managed service and based on the industry-leading Fortinet platform which is renowned for security and performance. Learn how you can enhance your user experience with a flexible and secure network.