SD-WAN and Network Infrastructure: Why They Matter

POSTED on June 25, 2017

Web veterans remember when the wave of service launches, at the turn of the century, has created a network management nightmare, where some medium-sized data centers grown up to hundreds of physical machines.

Today, any network infrastructure project without (at least) server virtualization is unthinkable and, in larger organizations, there is an automatic provisioning of resources for applications (which, if applied to the old architectures, would make the computer park occupy an entire neighborhood).

The new generation of network infrastructure is also driven by other factors, such as readiness to provide new applications (with the implications of capacity, security and QoS), as well as financial aspects. However, in software-defined networks (SDNs), the management of these resources is passed to an orchestration layer and can be presented as services.

Again, the advantages resemble what has already been proven in data centers, such as: increased ROI, since the orchestration layer extracts the maximum from the hardware; reduction of space, energy and refrigeration costs; performance, since the functions are installed on VMs (virtual machines) that communicate with the bus speed; and ease of upgrade and feature additions at the software layer.

SDN’s most visible gain is the agility of delivering provisioning and application support, as well as simplifying compliance audits, SLAs, and other market requirements. For providers and carriers, network function virtualization (NFV) represents the opportunity to add service differentiators to the efficiency and scale of virtualization and cloud computing solutions.

SD-WAN is one of the SDN and NFV architecture applications that most speak to CFOs, and is also relevant to compliance areas, in addition to those that want to enable more services on the network. In order to have an effective SD-WAN system, it is a good idea to use the services of those who best know how to do it.

Cato Networks is a company with a big experience in this field, which deploys solutions with a great mix of security and performance. Cato Networks’ SD-WAN provides a strong security layer built in their infrastructure, and Cato delivers a full enterprise-grade network security stack, also providing full support for cloud infrastructure and mobile users.

If you want to know more about this technology and check if it is good for your company, get in touch with Cato Networks – they will guide you towards the option that suits you best.