The promise of unified communications (UC) is that employees will have a seamless collaborative experience, moving between voice, video, and text formats in an integrated environment. When enterprises find it challenging to meet the higher bandwidth requirements of UC, they often turn to a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) for the solution.
While UC offers the positive experience of accessing a variety of communications tools, it can be difficult for companies to meet bandwidth requirements, particularly at individual branch locations. SD-WAN offers the ability to direct internet traffic to a variety of connection options, including multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), internet VPN, or public lines to enable optimal service.
SD-WAN allows for the decoupling of the control plane from the network, which provides a centralized approach for both security and policy. IT personnel can more easily adapt to changing application delivery needs and create an optimal environment for UC success.
SD-WAN empowers you to prioritize according to quality of service (QoS) and business policies: One of the most important benefits of SD-WAN is the ability to control how different types of internet traffic are routed. For instance, an employee shopping or using a streaming service during a break would be directed to a lower-priority network connection than a video conference taking place between a troubleshooting team and a client.
IT can set up business policy guidelines within SD-WAN so that traffic categorized as mission-critical will be prioritized over less-critical transmissions. This makes it easy to capture the cost-effective benefits of SD-WAN by placing much of the bandwidth-heavy, but low-risk and low-priority, needs of the company on the public internet.
SD-WAN makes UC possible at branch locations: While UC offers the valuable opportunity to collaborate without regard to geographic location, the bandwidth requirements can be challenging to manage at a branch location. With SD-WAN, IT has the ability to prioritize tools like video conferencing and better connectivity for branch locations. In addition, using SD-WAN makes it simpler to get new branch locations connected quickly.
Connectivity is visible with SD-WAN: The best, high-quality options for SD-WAN for UC provide a centralized view in a cloud console and the ability to manage all LAN and WAN connections, as well as cloud and hybrid networks. You’ll be able to detect all applications on your network and optimize bandwidth use from a simple menu. Troubleshooting is easier with SD-WAN because you can make adjustments right from the cloud console.
SimpleWAN offers a fully meshed, self-healing architecture for heightened efficiency in connectivity. Contact us to talk more about your network needs and what SD-WAN can do for your communications technology.
